Namibian girls.

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.

My Men’s weekend at the sea

How it all started...
It all began on a weekend in April in the bar of Namib Garage in Aus. Over a Windhoek Lager, Johann, a friend from Lüderitz, told me that he was organizing a boat for his colleges to participate in this year’s “Snoek Derby”. The Snoek is a hunting fish that comes to the sea around Lüderitz in the end of May and every year there is a big open Snoek fishing competition where everybody is trying to catch the fattest fish. Well, after too many Jägermeisters and Tequillas at the bar in Aus, I decided that this derby sounded pretty fun and my friend promised to put me on his boat. Together with 3 women and 13 men, three of which were friends from Aus. Back then, I didn’t know what I had gotten into.
One week before the derby (last week), Johann told us that there wasn’t enough space for the four of us. This could have meant that I wasn’t on the boat anymore; but Piet (my boss and host dad) behaved like a real Namibian gentleman and gave up his space so I could join the derby. Friday, the day before the derby, Steve gave me a lift with his old Bucky to Lüderitz. In the back of the Bucky, of course, was a cool box filled with ice cold beer. That’s when I finally realized that I was going on a real men’s weekend. And that there was no way out.

After quite a slow, loud and hot ride through the stunning mountains, wide desert plains and the moon-like scenery just before Lüderitz, we arrived at the sea around midday. Coming from Aus where it had been freezing cold during the last week, it felt like arriving in a whole other country when I stepped out of the car. At the sea, the sun was burning, the air smelt like sea water and people were walking around in shorts. In Aus, we had been sitting inside our offices wearing gloves, scarves, jackets and pullovers and still freezing, and that being only an hour’s drive away!

The day before
The three of us from Aus (Steve, Danie and I) stayed at Johann’s place. The first thing Johann said to me was that there was not enough space for me on his boat but that he would try to find me a space on another boat somehow. That was the second time I thought I wouldn’t get to spend 8 hours on the high seas. Later that day, my three companions and I went to a get-together of all fishermen (and women) at the “Yachtclub” which I had heard a lot about before. Especially, many stories involving excessive amounts of Jägermeister. The Yachtclub was unbelievably full; I hadn’t seen so many people in one closed place since I had come to Namibia. In a corner of the club, you could see all the prizes for the derby: TV screens, cool boxes, T-shirts and huge cheques (20 thousand dollars for the winner!). Locals were checking out the prizes and already discussing who would catch the heaviest Snoek. After some pints, Johann eventually found me a boat- luckily, I already knew the captain “José”: a Portuguese sea bear from Lüderitz. I was overjoyed and again realized how friendly and ready people are here to lend a hand for others. After these good news, we were hungry for some grilled meat, so we went back to the flat, turned on Dani’s CD of “Afrikaans” pop songs and had a good big “Braai” in the yard- with Boerewors, Mielipap with tomato-onion sauce and a good piece of steak. As we had to get up at 3.30 the next morning, we went to bed pretty early- stuffed with food and a anti-puking tablets against sea-sickness.

The big day
The alarm rang at 3.30 sharp- far too early to get up. However, I smelt coffee from the kitchen and heard “wake-up” music, so I got up. Soon after, a huge crowd of fishermen in green and orange plastic suits was walking through the nightly streets of Lüderitz. I’m sure we must have looked pretty scary to the people who came home from parties at that time. Or maybe not to everybody - one guy came lurching over to some green fishermen, smiling mischievously and said “I don’t catch fish, I catch men!” On our boat “Little Meha”, I met my fishing companions – a nice mix of people from Lüderitz and all of them were experienced fishermen. Fortunately, there also was another woman on the boat who never went fishing before, so at least it was two of us. We left the harbor at 5 am and floated out into the pitch dark sea. With the Little Meha, about 35 other boats started their journey out into the deep. Around 6 am, the sun started rising and just before sunrise, our boat stopped the first time for a fishing session.
José, the captain, used a machine that registers the fish under water through the echoes the fish created. So every time, the machine projected a crowd of fish under the sea, Little Meha stopped and everybody hysterically started to throw out their fishing lines. The first few sessions, I just watched how the whole process worked: Everybody had a fishing line of about 60 meters fixed to the side of the boat with a plastic lure at the end of it which was thrown out into the sea. As soon as all the line was under water, you had to quickly pull the line back in. As the fishing lines were quite sharp, we were wearing plasters and plastic tubes on our fingers. Nevertheless, many people were bitten by the Snoeks they caught and their extremely sharp teeth caused strong bleeding. Helmut, southwester German fisherman showed me that the slime of a Snoek’s eye actually stops the bleeding. I first had to get used to watching the fishermen hauling up the huge Snoeks, lifting them by grabbing through their eyes, squeezing the strongly fighting fish between their legs and breaking their necks with a loud “CRACK”! At some point, I even thought my anti-puking tablets might do their job but after a while, the site of bloody fish and the sound of cracking necks became perfectly normal to me. Now the big question was whether I would catch a Snoek myself… Unfortunately, I have to disappoint you here- I wasn’t lucky. Even though, the people on board gave me helpful advice and provided me with their best fishing equipment, not one single Snoek wanted to bite my lure. Apparently, the Snoek is attracted by the fast moving lure that is pulled out by fishermen- which is why I tried my best to pull the line out extremely quickly. And even without ever having had a fish at the end of it, my arms started hurting after a while. Anyways, this way of fishing was great fun as it involved a lot of physical movement and nice relaxing breaks in between when the captain searched for the next fishing spot.
During these breaks, we sat in the sun, enjoyed the site of the endless sea and the yellow dunes you could see in the distance, cold beers and talked about the weather and the fish. I would never have thought that I could spend eight hours at the sea without getting sick. But after a while, I just got used to the wavy up and down of the boat and even managed to walk very short distances without holding onto something and without falling on the ground.
In general, I was amazed and inspired by the power and vastness of the sea and by the passion with which the fishermen work. The fact that I didn’t catch anything didn’t matter at all because the experience I made was incomparable. Besides, Helmut (another of those Namibian gentlemen) insisted on giving me one of his fish. At 1 pm sharp, the boat radio said “Lines Up” and everybody had to stop fishing immediately and pull out the lines. So that was the sign for us to go back to the harbor where we arrived about one hour later.

Back on land
When we had finally arrived back at the harbor, there was already a huge line up of fishermen in front of the Yachtclub, waiting to get their Snoek weighted. Nobody from my boat weighted their Snoek, because our fish weren’t nearly as fat as those from other boats. However, our boat DID join the get-together at Yachtclub and celebrated the day with several pints of draught beer. Even though I was the only one on my boat who didn’t catch anything, I found out that Steve, Danie and Johann also didn’t catch one single Snoek. Fortunately, there was enough fish to make a nice big barbeque caught outside the club while the prizes were awarded inside. As a great surprise, a boy of only 13 years had caught the biggest fish of 5.3 kilogram’s and therefore won the 20 thousand dollars. When I asked what we would do with all this money he said that he would safe it. His mother told me that she wasn’t sure anymore if this was really her son.
As everybody had gotten up horribly early that morning, people were heading back home surprisingly early. Back at Johann’s place, I already smelled the firewood for the final Braai. This wonderful day was rounded up with a real men’s meal- a huge piece of juicy, fat-dripping and well spiced rips. No vegetables, no plates, no forks. And I have to say, I really enjoyed it. Well, later that evening Johann said that only peeing while standing kept me from being a real man- yet I rather refused to go along with this challenge and stayed a woman.
When I got up the next morning at 7 am and saw Steve and Johann opening their first beers and eating the rest of the rips, I realized that the anti-puking pills were definitely not working anymore and that there was more than peeing while standing which prevented me from being a real man. Happy and exhausted from the weekend at the sea, with my Snoek in the back of the Bucky, an empty cool box and unforgettable memories, we drove back on Sunday and thought back at the incredible experience we made.

Why are zebras so fat?

During the last month, I got to know new corners of Namibia.
Some weeks ago I was invited to a 60th birthday party from one of the locals. It was an amazing experience to see all the people dressed in their huge, colourfull dresses, dancing and singing. People here just use dance and singing as a sort of expression of their feelings and emotions, which makes it very moving to watch. Namibian people really appreciate their families and normally live together with all their family. It's just so different from our culture where young people can't wait to leave their families to travel, to be independent. The people here made me appreciate my friends and family a lot but also the fact that I have the chance to travel the world, unlike most of the young people over here.

As a part of my remuneration for the internship, my company tutor Christine took me on an “educational trip” to the Fish River Canyon in the South of Namibia. This is the second biggest canyon of the world. When I got to the viewpoint where you could overlook the whole canyon, the huge and ancient geological formations of the canyon just seemed completely unreal to me. It was huge! Someone told me the story of a German couple who went to the canyon when the husband wanted to walk down the canyon for a little bit but never returned and was never found. Until some weeks after the incident. Somebody spotted the apparently dead guy back in Germany- the couple just wanted to profit from the husbands life insurance and made up the whole story! As you can imagine, all the people working at the lodges around the Fish River Canyon were pretty unhappy about this couple as tourists started to be worried about the canyon and the safety there. Well, we didn’t fall down the canyon which is why we enjoyed two lovely days at the “Canyon Roadhouse”, a lodge that is designed in the motto of being “on the road”- beautiful old-timers everywhere (even in the function of a fire place or plant pot), number plates from all around the world and even a real man’s workshop with playboy calendars and all sorts of tools.
Every evening, we came together with the lodge’s managers and had a good laugh over the delicious food and wine. At the roadhouse, I tried ostrich steak for the first time in my life and it was so yummy! The meat was very tender and had a distinct, spicy flavor.
And I saw zebras live for the first time—they are such lovable creatures and always seem to be nice and chubby. Apparently, in times of need, zebras digest the bacteria that live in their stomachs. In the course of an experiment concerning that matter, researchers removed these bacteria from the zebra’s stomach. Shortly after, the zebras lost an incredible amount of weight and suffered a lot more. Isn’t it amazing how nature helps itself?

Well, when we came back from this trip, Klein-Aus Vista was already getting prepared for the upcoming Easter weekend. So I helped with creating little nests out of grass and decorating the restaurant with all sorts of eggs. Other than that, the kitchen baked Hot Crossed Buns over the Easter weekend- just delicious. I have to say that I will really miss the food here at the lodge. Every morning, you can choose your breakfast from a huge buffet including several sorts of freshly-baked bread, cheeses and meats from a farm nearby, sausage, chicken liver, egg and fresh fruit salad. That’s quite a luxury which I got pretty used to.

The Easter weekend was horribly busy with many South African families coming here to spend their holidays. I celebrated Easter pretty untraditionally by spending 4 evenings in a row, drinking with tourism managers: Two nights at the Fish River Canyon, where Christine and I were invited for drinks every evening and two nights back in Aus with far too much “Schmiedefeuer” schnapps and tasty South African red wine. As my life here in Namibia is usually very quiet and relaxing, I have to say that I suffered a bit from this Easter weekend and suddenly felt like I got a lot older :).

Then there was the Mountain Bike Race at Klein-Aus Vista on the 1rst of May. It was the first mountain bike event, the company had ever hosted and we spent a lot of effort and time creating flyers, T-Shirts, finding sponsors and building the mountain bike route. During the race through the mountains in Aus, I was sitting at checkpoint 1 and did my best to be a good “marshal”- giving drinks to the bikers, checking if everyone passed by and feeling very lazy and unathletic in the sight of these fit people who were a lot older than me :D.
My laziness and lack of sportsmanship was increased by the “ lekker braais” we had with the bikers after the race and during the next days. Some friends of the family took part in the race and invited us several times to a barbeque at their campsite. It was really nice and typical Afrikaans – with a big “Poikie”, a lot of “Boerewors” (see below for a definition of these words) and too much Redwine and tequila. And dogs all over the place.
That’s another thing I am going to miss about Namibia- having dogs blustering around me all the time. Every family here has several dogs and when it comes to family get- togethers, it’s like a big children’s party – only that the children are dogs. And of course I will miss my host family and all the members of staff here. They have really grown dear to me and I feel like a part of the big Klein-Aus Vista -family.

Namibian Ingredients

There are certain ingredients that make living in Namibia so special… I would love to take some home with me…but some I'd rather leave in Namibia :)

Having a big “Braai” (BBQ) with family and friends with “Poikie” (hotpot that has to cook for 6 (!!!) hours on the BBQ made of potatoes, Boereworst (sausage), veggies )

The Boerewors (a long, spicy sausage that is rolled together in a circle) as a starter .. everyone just picks a piece of wors from the BBQ

The Amarula .. creamy liquor that tastes a bit like Bailey’s but has a slight flavor of lemon

The Savanna Cider… it’s lovely for warm summer evenings

The Ostrich, Oryx, Springbok steak- juicy and wild !

The Butternut… a sweet pumpkin that you cook with cinnamon or nutmeg

The Sundowners: you select a nice spot in the nature and celebrate the sunset with a drink and some snacks

Driving an old, big, rusty truck around never-ending roads

The spectacular lightnings and thunderstorms you get here every time (!) it rains in summer

The colors of a sunset- they’re different everyday

The fact that people are celebrating rain

The smell in the desert after a heavy rainfall

Endless, wide, open landscapes.. they just give you a true feeling of freedom and peace

People from the Ovambo tribe singing and dancing traditionally.. It’s pure passion & fun

The fresh oysters and crayfish at the coast

Dogs, dogs, dogs

Saying "Kak!" and "ne man!" without being rude

Calling each other "sister" or "girlfriend" (the girls)
...

The long distances you have to drive to any kind of grocery store

The fact that there is almost no water coming out of taps around midday

Snakes, scorpions, red wasps, ticks and mosquitoes

The fact that electricity breaks down after a heavy rainfall or thunderstorm

Having to worry about draught and lack of water all the time

The fact that you greet people with a kiss on the mouth, even if you've only met them once before

Job & People

In the course of my first year of tourism management studies at Inholland hogeschool, I decided to do my five months internship at the holiday lodge of “Klein-Aus Vista” in Namibia. For more than three months, I have been living in the settlement of Aus and working at the family business of Klein-Aus Vista.

The job.


The internship at Klein-Aus Vista involves looking into the various departments of the business including guest relations, HRM, Marketing, Finance and Planning and Development. Thus, I get a very good understanding of how a medium tourism enterprise is actually set up, managed and operated. The fact that the business is family-run makes it easy for me to communicate with all departments because all the managers have close relationships with each other. Even though, I am dealing with tasks concerning a mixture of departments, the main focus of my placement lays on staff training and planning and development tasks. Teaching the employees German lessons and basic computer skills is a very enriching and fulfilling job as it gives me the chance to also get to know the “lower layers” of the organization as well as the local culture. Furthermore, most of the staff is very enthusiastic and motivated about the classes and about learning something new, which is why it is very enjoyable educating them.
Regarding my role in the department of Planning& Development, I am assisting my company tutor with the creation of an Environmental Land Use plan for the company’s farm land which counts 51,000 hectares. Currently, we are doing secondary research on topics such as Eco-tourism, Tourism Planning, Sustainable Tourism and Game Farming in order to collect a usable set of guidelines which can also be applied to Klein-Aus Vista. Moreover, we look at the resources of the farm (water, energy, flora and fauna) and evaluate how they can be managed in the most eco-friendly way. Concrete plans for waste management, water management, tourism management etc. will be written by us and signed by Klein-Aus Vista’s owners so that the company consequently integrates a more sustainable and environmentally friendly concept of management. Besides these major tasks, I am regularly helping with the stock management of the curio shop (counting sales and stock, buying new stock etc) and work on creating a data base of direct booking customers. From time to time, I am also working as a waitress in KAV’s restaurant. The direct contact with employees and guests in the restaurant improves my ability to communicate with tourists and strengthens my relations with the staff.

The people.



In January, I was welcomed at Klein-Aus Vista’s management with open arms and by now, I already feel like a part of the family. As I am staying at the house of Klein-Aus Vista’s co-owner Piet Swiegers and his wife Christine (my company tutor), I already developed a close relationship to the two of them. Actually, they are not just my superiors and co-workers but also my host family. During birthday parties or “Brai”- evenings (Barbeques), I also spend leisure time with the rest of the Swiegers family. Hence, I am not only working with the managers of the company but I am also involved in their personal lives. For instance, at the weekends, I regularly come together with the Swieger’s family to work with the company’s horses as we all share the love for horses. Additionally, my company tutor and I use some of our afternoons to do decorations and handicrafts for the lodge, especially intended for events such as Easter or Valentine’s Day. Not to forget, Christine often takes me to other places in Namibia for personal or company purposes. For example, we went to Namibia’s capital Windhoek to talk to company’s suppliers and to do numerous purchases for Klein-Aus Vista. However, on various occasions, she also took me to other lodges in Namibia as this enables me to compare tourism business and to see a bit more of Namibia’s natural and cultural resources. Generally, Klein-Aus Vista’s managers often offer me the opportunity to “test” their tourism product myself. Thus, I took part in various farm drives, stayed at the holiday accommodation and accompanied Piet to trips with clients around the farm land. Thanks to my direct involvement in the products of the organization, I can evaluate the company’s services more easily and understand their mission and vision.

All in all I can say that I am having a really inspiring and interesting time in Nambia. I very much enjoy my work at the lodge and also get the chance to get to know the local culture through the employees of the company. Despite I am sort of dependent on my host family in case I want to travel somewhere (I use their car) and even though there are not a lot of possibilities for young people to spend leisure time independently, I instantly fell in love with this place and its people. Therefore, I am looking forward to living here for three more months and when I am leaving this country in July, I know that I will certainly come back one day.