I am back from my trip to Namibia.  Actually I got home a week ago, a little earlier than planned, and have been trying to figure out what to write about this rather strange journey. It’s difficult because:

a. Things didn’t work out as planned/expected due to a complicated mixture of bad planning, miscommunication, unfortunate timing etc. etc. Hard to blame anyone and all rather uninteresting.

b. The private game ranch I visited asked me not to disclose details of their operations ( I even signed all sorts of documents to that effect), even though they do have a website and are trying to attract tourists ( who I presume will be blindfolded before being choppered in at night or something like that) – they are very security-minded and worried about potential poachers ; I will respect that.

So without going in to any sort of details (who-did-what-and-why), I travelled a very long way to find myself more-or-less stranded in a very comfortable house in the middle of nowhere with a freezer full of Oryx meat.

A very nice house in the middle of nowhere

The plan had been for me to help design and set up some sort of Community Permaculture Project alongside a cultivation area somewhere in the reserve and in my spare time do a bit of a bird survey.  I imagined long walks on sandy plains and setting up some clever floodwater catchment systems with the local bushmen.  The sandy plains turned out to be rather rocky and crisscrossed with fences; the local community were a Boer businessman (the owner) and his stressed out team – all Afrikans-speaking Namibians of european descent.  Still I am a flexible and unprejudiced (I hope) so  I did my best and managed to get some work on both of these done. But the overall situation was such that I had very low priority on any recourses I needed ( tools, transportation, manpower etc.) and couldn’t make very long walks due to safety and security restrictions.  So a lot of time was spent just hanging out around the very nice house , getting to know the  animals and birds in the vicinity and experimenting with Oryx cuisine.

Oryx T-bone

At first I did get rather fustrated. Again and again I was all set to go out birdwatching or to get started on the land only to be informed that something or other had come up and perhaps tomorrow… Then I realised that this is how the place works, it is in a constant state of crisis, stress and improvisation. I had no wish to be part of that so I relaxed, did what I could when an opportunity came my way and enjoyed the quiet.  It’s nice to stay around one spot – I get to know the rythms of the animals around the house and learn the calls of the birds. On the rare walks I manage (security issues) I meet some nice animals and birds too.

It’s all a bit of a struggle; I make a nice design for the permaculture project and we do get started, but no one knows how long it will take to set up any sort of irrigation; I have about 80 species of birds on my list but the promised trip to the wilder part of the reserve keeps being delayed. And so on and so forth. I understand the reasons and hate to be a pest but the idea of leaving early gets more and more attractive… Finally I have a long chat with the manager and agree to cut my visit short. I feel a tremendous relief, and I am happy with the permaculture plan – if they want to go on with it they have enough information and  a good foundation to build on.  I enjoy a final evening with the Oryxes and Francolins around the house and early in the morning catch a ride in to town.

Arriving in town around dawn, I am dropped at the parking lot where share-taxis leave from. The staff member who drove me warns me about thieves and other bad things that might happen to me and drives off leaving me to find a ride to far away Windhoek. There appear to be no taxis, but presently the door of a small parked car opens and out steps a chubby black man and asks if I am looking for a ride? I like and trust him straight away – but then some little nasty voice in my head comes up with a scenario where I am robbed and abandoned on some side road in the desert.  The man goes off to take a leak and I walk over to the security guards at the nearby supermarket and ask them if they know this guy – to which they answer yes, of course ( without even looking). However this does satisfy the nasty little voice in my head and when the man returns I say “let’s go”! He turns out to be a very nice guy and takes me all the way to Windhoek for just 50$ (about 400 km) and we have a lovely drive.

The road to Windhoek

My new friend and his little car

I realise this is the first time since I arrived that I really feel I am in Africa. It’s the people I have been missing. That little voice in my head this morning was Fear – and this is what  I have been picking up from my hosts at the ranch, what lies behind the panicky, stressy management of the reserve; I would go further even and say it is what underlies the hundreds of years of animosity between them and the black people surrounding them.  It reminds me so much of Israel where I grew up, and, though it may not be an earth-shattering revelation, something clicks for me. It always puzzled me that nice people could behave so badly to others – I just could not believe there is so much evil in them. And now I see what drives them – Fear. Like a cornered animal, when fear is there, one is capable of anything.

In Windhoek I treat my driver to a late lunch while I make some calls – seems I can get a flight out next day if I like. I consider spending a day or two at a nearby Park, but I suspect it will be run, like most of this country, by Afrikaners. They do a good job of it – everything works very well here – but somehow it just doesn’t do it for me. I have had enough and am ready to go.

Lunch in Windhoek

And so, 48 hours later, via Addis Ababa, Vienna and Brussels, I find myself back in the  Belgian countryside. Spring has exploded in my short absence and I drink in the soft , lush greenness of it after what has been a strange and sometimes hard journey.