It was the Namibian summer 2011 when I left freezing Germany with Air Namibia. Having had the rare possibility of enjoying free food and drinks on the plane, I gladly welcomed all the sandwiches, warm meals, cookies, crisps and wine the stewardesses offered me. This might have been one of the reasons why I had a funny feeling in my stomach throughout my first day in Namibia. As I landed in Windhoek on the 15 January at 7:30 in the morning, the sight of the wide and open landscape made my jaw drop in amazement. Of course, I pretty much knew what to expect from the countryside and climate in Namibia before I took my flight down south. But still- coming from the snowy and busy city of Frankfurt, this wide, open and dry country seemed like a different world to me.
I came to Namibia to gain some practical experience for my studies of Tourism Management in Amsterdam. Luckily, I got an internship at the wonderful family-run holiday farm of “Klein-Aus Vista” in the south of Namibia embedded in the most stunning nature one can imagine. Red dunes, orange savannah lands, blue mountains, gorgeous sunsets and a whole lot of wild animals you would normally only observe outside a cage in the zoo. Namibia’s unbelievably spacious scenery created an incomparable feeling of freedom and peace inside me which I had seldom felt before.
Before coming to Namibia, I made up my mind about how things would be down there. What would it be like to live in a country which had suffered from being suppressed by several colonial powers? I wondered whether there might still be some kind of hatred or racism against the Germans or white people in general. Since Namibia had only recently gained its independence in 1990, it would be fully understandable if black Namibians still wouldn’t especially like the Germans. However, I never experienced open discrimination or racism anywhere in Namibia. Especially inside the company of Klein-Aus Vista, I felt extremely welcomed by all employees. As Klein-Aus Vista actively supports the employment of local people on the farm, I was lucky enough to work with a lot of black people. Some of the conversations I had with the local women on the farm really inspired me, broadened my horizon immensely and taught me a lot about life. Even if it was sometimes just a quick exchange of words in between doors, these little chats with locals made me think about the values and treasures in our lives. And about cultural differences that influence our attitudes.
The Namibian women I got to know during my time in Africa shared certain values. Although I met women of completely different characters, I could see particular similarities in their way of thinking and behaving. It became obvious to me that religious believes played a big role in their lives and that it was definitely strongly influencing their cultural identity. Believing in God made them strong and bound them together during difficult times. What also gave them strength were their families. Women in Namibia usually get married early for western standards (20 years is a perfectly normal age to marry) and get kids equally early. For them it is perfectly common to get pregnant at an early age - firstly, because some of them don’t use protection and secondly, because most of them actually want to have kids early on. And not only one or two- normally a woman gives birth to about five children. Sadly, a lot of girls I met were left by their husbands and had do bring up the kids on their own. Still, the family is the most important part in people’s life. One lives together with the whole family (grannies, parents, children, grand children), shares food and looks after each other. All it needs to be happy is a healthy family that has enough to eat. I had never seen such a pure and simple happiness before. Even when people were at work, cooking dinner in the kitchen or cleaning the accommodation, they always laughed loudly and cheerfully. Klein-Aus Vista’s female employees started to work 6 a.m. and spent the time after work washing the clothes of the whole family, cooking and cleaning – and still always found enough reasons to be happy.
Some of the women in Namibia deeply touched me which is why I think it is worth sharing their stories with you. For privacy reasons, I changed the names of the women I wrote about.
JULIETTE
I will start with Juliette. Juliette is twenty-four years old and works at Klein-Aus Vista as a waitress. She is from the Herero tribe and lives together with her family, including her four year old daughter who she deeply loves. Juliette is a young, very lively and confident woman, strong and outgoing. One day, she told me that there was a time some years ago when she left her home village and went to live with her husband in a bigger town away from her family. For me, that sounded perfectly normal – I mean, who wants to live with their family until the age of 25? However, Juliette experienced it as a real torture to be so far away from her family. Her natural bond to her roots and traditions made her go back to the village of Aus where she is still happily living and working today. Can you imagine a young woman in the Western world who freely decides to stay at the same tiny village all her life, sharing a house with her family? I don’t think so.
RAYA
Raya is another story. She is 25, has one child and is happily married to a man from a very traditional tribe. His tribe believes that a wife should not go to public events without her husband and that she should not show her knees in public. When I asked Raya whether she found these rules a bit too strict, she just said that that’s the way it is, and that she is madly in love with her husband. Raya is a very open-minded person who is eager to learn. That’s why she is currently researching on her husband’s religion in order to understand why things are the way they are in her life. In contrast to Juliette, Raya would love to go abroad and travel (with her child and husband, of course). So why don’t you? , I asked her one day. She told me that it is not easy to “break out” of your ordinary life when you have been raised in a traditional way. Apparently, you are cursed if you decide to break with your family roots. According to Raya, a lot of young women would like to travel and discover the world but just don’t see any opportunity to do so or simply are too afraid of doing it.
One day, I took Raya on a hiking trip through the farm land of Klein-Aus Vista. We talked about our families and ourselves and it became obvious to me that Raya didn’t do a lot for her own wellbeing. She was basically there for her family, she saw herself as a mother and wife more than she saw herself as a woman. However, when we came back to the farm from our two hours hike, she smiled at me and said "I feel sexy now". So, I guess that’s all it took to make her feel “like a woman” and to show her that she can do something for herself in her life. I felt very moved by the hope and eagerness in her eyes that arouse when she realised that she didn’t only need to be a mother and wife but also a person who thinks about her own good. We met several times again during these five months to go hiking or to just have a bit of “girly” time watching movies, eating chocolate and drinking a glass of wine while her husband looked after their daughter.
HENNA
Henna is a floor supervisor and waitress from the Owambo tribe. Owambo people are known for being skilled gardeners and constructors. Maybe that explains why she is another of these really curious women who are eager to learn new things in their lives. She told me that she was planning to take part in a Controlling course in order to get a degree in this field. With this degree, she would get more salary and therefore improve the life of her family and herself. I found it really impressive how motivated some Namibian women like Henna are, how they believe in their own strengths and grab all possibilities to change something. Even if they have been brought up in a very traditional way- a lot of girls manage to think “out of the box”.
MAGA
Maga is 46 years old and works as a chef at Klein-Aus Vista. She is one of these people who tell you honestly what they think about you and the rest of the world without beating around the bush. Talk to me in German!, was one of the first things she commanded me to do. "I have to learn it because if I go to Germany one day, I have to be able to speak the language”. While I was enjoying my tea on Klein-Aus Vista’s restaurant veranda, Maga came to sit next to me and just started telling me all the German phrases she remembered from a German course she took some years ago (without me actually asking her to do so). She told me that you are never too old to learn and that you must take every chance in life to educate yourself. But Maga isn’t only eager to learn, she is also eager to make others learn. So, she often walked with me through the kitchen and taught me the Nama words for all the ingredients and kitchen equipment in such a speed that I could only catch one or two worlds at most. Magdalena is a very loud and happy woman with an immense amount of positive attitude. One day, she took me on a trip around the countryside and the “locatie” (where most of the black people live) to show me her house and tell me something about her way of life etc. The simple life of the people in Aus moved me a lot- people were standing at their garden gates chatting with each other about the weather, kids were running barefooted along the street and playing in the mud; sheep were slowly trotting along the road...
Reading about these women I met in Namibia, don’t you just have to wonder whether there is fairness in this world? Why is it that some people grow up having so little while others are so used to having so much? And why do some people always complain about their lives while others find a way to live happily with what they have?
“You inspire me.”, many girls said to me in Namibia. They were so enthusiastic about hearing what I experienced so far, travelling and living in different countries of the world. They wanted to know everything about how people ate, partied and lived in different places. So I told them about Germany, France, England and Holland which were the countries where I had lived so far in my life. I could see how their eyes began to glitter while listening to me– there was no jealousy in them, only inspiration and excitement. Telling my Namibian friends about my normal life back home, it struck me how different the world was they live in.
Suddenly, the things which seemed so normal to me back at home, like going on parties, visiting art exhibitions, having dinner in a nice restaurant or catching a flight to go on holiday, seemed really unreal and absurd. All these things I enjoyed as a part of my ordinary life had no relevance here for the locals in this village in Namibia. Here, it was only about being there for your family and your religion.
I started to imagine what it would be like if I wasn’t able to travel and to see different places in the world. What if my parents hadn’t got enough money to support me or if they needed me to stay at home and be there for them? What if I was bound to live in one single place all my life? In a place without a lot of cultural entertainment, a place where you know everyone and where every day is quite the same for the rest of your life? What if your future was already designed and you knew that you would live a life exactly like your ancestors did? Those questions made me think a lot about my own life- how do I deserve such luck?
And what is it about us western people anyways? In my opinion, most of us worry far too much about everything. We want to change things and make the world a better place. That sounds good, doesn’t it? But sometimes I wish our attitude towards life was a bit more “African”. They are aware that they probably can’t change the world and are happy with the things they have been given. We, on the other hand, somehow can’t be content with what we have. We want to achieve more. We have only one life and that’s why we want to use it to its extent and see the whole world. But isn’t it almost crazy that the young generation of today seems to want to see EVERYTHING? There seems to be a kind of pressure on us to see the whole world and to make as many exotic experiences as we can. African culture taught me to be happy with what I have and not to always tell myself that I want more. It taught me to say thank you. Thank you for my family, my friends, my health, my education and for everything that I am.
One should go with what life gives, take opportunities and look for new doors but there is definitely no need to panic about not getting enough. It might be wise to understand the meaning of what Reinhold Niebuhr once said: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”
Life it long and it will show us where to go.
My message to everybody who reads this post is to go and travel to a country where people are less wealthy than you. You will probably see that people welcome you warmly and are excited to learn something about the outside world. Let them also tell you something about their lives. When you go back home from your journey, you might feel a bit sad because you represented things that other people probably will never be able to have. But don’t worry. Those people will be inspired and exited about hearing your stories. And last but not least, you will feel very thankful and relieved to live the life you live.
