Our First Post-Covid Trip to Steph’s Old Stomping Ground of Southern Africa

We take the scenic route from through Namibia; thank god for the Toyota Landcruiser!

Africa.

Although more than 30 years have passed since last I was here, nothing has changed, yet everything has changed.

Upon arrival, we walked great distances through Johannesburg’s Soviet inspired institutional airport. The travellators were not functioning, and several connecting stairways were barricaded for no apparent reason, forcing ever greater distances. We got stuck in a malfunctioning elevator and struggled to see the worn-out numbers on the ATM when trying to get local currency.  Once outside, our driver had to cross four lane highways with no traffic control as the robots (traffic lights) don’t work when the power cuts out – several times a day. We watched the guy in front of us casually pay off the cop who had pulled him over, and an espresso shop couldn’t serve us coffee as they had run out of water. So far, this is the Africa I know. Broken and stuck in the 70’s, right down to the Age of Aquarius playing in the restaurant where my iceberg lettuce and grated cheese salad was buried under a mountain of bacon. Everything is faded, everything is threadbare, and everything contains meat.

On the change front however, the difference is monumentous. Apartheid has gone.

It is hard to encapsulate the ominous threat that once hung over South Africa. During apartheid, there were only the haters and the hated. Violence and frustration were hidden under a frighteningly thin veneer of civility. Anger, shame and fear were predominant - the place was boiling itself with the unspoken. Now, everything is different. The people stand tall, they laugh easily and clearly feel a sense of self-worth. They are no longer strangers in their own land and it is palpable. The brokenness of stuff however, stays true.

Unemployment has hit 35% and many suspect it may actually be higher as census numbers are not accurate. Everything is scarce – work, food, water, power. Central Johannesburg is bereft of business and infrastructure is crumbling all around, yet there is a private lounge at the airport specifically for Government Ministers. Corruption has deep roots and consistently diverts money from the needy to the wealthy. Advanced capitalism at its finest. That said, education (up to university level) is still free, and we have run into hundreds of smiling school children, neatly dressed in their uniforms, visiting the caves (as were we) where fossilised Saber-toothed tigers and some of the first Australopithecines were found. It really is amazing to think that those little Australopithecine buggers were swaggering around this very place on their two little legs 4.4 million years ago, just waiting to evolve! Sadly, many of these remarkable artifacts have been blown up by miners searching for booty to pillage from the earth.

The variety of body shapes those wee fellas did evolve into are striking. From scarily fine limbed how-do-you-stay-upright-on-those-pea-sticks-? individuals to those with enormous butt shelves, the diversity is astonishing. Some men have such muscular buttocks that the slit in the back of their suit jacket forms an upside down V. As I write, a clumsily oversized Boer with neck rolls on the back of his head sits next to a squirrel of tiny grey-haired tourists clad in multi-pocketed safari attire (what else do you call a cluster of miniature old ladies on tour but a squirrel?). There are fat rolls galore and the shapes and sizes of bodies are so assorted it is hard to think that we can all interbreed.

Namibia
We have been here for a week now. As in South Africa, the tribal varieties are enormous, from the elegant bare-breasted and ochre clad Himba, to the tiny San Bushmen. All white tourists dress like an old British safari movie, although these days they all have zip off pant-legs. There appears to be a dearth of Pith helmets as I can only think that Melania Trump failed to reignite that contentious fashion statement. Many locals speak several languages, including the clicking tongue of the Damara (formerly Hottentots – the people once taken and publicly exhibited by colonial Brits due to their definitive butt shelves) and the inexplicable !Xhosa - exclamation mark part of their pronunciation.

Our guide Abner is a fabulous representative of his people (Ovambo), and speaks more than 5 languages. He has an easy deep rumbling chuckle and a proclivity to burst into swaying song. Between his animal finding skills and the work of Lazarus and Caesar (rhino trackers extraordinaire), we have seen so much wildlife it has been amazing – including four lion cubs playing a few short metres from the Landcruiser (nooo, my beloved Landrovers have been usurped!), and kudu (an antelope) chewing on the bones of a dead elephant to extract the calcium – a very unusual sight. We have seen desert adapted creatures who have modified their need for water so as to survive these harsh conditions. Tragically, a herd of highly endangered desert elephants (longer legs and larger feet to deal with sand dunes) was recently trafficked to Dubai, where a super-rich twat added to his private collection. Corruption is here too, but perhaps to a lesser extent.

Etosha National Park is staggering. There are vast herds of springbok, wildebeest and giraffe, which from a distance look surprisingly Brontasaurian. The seemingly parched earth supports staggering numbers – ostrich, impala, lion, elephants, rhino etc etc etc. We are not able to walk to our rooms after dark without a gun toting escort who will protect us from marauding hunters. There are few fences and the animals roam freely. It is us who must be in the zoo.

We have visited the place featured on the front cover of every Namibian coffee table book – Soussesvlei. Haunting black trees -over 900 years old- still stand in a white salt pan looking craggy and handsome against the deep red sand dunes. They are too hard and dry to decay, and it is said that they give off sparks if hit with an axe. We followed a group of Asian tourists over the sand dunes that have only recently started to block access. They were shrouded from the sun like Taliban women, and wrote ‘Gucci’ in the sand with the soles of their shoes.

 It is so dry here that we are snapping fingernails and dealing with bleeding noses daily. Tomorrow is Thursday - so it must be Botswana. Looking forward to a bit of humidity.

S & T
xxx