Quick Post: Get a Wash

By Kerwin De Matas

When ever passing through Wondhoek, you think that your car or rental might be in need of a good wash, then think no more. Just take a spin down to the taxi ring. As soon as you drive in, your vehicle would be recognized as not being there before, and you would encounter guys left, right, and center hailing you down immediately to wash your chariot.
Have no fear, just pick the person you want, and settle down to have your vehicle shine for 35 to 40 NAD! No big dent to your pocket, and you drive away like a superstar. Just my cent from two cents...bless.

Quick Post: A Little Namibian History...

An Excerpt from Wikipedia the free encyclopedia, with photos by Kerwin:

"Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia (Afrikaans: Republiek van Namibië, is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. Although it does not border with Zimbabwe, less than 200 meters of riverbed (essentially the Zambia/Botswana border) separates them at their closest points. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations (UN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU), and the Commonwealth of Nations.

The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by Bushmen, Damara, and Namaqua, and since about the 14th century AD by immigrating Bantu who came with the Bantu expansion. It became a German Imperial protectorate in 1884 and remained a German colony until the end of World War I. In 1920, the League of Nations mandated the country to South Africa, which imposed its laws and, from 1948, its apartheid policy.

Uprisings and demands by African leaders led the UN to assume direct responsibility over the territory. It recognized the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) as the official representative of the Namibian people in 1973. Namibia, however, remained under South African administration during this time. Following internal violence, South Africa installed an interim administration in Namibia in 1985. Namibia obtained full independence from South Africa in 1990, with the exception of Walvis Bay and the Penguin Islands, which remained under South African control until 1994.

Namibia has a population of 2.1 million people and a stable multi-party parliamentary democracy. Agriculture, herding, tourism and the mining industry – including mining for gem diamonds, uranium, gold, silver, and base metals – form the backbone of Namibia's economy. Given the presence of the arid Namib Desert, it is one of the least densely populated countries in the world. Approximately half the population live below the international poverty line, and the nation has suffered heavily from the effects of HIV/AIDS, with 15% of the adult population infected with HIV in 2007"

A to BEE.....

 By Kerwin De Matas

Apartheid and the BEE..... My intention is not to bring skeletons out from the closet. But being here in South Africa and Namibia, and not really understanding this concept that presented itself to me many years before, I just wanted to know exactly, what it meant.
Let's start whilst I was in elementary school. My teacher picked me to represent my age group in a local reading competition, I was eleven. The text prepared for me  was understood by the judges, and was portrayed very well. Now came the time to read the text presented by the judges. Everything was going great, until I came upon the word, "Apartheid"..... for the first time.
I don't know what happened, I just froze. Though my vocabulary was good even then, and my teachers prepared me very well for this event, not for the life of me could I pronounce this word, I never saw or heard of it in my life!
Following this reading competition, I recollected myself afterwards and I did ask my teacher what the word meant, I never got a satisfying answer, and I promptly forgot about it. This was until I got into high school, and had a little project to prepare on Nelson Mandela. Internet did not exist in those days, but I was lucky that our home had the Encyclopedia volume. That did not help though since, yes, I loved reading, and could understand text, but it was complex, and unfortunately back then, my discipline for intense study was quite low, and even though I knew something of the drama being unfolded in South Africa during the 90's, my interests were elsewhere, it was not my business.....
 That was then....This is now.
 Finally, here I am where it all took place, and discovering how little I knew about apartheid. Look, to fully understand what happened here, one would had to have lived the experience or, a visit to the Apartheid museum.... So, that is what I did, umm, not the experience, but the museum....

Lord, put a hand!

To go into depth about what I learned or saw in that museum, would mean a booklet, and trust me, no one wants to read a booklet from an unknown author on a blog!
Therefore I will keep it short and sweet...
My thirst for knowledge on this particular subject kept me in that museum for up to four hours, and I wasn't going to leave until I was done summarizing this topic... This is what I gathered.
This entire scenario comes down to colonization again, and by whom? Our good friends, the British Empire! According to my observation, what they did in India was something very similar, along the same structure and infrastructure, except that the English were prepared to tolerate the Indians, allowing them to sit on Parliament, and for them to have a certain amount of say on the running of their own country. Mind you though, they were still not considered as being on par with the Brits, and were repeatedly reminded to know their place. After a very long colonization period though India managed to obtain, against all odds, their independence with very little violence.