Were are now in Namibia, Swakopmund to be precise. This is a small town on the west coast of the African continent, sandwiched between desert and sea.
Here are a couple for extracts from my hand written journal from the last few days:
21st July.
Today is a very hard day to describe in words. It has been visually stunning, spectacular in the extreme. We struggled out of bed at 4:30am and climbed abroad the truck for the 45km drive to sand dune number 45 (of Sossusvlei National Park), ready to see the sun rise from the top. The climb up the approx 200 metre high dune was exhilerating and required some effort, enough to make you puff. The sun rise was excellent and the change in colours and contrasting shadows made for some great photos.
After descending and having breakfast we moved further in, towards the Sossusvlei or the end of the river, changing from the truck to standing like sardines in the back of a land crusier, all twenty two of us.
We extracted oursleves from out 'tin can' and met with our guide, Francis, and proceeded to walk south towards Deadvlei. Franics was a wealth of information from plants and animals to the creation of the dune landscape. Describing how the Sossus river used to drain to the sea, but then the dunes, which always run north south, joined cutting the off the river and creating the vlei. This process happens over and over creating the vlei and behind that the deadvlei. In the deadvlei we visited the water had dried up 1000 years ago and the trees had died about 900 years ago.
We were shown all sorts of wildelife of at least the evidence of wildlife. On first glance it seems impossible anything could live here, but there are tracks of the Oryx (which I tried last night, very tasty), the springbok, rabbit and many geckos and beetles.
Franics also pointed out a bush which provides drinking water albeit green. Bec and I picked a leaf, squshed it into our palms and drank the bright green water. It tasted pretty good, just like wheatgrass I thought.
Some quick facts and I'll change subject. In summer the temperature in the desert reaches 50 degrees C and the sand temperature hits 80 degrees C, so very hot. The wind blows from the east in winter, blowing the red sand from the Kalahari and in summer, the wind blows from the west, with the white sand of the atlantic coast. The end of the river is now 50km from the sea and growing. The desert is approx 150km wide and 500km long. Not a place to get stuck in!
18th July
The cultural tour yesterday started at the Methodist Church on the edge of District 6, Cape Town. Richard, our guide, explained that during apartheid District 6 was bulldozed, because people of different races were living together. More than 60,000 people were moved from their homes and sent to segregated townships. One of the townships is a place called Langer. The offical method to tell if you were black or coloured was the pencil test, if a pencil fell out of your hair you were coloured if it stayed in place you were black.
In Langer we walked to the community centre and learnt more about the town and how people are pulling together, becoming a strong community and making a better world for themselves. We walked to the recycling centre where anyone can collect rubbish from the street and take it to the centre where they get paid for it and then it gets sorted before being sold to suitable companies who want the metal, plastic, etc.
One thing our guide pointed out was if a child is playing in the street it is everyone's responsiblity to look after that child and discipline them if necessary. A realy sense of family exists here.
We then crossed the road and entered the 'mens' hostel'. These were government built houses for men only. The idea being it would break the sense of family and community and reduce the birth rate, of course it didn't work. Eventually the government let the families live together in the mens hostels, but this caused huge overcrowding, typically three families of five, so fifteen in total, sharing a single room. truly horrific conditions. We went inside a hostel to be honsetly shocked to see human beings living in these conditions.
A highlight of the day was visiting a primary school where the kids sang and danced for us. They were all smiling and couldn't wait to dance, African style. I think they found us all very amusing.
The final area we went to was near the freeway which runs from the airport to the city centre. So that the tourists would get an impression that Langer was all 'roses' they built bigger and better houses which faced the road, effectively hiding the hostels. They being the government of apartheid. This backfired though as they left a grass strip between the houses and freeway, which the black community built a shanti town upon. This shanti town is very much on dislay and so it should.
It was an emotional trip to District 6 and Langer. For us it is only an experience over a period of a morning. For the community that lives there it is their life and world. Long live the community.
