Windhoek Namibia - Expansion?
Mar 24, 2016 14:35:32 GMT
Post by tod2 on Mar 24, 2016 14:35:32 GMT
After Mark mentioned going on another recce into Namibia in the near future, I too voiced the desire to go there over Christmas this year. So when I saw this article in the Sunday papers I thought of recounting it to you. Well, not all of it. Too long.
The headline read "Let Them Eat US Chickens and Drink Jagermeister". This is the part about Windhoek - the chickens I'll tell you about somewhere in the food section of Anyport.
"Things have changed a fair bit since 1995. New suburbs and shopping centres are mushrooming in all directions.
There appears to be little planning involved and word on the street is that there is nowhere near enough water to sustain this kind of expansion.
This seems to be a blind spot for developers everywhere. As long as there is enough water to mix the concrete, they're happy.
An enormous monstrosity of Namibia's founding father, Sam Nujoma wielding a copy of Trovato's Memoirs has been erected by North Korea.
Things have become horrendously expensive since the writer was last there and there is talk of the Namibian Dollar going it alone. Having your currency pegged to the Rand is a bit like tandem paragliding without a paraglider, so when the Guptas reshuffle the South African Cabinet and the Rand dives for cover, the repercussions are felt all the way across the Orange River.
A newspaper headline reads "SA 'junk status' a threat to Namibia" Poor bastards. As if they didn't suffer enough at the hands of PW Botha and FW de Klerk.
Windhoek drivers refuse to acknowledge red traffic lights and stop streets and the safest place to be is off the streets and inside a bar. Which is where I am right now. It's the kind of bar in which officers of the Gestapo might have been comfortable. Everyone has a mug of beer and a Jagermeister on the side.
Somebody has just taken the stool next to me. He ordered a draught and two Jagermeisters. This makes me nervous. He has eyes like melted frisbees, the teeth of a serial killer and the fingernails of a diesel mechanic. He also has a cough like the inside of an emphysema ward.
He is not doing anything. Just drinking and giving me the side-eye. I want to move away from him, but there's a good chance he will take offence and disembowel me with a rusty Okapi knife.
I am pleased that the bar staff are hefty Ovambo-speaking gentlemen. In this environment, I feel safer when black men are around. Apartheid seems not to have worked very well on me.
The barman has just put a bowl of snacks in front of me. We're not in peanut country anymore - this was a heap of deep-fried pork scratchings. The mound of dead pig looks lethal but I have to eat it for fear of being mistaken for a vegetarian. Namibians think vegetarianism is a mental illness.
One of the criteria for citizenship is being able to consume an entire lamb within seven minutes. I was already drawing attention to myself by not drinking Jagermeister, not smoking, not having a moustache and typing on a laptop instead of staring vacantly at the bottles behind the bar.
Some local happenings in the news:
Here's a story about a drive-by shooting in the Tses District. Five cattle were gunned down. The shooter has not been apprehended.
City Police have failed to clamp down on illegal car washes, Municipal spokesman Joshua Amukugo said: "These things of car washes are so complicated".
Classes at a school near Oshakati were disrupted when three cousins "started slithering like snakes and channelling the voice of a known villager".
Maybe I should have that Jagermeister after all.....
The headline read "Let Them Eat US Chickens and Drink Jagermeister". This is the part about Windhoek - the chickens I'll tell you about somewhere in the food section of Anyport.
"Things have changed a fair bit since 1995. New suburbs and shopping centres are mushrooming in all directions.
There appears to be little planning involved and word on the street is that there is nowhere near enough water to sustain this kind of expansion.
This seems to be a blind spot for developers everywhere. As long as there is enough water to mix the concrete, they're happy.
An enormous monstrosity of Namibia's founding father, Sam Nujoma wielding a copy of Trovato's Memoirs has been erected by North Korea.
Things have become horrendously expensive since the writer was last there and there is talk of the Namibian Dollar going it alone. Having your currency pegged to the Rand is a bit like tandem paragliding without a paraglider, so when the Guptas reshuffle the South African Cabinet and the Rand dives for cover, the repercussions are felt all the way across the Orange River.
A newspaper headline reads "SA 'junk status' a threat to Namibia" Poor bastards. As if they didn't suffer enough at the hands of PW Botha and FW de Klerk.
Windhoek drivers refuse to acknowledge red traffic lights and stop streets and the safest place to be is off the streets and inside a bar. Which is where I am right now. It's the kind of bar in which officers of the Gestapo might have been comfortable. Everyone has a mug of beer and a Jagermeister on the side.
Somebody has just taken the stool next to me. He ordered a draught and two Jagermeisters. This makes me nervous. He has eyes like melted frisbees, the teeth of a serial killer and the fingernails of a diesel mechanic. He also has a cough like the inside of an emphysema ward.
He is not doing anything. Just drinking and giving me the side-eye. I want to move away from him, but there's a good chance he will take offence and disembowel me with a rusty Okapi knife.
I am pleased that the bar staff are hefty Ovambo-speaking gentlemen. In this environment, I feel safer when black men are around. Apartheid seems not to have worked very well on me.
The barman has just put a bowl of snacks in front of me. We're not in peanut country anymore - this was a heap of deep-fried pork scratchings. The mound of dead pig looks lethal but I have to eat it for fear of being mistaken for a vegetarian. Namibians think vegetarianism is a mental illness.
One of the criteria for citizenship is being able to consume an entire lamb within seven minutes. I was already drawing attention to myself by not drinking Jagermeister, not smoking, not having a moustache and typing on a laptop instead of staring vacantly at the bottles behind the bar.
Some local happenings in the news:
Here's a story about a drive-by shooting in the Tses District. Five cattle were gunned down. The shooter has not been apprehended.
City Police have failed to clamp down on illegal car washes, Municipal spokesman Joshua Amukugo said: "These things of car washes are so complicated".
Classes at a school near Oshakati were disrupted when three cousins "started slithering like snakes and channelling the voice of a known villager".
Maybe I should have that Jagermeister after all.....
"He has eyes like melted frisbees, the teeth of a serial killer and the fingernails of a diesel mechanic. He also has a cough like the inside of an emphysema ward."