run, gloria, run!

Chinatown in Windhoek

2012-02-01T08:04:00.001+02:00

Willbedone called me at 7:30 on Saturday morning, informing me that she was going to be at my house in a few minutes to take me to Chinatown. Because the shops in Windhoek are generally only open when I'm at work, and close at noon on Saturdays, and aren't open at all on Sundays, this means that I generally have to get up early on Saturday mornings to do my shopping, rather than sleeping in.

Chinatown is located in Windhoek's Northern Industrial Area, not too far from Katutura, across the street from the Solid Waste Management Division for some reason. You have to walk through giant steel gates, like everything else in Windhoek, and for a moment you might wonder if you're going into some sort of industrial factory or something. Windhoek's Chinatown is a bit different from the Chinatowns I've been used to in other countries. It's not, for the most part, actually an area of the city where all the Chinese live and do their business with each other, giving me the chance to blend in for once in Africa. It's basically a giant warehouse of small shops where the Chinese store owners sell everything (seriously, everything) to a largely black African and tourist clientele. Picture a small version of Toronto's Pacific Mall, only in a concrete industrial warehouse instead of a glass mall, and without the Asian customers.

traditional Asian pose

Even though I still stuck out as the only Asian customer around, it was pretty fun weaving in and out of all the shops, checking out the amazing bargains. A lot of the stores sold the same stuff, but once in a while you'd find something different and unique, so it felt like a treasure hunt. The main thing that struck me, not so surprisingly, was how cheap everything was. If I could manage to get up early enough every Saturday morning, I should just buy everything here, because you can pretty much buy everything here for such a ridiculously low bargain, I didn't feel a need to haggle. I bought a backpack to replace the one that got stolen for five dollars. I plan to come back to buy a camping tent that I saw for less then $20. I did stop myself before buying a no-name digital camera for $40 though.

my new backpack

As per Chinese tradition, there were, of course, tons of designer name knock-offs and fake products, including an "iPade" and a "Funstation" video game console.

A lot of people, including the Chinese shopowners, still didn't know what to make of me, a Westernized tourist of Asian descent. Besides having the usual Namibians gawking at me, some of the storeowners seem confused when I spoke to them in English - I keep forgetting to speak slower. Many of them concluded that I must be Japanese, which, incidentally, is the same assumption that Korean shopowners made when I was in Korea.

in reality, I'm just special

My happiest discovery was the Hong Kong restaurant. Not only was it a new Chinese restaurant to try out, but it also had the largest Asian grocery store I've found so far in Windhoek. Not that there are a lot. Not that it was very big. But this matters to me because it is the one place where they sell my favourite 농심 brand of spicy Korean ramen noodles, 신라면. YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

this really, really, really helps me deal with the fact that I have not had proper Korena food since last year and will not taste my family's cooking until late March. Life is freaking fantastic now.

a game of Starbucks

2012-01-31T14:15:00.006+02:00

It's 30 degrees out, I'm at work feeling sleepy, and I'm craving a Starbucks ice coffee. There's actually free coffee in our office kitchen, which is more generous than my last job when I worked for the Canadian government (we don't want to be wasting your Canadian tax dollars on that), but what I'm craving is a Starbucks ice coffee.

This may surprise you, but there are no Starbucks in Windhoek. Or Namibia. or southern Africa. In fact, they don't really do coffee to go here, which I theoretically applaud (down with disposable fast food culture!) and realistically deplore ("i need coffee NOW! to go!"). I've managed to survive three months without McDonalds, four months without Korean ramen noodles, five months without chajangmyun, but it looks like I'm going to have to go the full seven months stretch without a Frappucino. Unless...

Starbucks' store locator says, "There's probably a Starbucks coffeehouse near you."

I asked, "Where is the closest Starbucks to me?"

Starbucks' store locator didn't know. Wikipedia says there are Starbucks in Morocco, but Starbucks' store locator didn't agree. South Africa only carries some brands in their hotels, and Google Maps does not want to show me how to get from Cairo to Namibia.

So we have Dubai.

1. 21,000 kilometres, 19 countries, 359 Google direction steps

2. Through Italy.

I guess I'll go and put some ice cubes in my office instant coffee now.

i don't know why, but i actually seem to blog about starbucks a lot.

Sarah's Last Night In Town

2012-01-30T08:06:00.001+02:00

“everyone knows now
that every night out now
is steven’s last night in town”
-Ben Folds

Hartley’s farewell festivities have been a weeklong affair, and it’s been hard for me to keep up. Every day she tells me the plans for the night – a sundowner at the Hilton, shebeen hopping on Evelyn Street, a braai at her apartment – and every day I tell her I’ll come out because I want to see her before she leaves, only to flake out because I’m feeling tired and I have to work the next day.

Saturday night she threw a party. We showed up in the afternoon, ate boerewores and braaivleis and nachos made with cheese Doritos, and we drank and partied for over twelve hours. People passed out on the floor. We went out to a club and danced. I fell asleep around 7AM to strange dreams.

But tonight is finally her last night in Namibia and there’s just three of us, Hartley, me, Max. For her last night, Hartley wanted to go to Maerua Mall and have cocktails at Que Tapas, but it’s closed because it’s Sunday. So we end up at the only place that’s open at the mall, which is the pizza place that looks like a Pizza Hut ripoff, and we order vodka sodas.

Maerua Mall is the biggest mall in the country, but it’s not actually that big. Well, I guess it’s pretty big, and I know Namibian kids love to come here. It’s no West Edmonton Mall, but it does feature the city’s only movie theatre, a Woolworth’s, my very expensive gym Virgin Active, two sushi restaurants, and about a half a dozen MTC store locations within the one complex.

Hanging out at the mall at this time of the night makes me feel like I’m a high school kid again. As if she’s reading my thoughts, Hartley discovers next to the bouncy castle one of those toy vending machines selling press-on temporary tattoos for five rand.

“We have to get tattoos,” she says.

We fish around for some five rand coin. With my first try I accidentally get a sticker. This is not a tattoo. I put in another coin. My second try is another sticker, one of an eagle.

“This is you,” I say to Hartley, because she’s American. But this is still not a tattoo.

On my last try I finally get a proper temporary tattoo rather than a sticker (I’m not sure the words “proper temporary tattoo” even makes sense). It’s a tattoo of a pink fairy surrounded by pink flowers.

“This is pretty gay,” I say, meaning it in the truest non-pejorative sense of the word.

“It’s pretty,” says Hartley, who despite being a lesbian is far more femme than I. “My tattoo doesn’t make sense.” Hers is flames with water coming out.

I explain to her that in Canada, at Parliament Hill there is a large water fountain with a fire in the middle. It’s called the Eternal Flame. I’ve always wondered if I could cook a sausage on it.

“Do you want to trade then, since you’re Canadian?”

“Nah, I’ll be the fairy,” I say.

Hartley decides she wants hers to be a tramp stamp, so she has Max lift her shirt and apply the tattoo on her lower back. We ask the waitress (waitron?) for a glass of water and a stack of napkins. We’re doing this in the restaurant booth, and people are looking at us.

“You’re pouring water down my butt,” Hartley complains.

“Sit still,” Max orders.

I put mine on my arms, hoping it’ll draw attention to the biceps I’ve been working on. Max watches us girls put our tattoos on, and he decides that he wants to get one too. He wanders off the vending machine and comes back with a spider tattoo, which he also puts on his arms. I rather think that the tattoos have been mixed up; I the Canadian should have gotten the Eternal Flame, Max the Gay Namibian should have gotten the pink fairy, and Hartley should have gotten the spider, because she’s got long thin arms and long thin legs that are made to look even longer with her four inch stiletto heels.

By then I’ve finished slurping my vodka soda and we’ve paid the bill. Hartley wants to hit up the gay bar in Katutura one last time, but I’m feeling the effects of having watched the sun rise yesterday so I ask them to walk me to the cab stands. This is the last time Hartley’s going to be in the mall. This is the last time I’m going to see Hartley. I don’t do good-byes very well, so I pretend this is not the last time. I pretend that we are just a couple of teenagers hanging out at the mall in the suburbs, killing time the night before school starts tomorrow. We are not in Africa. We are not grown adults. I was never robbed. Hartley is not being sent away to America on a sixteen hour fight. We’re just hanging out, us and our cool new tattoos.

don't like to talk about leaving so i'll show you my tattoo

"By the time the buzz was wearing off
we were standing out on the sidewalk
with our tattoos that looked like rings
in the hot Nevada sun
and they won't fade

I've got you to thank..."
-Ben Folds

taking the long way to the mountain in Okahandja

2012-01-26T08:53:00.000+02:00

(continued from the previous entry, in which I agree to go on a spontaneous road trip to Okahandja, before passing out after a night of partying)

Mathias

Felix is in rougher shape than us when he picks us up in his car on Saturday morning. He’d gone drinking until 6AM. Me, I still have kizomba music ringing in my ears and I’m trying to figure out if an Oshikandela is good or gross for a hangover (I’ll drink it either way), but other than that I’m feeling pretty excited for my weekend trip to the trophy lodge. Whatever that is.

Felix’s parents run a taxidermist workshop in Okahandja, a town about 70 kilometres north of Windhoek. They seem like lovely eccentric folks, judging from their enormous property in the wilderness. The lodge had been robbed a few weeks ago, but it was still full of interesting stuff. Felix’s mother paints ostrich eggs, so they were all over a desk. Besides the taxidermy workshop full of animal skulls and kudu horns soaking in various odd-smelling liquids, they have all sorts of butterflies and tarantulas pinned in frames hung on the bedroom walls, not to mention a real live poisonous puff adder snake in a cage in the living room. Puff adders are one of the deadliest snakes in Africa and of course as a result I am fascinated by them, although I don’t know why anyone would keep on in their living room. There apparently used to be two puff adders, but one killed the other during feeding time, when he accidentally bit his friend. I don’t know how snakes could ever French kiss each other.

I tried to talk to the puff adder, even hissing HARRY POTTER in Parseltongue, but he wouldn’t have any of it. Deadly snake, my butt. This one lives a cushy life, not moving ever.

They also had a pen outside holding about a half a dozen pet meerkats. I’ve decided that meerkats (also known as suricate) are the cutest animals that exist, not that I needed much convincing after the Lion King. Felix’s meerkats all move in unison, following you around, always curious to be a part of whatever action is happening.

right here, I am the action that is happening.

Besides the random live and dead animals around the house, the lodge also had a beautiful braai area outside with a mosquito-net covered swing and a swimming pool by a row of palm trees. I spent most of my time going back and forth between swimming in the pool and dozing off under the mosquito net on the swing, while Willbedone played ZZ Top from inside the house. We were introduced to Mathias, a friend staying at the house, who spoke only German, but that was okay since I was busy swimming and sleeping anyway. It’s a pretty great way to beat stress, and I was glad that Willbedone had convinced me to come up here to take my mind off last week’s robbery. I had a similar offer from Ellie to get away for the weekend and hang out in Johannesburg, but I felt like hanging out in one of the most crime-ridden cities would not actually help take my mind off the robbery. No, this little bizarre animal haven in the wilderness was just what I needed.

In the evening, Felix cooked us up some juicy oryx meat on the braai while Willbedone whipped up some wild rice and a salad with homemade dressing. We ate outside while we listened to the various noises that night animals make. Afterwards, Felix fell asleep on the swing with his dog Chica, and we had a few beers while chatting with Mathias, who, as it turned out, did understand English.

The next morning, somebody in the house was blasting John Lee Hooker and I was wondering if I had been drunk when I packed the day before. I had forgotten a toothbrush but had brought at least two different tubes of lipstick. Why? What was the logic in this?

I had spent the previous day lounging while enjoying the view of the mountains around us. On Sunday, we decided that we were going to climb up to the peak of the highest mountain in sight.

this is what we were going to climb

I always joke about how as a lawyer I like clear unambiguous direction so I prefer clearly marked hiking trails, but everyone knows that sometimes the best trails are the ones you make on your own. Trailblazing can be fun, especially if you're with someone like Mathias, who had this super belt that carried several litres of water, a knife, and a number of other nifty hiking tools. He spends a lot of time in the bush.

So we cut through the bush, making our own trail. This wasn't actually because we went out and said, "let's make our own trail." It was more because the boys couldn't remember where the actual trail was. Once in a while we would come across an old animal trap made of wires. Felix and Mathias would cut them down and bury them under a rock so no one could get hurt. We were too late for some of them - we found a few kudu skulls along the ground.

On our journey, we came across a couple of fences as well. Obviously I have no qualms about jumping them, since I consider a good fence hop a part of a good hike. After I jumped the last fence, however, I found myself face to face with two angry (and unleashed) dogs.

this was a bit of a frightening moment. Mathias stood in front of us, staring the dogs down, while Willbedone backed away (she had been bitten by a dog once as a child) and Felix scooped up his little dog Chica, who was freaking out.

I'm sure I'm talked before about the mean guard dogs of Namibia who act as supplementary alarm systems against trespessers on private property. People don't really keep friendly pet dogs here, ones that are well-mannered and respectful; instead, a lot of the dogs here are loud and mean, mean, mean.

A lot of times when you're confronted with these mean-mean-mean dogs, the trick is to stand steadfast and stare at them straight, acting with authority and confidence, like an owner would. Unfortunately this involves having to hide the fear in your eyes, and that's hard to do when you're doing a mental calculation of how much faster you can run than your friends.

Luckily, just as both the dogs and I were tiring of this staring contest, I heard a human voice calling from the distance, and the property's caretaker came running down the path with a stick. I've never been so glad to see a stick in my life. The caretaker shooed the dogs away and told us we were welcome to walk through the property to get to the mountain, because that was the quickest route. We looked at the sight of the two big dogs and envisioned them following us the whole time and thought, let's take the long way to the mountain.

eventually we found the proper mountain trail and our climb up the mountain became a lot easier. Once we reached the summit after scrambling up a set of boulders, we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the whole Okahandja area.

the wooden cross at the summit

I was surprised to see how green everything was.

From the mountain peak, we got a lovely view of Felix's house where we were staying...and we could also hear the house alarm going off. Uh oh.

the lodge below us

It was a bit of an odd moment. If the house was being robbed again, there was nothing we could do about it - it would take us almost two hours to get back down to the house. So we just found a spot to sit on the boulders and ate the cheese and liver sandwiches Felix had packed us while we listened to the house alarm and waited for the security company to show up.

It was an amazing sight. There was literally nothing as high as us for miles around except the buzzards circling the sky. Felix had laughed at me for lugging heavy Savanna cider bottles up the mountain with me, but as Willbedone and I cracked them open - they were still cold - I knew it was totally worth it. It's the Hasher in me that craves cold brews at high heights.

I asked the boys if the mountain had a name, but they didn't know. We decided to call it Mount Chica, after Felix's dog who had led us all the way up to the top, checking back occasionally make sure we were all right. This made me glad Chica wasn't eaten by the other mean-mean-mean dogs.

The descent from the mountain was fairly quick, which was good because the sun had come out from behind the clouds and was blazing hot. We walked into the town to buy some cold Wuma, a "health" drink owned by famous Namibian kwaito artist EES. The streets of Okahandja were quiet and abandoned - everyone was out at church or drinking on their lawn. Despite this, we still managed to find a taxicab willing to drive Willbedone and me back to Windhoek. I felt ready to return home. It had been a therapeutic weekend of relaxing and indulging in beautiful nature, which was just what I needed.

The weekend wasn't completely over though. that evening, Willbedone and I hiked Avis Dam with the Hashers, our second hike of the day.

stress relief with the Angolans

2012-01-24T09:30:00.008+02:00

“Girl, you need to get out of town to relax and get your mind off things,” Willbedone tells me. “Felix’s parents have a trophy lodge outside of Okahandja. Why don’t you come spend the weekend with us up there?”

She’s right. I’ve been through a stressful week, having my house broken into and being robbed of almost everything valuable that I had brought to Africa. When I called home to Canada to tell my parents, the news, I found out that they had been in a ten car accident on the highway because of the snow and the ice. They were very shaken up. On the same day, the car my sister had been driving broke down and refused to be fixed one last time.

I maintained that I was feeling perfectly fine despite being robbed, but then I always have a tendency to repress my feelings. But it occurred to me that I might be stressed out too when I found myself wolfing down a sugary calorie-filled apple tart while standing in front of the gym I had been planning to work out at, feeling uncharacteristically sluggish.

I declined politely though, not wanting to impose on a possibly awkward situation. Felix is Willbe’s ex, whom she still lives with because she’s still looking for another place to stay. I told her that I had plans for an intense three hour workout at the gym: that should shake my blues.

“Okay,” she said, determined to take care of me, bless her soul. “But we should go out tonight.”

And that’s how I ended up at an Angolan house party in Windhoek West. It was quite the party. Apparently the kids had shown up for lunch, and by the time we arrived at two in the morning, the party was still going on strong, with Angolan music videos playing on the flat screen TV while the kids danced and the host tried to shush everyone so the neighbours wouldn’t complain.

I had, for some reason, assumed that most of the Angolans in the Namibia would be refugees fleeing from the civil war. According to my friends, Windhoek is has a lot of wealthy Angolan kids sent to Namibia to study, whose parents send them money every month so they can party all weekend long. It sounds fantastic. I’m not sure I have the stamina for that. I’m not sure I had the stamina for that in university.

When we arrived at the party, we were presented with loud cheers and Angolan-style greetings (two kisses on the cheek, they insisted. One bow, I replied) and boxed wine and smoked ham. The host was a young guy of few words named Eddie who had an odd affinity for women’s shoes. He immediately took my shoes, a pair of high heels that Micheal had convinced me to wear for the night, and starting prancing around in them with far more grace than I could. Well, fair is only fair so I grabbed his flipflops (Micheal says you can always tell someone is Angolan by the “pluckies” they are wearing that are several sizes too small) which fit me far more comfortably than my stilettos. That was how I found myself dancing with a guy who was wearing my own heels.

The Angolans were trying to teach me to dance. There was a lot of booty popping. Everyone in the music videos was booty popping, all the girls, even the drag queen (especially the drag queen). Everyone dancing on the floor was booty popping. Booty popping is not a really standard Canadian dance move when you're singing along to, say, Stan Rogers or Great Big Sea, and I feel like booty popping is not a standard dance move in traditional Korean dance repertoire either (from what I gather, Korean dance involves a lot of careful stepping and smiling sadly but bravely with your eyes lowered to the ground).

Nevertheless, I was doing my best, but the Angolan style of music, kizomba, is difficult not because it’s complicated, but because the beat is much slower than hiphop. Just imagine that you’re at your high school dance, and the slow dance is on, but instead of just awkwardly standing with your partner a foot apart with your hand reluctantly on his sweaty shoulders while the chaperone carefully supervises, you are expected to dance closely following your partner’s skillful steps with a million intricate and subtle movements using muscles that you didn’t realized moved. The kids alternated between being horrified that I danced “like a white person” (their words, not mine) and laughing at my attempts. Like I said, I tried. What was a bit distracting was the fact that I swear the music kept repeating “Pikachu, Pikachu, Pikachu” which I am pretty sure is a Japanese anime, and not a Portguese musician. Meanwhile, Willbedone was out on the dancefloor shaking what she’s got and putting this Canadian girl to shame.

The kids nicknamed me Japonês, not because they thought I was Japanese, but because it was a far catchier name than Coreano. I suggested that they could just call me Gloria or even Guns, but Japonês just rolls off the tongue a lot easier.

The party was shut down, as all good parties are, when the police arrived at four in the morning. I was amazed at how quickly the music was turned down and the lights flicked off at the sight of a cop car. A police officer came out to tell Eddie that neighbours were complaining about some party noise.

“Yeah, it must those neighbours we have in the back,” Eddie replied, shaking his head. “They’ve been making loud noises all night. It’s just terrible. You must do something about it.”

While I was admiring Eddie’s suberb acting, another neighbor came out of her house and joined us. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Some neighbours complained about the party noise,” I told her.

“You know,” the girl said, suddenly turning indignant. “I bet you it was those white neighbours of ours who complained. I am not racist, but I just hate white people sometimes. They move into our black neighbourhoods, and they know there are black people there, and then they complain about our noises and our parties. I mean, where do they think they are? And they can just be so racist.”

I’m trying to think of something to say when Willbedone finally finds us a cab so we can sneak away from the police. “Gosh, that’s just awful,” I said to Willbedone in the car.

“You know, I’m pretty sure that she’s the one who called the cops,” she told me.

i really like this song

I’m feeling pretty good right now, and start wondering if I really want to go to the gym for three hours tomorrow. I’ve already been dancing all night, and the sun is going to come up in an hour or two. I turn to Willbedone. “Let’s go to Okahandja tomorrow,” I say. “Road trip!”

“I’ve already told Felix,” she says, beaming.

on being asian in namibia

2012-01-23T08:32:00.007+02:00

새해 복 많이 받으세요! Happy Lunar New Year!

When I moved to Africa, I brought with me one pack of 맛있는 ramen (literally, delicious brand) and one pack of Chappaghetti, an instant noodle version of my favourite Korean dish 자장면. I figured that Korean comfort food might not be readily available in Namibia, so my plan was to eat the Chappaghetti as a treat on Christmas and the ramen on my birthday. As it turned out, I was in Cape Town over the holidays so I got to eat real Korean food – kimchi chigae – so I decided to save my Korean instant noodles until I had a bad day, like if I got robbed or something

(and so now the Chappaghetti has been consumed...)

“Per capita, South Koreans consume the greatest amount of instant noodles.”
-Wikipedia

Being Korean in Namibia is a very unique experience, although not a lot of people realize that my experiences are sometimes different from theirs. I don’t, for example, share my foreigner friends’ concerns about being mistaken for an Afrikaner or a German Namibian. When I walk the streets alone, I get a very different form of street harassment than my girl friends do, although nobody ever knows about it because it only happens when I’m alone. When I first arrived in Namibia, I wrote a little about my impressions of being Asian in Namibia. Now that I’ve been here for a bit longer, I can expand on this a bit further. It seems particularly suitable to do it now that today is the Lunar New Year, one of the biggest holidays to celebrate in many Asian countries.

are you the only Korean in Namibia?
Sometimes I feel like I am. I am being told, however, that I am not. I have been told that there are some North Korean workers here, and one woman named Jin-Seng who sells kimchi. I have been given her number, but I am too shy to call her up, even at the worst of my kimchi cravings.

then how do you get your kimch fix?
There is a small shop in the Hidas centre run by a young Taiwanese couple. The kimchi is at best okay. It’s not made with the proper nappa cabbage and it’s nothing close to what my grandmother makes. But it’s better than nothing...sometimes. Sometimes nothing is actually better.

Who are the other Asians in Namibia?
I read this great book over the holidays called “A Matter of Honour: Being Chinese in South Africa” written by Yoon Jung Park (who is Korean). It follows the history of Chinese people in South Africa, from the indentured workers and shopowners who arrived centuries ago, to the Chinese communities dealing with apartheid laws only two decades ago. There actually is a significant Chinese population in South Africa that has been here for several generations, and many of these people consider themselves to be Chinese-South African, or sometimes more South African than Chinese.

Namibia does not seem to have a similar Chinese community that has been here for many generations. However, China in general has a large business presence in Africa, so there are actually a lot more Chinese labourers and businessmen in Namibia than you’d expect. Most of them are straight from China, and they seem to generally stick to themselves. This is probably why Namibians assume I am Chinese, and why they are so surprised that I speak English.

My understanding is that there used to be quite a few Malaysian factory workers here, although I don't know if they're still around.

I met two friendly young Asian-Americans working for the American embassy here, named Anna and Steve. They are the only second generation Asians I have met here. They were the ones who told me about the existence of the kimchi-seller in Namibia.

how do Namibian men behave towards young Asian women?
I think straight Namibian men have a secret game that they play that is similar to our game Punchbuggy. In Punchbuggy, every time you see a yellow VW car, you have to punch your friend while yelling “Punchbuggy!” In this game that Namibian men play, every time you see a young Asian woman, you have to yell “CHINA!” at them, possibly punctuated by offensive ape-like sounds that you think imitates the Chinese language.

It’s either a game where you score points, or it’s a bizarre medical condition similar to Tourette’s Syndrome where the sight of a young Asian woman shuts off an otherwise perfectly normal Namibian man’s brain, and produces ticks that involuntarily force to exclaim “China!” and a series of socially inappropriate words.

Sometimes it does seem like an involuntary tick. Once when a security guard did it to me, I turned around and demanded to him, “What did you just call me?” and he had the most surprised look on his face, as though he too was surprised at the words that came out of his mouth. Although he might have just been surprised that I spoke English.

What complicates things is that Afrikaners will sometimes use the word “My China” to mean “my friend”.

This has resulted in me having no motivation to ever do my hair, wear makeup, or wear properly fitting gender-appropriate clothes. If I can have Namibian men yell at me that they want to marry me because I am beautiful, when I am slumping around town in a men’s baseball cap, yesterday’s ponytail, thick glasses and my dad’s swimming drunks, I have no reason to ever try to look decent.

How do the other Namibians behave?
Creepy male strangers on the street aside, I have found most of the Namibians I’ve met and hung out with to be enlightened, polite, and respectful to me. When they ask where I am from, I say “Canada”, and they accept that as an answer, rather than pester me to reveal where I’m really, really from like the way some white Canadians do to me back at home. They don’t generally address my race unless I bring it up first, which is how I like it. This may be because the Namibians that I meet are the ones who are used to making friends with tourists and foreigners. It may also be because I have awesome Namibian friends.

Some Namibian women have asked me to give them my hair when I leave Namibia, because they really like my hair and would like to turn them into extensions. I find this to be quite flattering.

where can you buy asian groceries?
I mainly get my Asian ingredients from the Taiwanese store. There is a “Chinatown” in the Northern Industrial District, but it’s rather far and out of the way, and I haven’t had a chance to go yet.

I have also found out how to buy tofu in Namibia. Basically I go through the Taiwanese couple, placing an order beforehand. The tofu orders come once a week, on Mondays, and I have to rush there after work in order to get my pre-ordered week's supply of tofu before the store closes. It's kind of hardcore. I've started ordering tofu for my friends too, because it's such a pain-in-the-butt process, and have become somewhat of a tofu dealer in Windhoek.

where can you eat asian food?
There are two Chinese restaurants that I know of in Windhoek. One is the Yang Tze Village in Klein Windhoek. My Namibian friends tell me that the Chinese gang members meet in the private rooms here on Sunday evenings. My white friends don’t like the food here, but this may be because they are ordering from the menu, which I never do. I find that if you have a simple craving for Chinese take-out, this place can hit the spot. One of the owners is a Chinese-Canadian from Vancouver, and I have somehow gotten on a first name basis with their daughter, who likes to talk about how much she wants to go back to Vancouver, and how she can’t believe that I’d voluntarily move to Namibia out of my own free will. She lets me order off the menu.

The other Chinese restaurant is a fancier looking one called Chez Wou at the country club. I know. When you think “Chinese restaurant”, you don’t usually think “country club” or anything starting with “Chez”. But it makes sense here. With all the Chinese businessmen investing in building projects around the country, I guess they want a nice place to have meetings and entertain their guests, and what better place than a Chinese restaurant at a country club? This may also explain why there is a casino here as well. I like this place a lot too, and would probably eat here more often if it wasn't so far away at the country club and so dangerously close to a casino.

There are rumours of an Indian restaurant somewhere in Windhoek. Nobody knows where it is. I suspect it has been shut down.

do you feel more Asian in Namibia?
Yes. Partly because of how strangers perceive me, but also the acute lack of my parents’ Korean food every night. Also, although many Namibians seem to view me as being white, I often experience feeling like I have a different identity from my white friends in terms of certain attitudes (and, dare I joke, dance moves?). This is somewhat unusual because in Ottawa, I don’t have a terribly strong sense of being Korean. Moving here, however, has amplified it quite a bit. Post-apartheid Namibia is one big identity crisis for all of us.

I did, however, have one interesting race-related experience with a taxi driver.

cab driver: "I want to meet a nice coloured girl. What tribe are you from?"

me: "er...tribe of Canada?"

cab driver, miraculously still not clueing in that I'm not part black: "Oh, I see. I've been looking to marry a coloured girl, you see. Are you married?"

me: "Yes, I am married." (Awkward pause) "Why do you want to marry a coloured girl? Do you find them to be pretty?"

cab driver: "Well, you see, I drive this taxi all day so I have back problems. So I'm can't really please a woman."

me: "I understand." (I didn't actually understand) "Well, I think this is my stop, I'm going to go now." Gloria steps into traffic.

This was the first time, but oddly enough not the only time, that I was mistaken for a coloured girl (part black, part white) in Namibia. It felt almost refreshing to be noticed for once as a coloured girl, rather than as a China.

Got more questions on the topic? Ask me! Maybe I'll answer. Or maybe I won't. Chances are I might not, since my laptop was stolen. But ask away anyway!

reflections on being robbed

2012-01-19T15:05:00.003+02:00

“Painted over the walls
the saddest colour of blue
posters covered in glass
favorite curbside grab
red Valentine's card
stuck on the mirror to keep
record player made of tubes
spinning Tommy by The Who

There's no time to waste
There's no time to wait…”
-Kathleen Edwards, “Pink Emerson Radio”

Willbedone was texting and calling me frantically all day, trying to get in touch with me. I was out of phone credit so I couldn’t answer, but I was wondering what was up. She told me that she just had a bad feeling about me and was worried that something was happening.

As it turns out, her instincts were right. When I got home from work with an armful of groceries, I saw that my flat had been ransacked. My closet doors were flung open with my clothes and papers dumped out all over the floor. The sheets had been ripped off my mattress, and even my fridge had been open, with a bowl of rice pulled out and left on the counter. There was also a bag of biltong on the ground. I turned around, feeling my heart sink, and saw that someone had forced my balcony door wide open.

Immediately I dropped to my knees and frantically sifting through the pile of clothes, knowing deep down inside that I wasn’t going to find my laptop anywhere. My beautiful blue guitar was gone too. Dammit, dammit, dammit. I heard the roar of my landlord’s car outside my place and without thinking I found myself trying to flag him down, running down my street in my socks.

Robbery is fairly common in Windhoek, which is the reason why so many of the houses here are fiercely guarded by mean dogs, high concrete fences topped with electric barbed wires, and security guards pacing back and forth outside. People can get robbed everywhere; in Klein Windhoek, in Katutura, in their homes, on the streets, in taxicabs. Seems like all parts of the population get targeted too, blacks, coloureds, whites, women, men, tourists, foreigners, even Mr. Gay Namibia. To a certain extent, I can understand why robbery would be so common here. Namibia has the highest Gini coefficient in the world, which means Namibia has the biggest gap between the rich and the poor. I can only imagine how some folks must feel, leaving their impoverished shacks early every morning to pass these ridiculously huge and luxurious houses, hiding behind menacing-looking fences, feeling the hunger in their bellies as these rich people throw out their leftovers that could feed a whole family...

Still, my empathy for wealth inequality issues did not extend far enough to feel good about being burglarized. I texted Allison: “I’ve been robbed.”

She replied: “Seriously robbed, or like robbed by a baboon?”

Man, if only it had been baboons that had come through my balcony. They would have eaten the biltong and left the laptop. Bummer. I reached into my grocery bag and cracked open a Windhoek Lager. I had bought the beer for my friends, since my wedding diet prohibits beer, but with my head spinning the way it was, I felt like I could probably stand to cheat a little.

My next task was to get out of my office pants, because I hate pants, and because if I was going to be angry and robbed, I might was well be angry and robbed in comfortable clothing. Then I called the police, who came over quite quickly, and I gave them my statement as I sipped my beer.

(By that point I had the sense to put on some shorts so at least I wasn’t completely pantsless.)

I found the two police officers to be very friendly, although the “giving my statement” process was pretty interesting. It consisted of one police officer dictating my statement to the other police officer, who was professional in demeanor but somewhat illiterate.

“I arrived home around 6:00 when I realized that my house had been robbed,” Cop 1 would dictate.
“How do you spell ‘realized’?” Cop 2 interrupts.
“No, you spelled ‘released.’” Cop 1 points out.
Then Cop 1 would continue. “My acoustic guitar was missing.”
“How do you spell acoustic guitar? G-I-T-E-R?”
“A-C-Q-O-S-T-I-C…”
“Shouldn’t I be making the statement?” I ask. I also wonder if I shouldn’t be the one writing it too, at the pace that this spelling lesson was going.
“It’s okay,” they tell me.

I drank the rest of my beer.

I’m trying to make a mental list of what the burglars took, but it’s kind of hard to notice what you don’t have. These things weren’t totally logical, either. It made sense that they had taken the computer and the camera. And my entire series of the West Wing. And maybe it made sense to take my suitcases too, to hold the goods in. But why the robbers decided to steal my towels, I wasn’t sure. Nor why they helped themselves to my rice, or put the biltong on the floor...

“What else was taken?”
“My backpack.”
“What type?”
“Mountain Equipment Coop.”
“M-O-U…?”
“Never mind. It was blue. Also, they stole my ukulele.”
“Y-O-O…”
“Here, why don’t you let me write that one,” I offered.
Cop 2 obliged.

“Where do you work?” Cop 1 asked me
“I work at the Legal Assistance Centre,” I replied.
“Oh, you guys are the one that are always attacking us,” Cop 1 said. I felt awkward. Dean then proceeded to engage in a debate with the cops about police brutality and rule of law. I felt my head spinning again, so I cracked open another beer.

I was also getting hungry by then, but couldn’t bring myself to eat the biltong the robbers had left on the floor.

Cop 2 had me read over my statement before I signed it. I silently hoped that this statement would never, ever find its way to a potential employer evaluating my legal writing skills.

”Keys on the hook by the door
for the truck sold years ago
standing guitars in the case
filling up closet space
vintage 40's wardrobe
pink Emerson radio
old lace dress I bought in the store
motorcycle boots on the floor

There's no time to waste
There's no time to wait…”

Allison convinced me that calories don’t count when you’ve been robbed. We ordered some pizza, she bought me some ice cream, and we sat on her bed watching episodes of Parks and Recreation. It was kind of nice to take my mind off things for a while.

The next day was spent trying to pick up the pieces. Not really literally: I went back to my apartment with the intention of cleaning up the mess, but found a trail of ants marching around my cooler and my fridge, and gave up on folding my clothes. I’d deal with that later.

Instead, I decided to be proactive in a different way. I printed off pictures of my guitar and then proceeded to visit every single pawn shop in Windhoek – which was three. I explained my story and give them the picture, in case anyone tries to sell my stuff to them.

Unfortunately this was the only photo I had of me with my guitar. why don't you cut your hair, gloria?

I also hit up the music stores. I was touched by how kind and sympathetic everyone was when they heard my story. Lots of people get robbed here, but people still get angry when they hear about it. One young male store clerk vividly described in gory detail the vigilante justice he would unleash on the robber, if the robber ever came into his store. It was mildly alarming, but still touching at the same time.

It’s been quite the stressful ordeal for me, and I think once the shock wears off it’ll take me a long time to feel comfortable again. But like I said, this one criminal act has brought out the kindness in everyone else in Namibia, it seems. Friends have sent me sweet messages offering their sympathy, support, and even temporary use of their laptops. My boss said that she hopes this experience hasn’t ruined my whole time in Namibia for me, and it may still be early, but I don’t think it has. These things happen sometimes. I was lucky that I wasn’t hurt, and that they didn’t take more stuff. And it was nice to see how great everyone else could be in supporting me. After all, the rest of my time in Namibia has been pretty fantastic.

Now, time to buy some towels.

“Sirens up on the street
smoke is burning my eyes
and the neighbours are screaming at me
I can only carry one thing
I can only carry one thing

There's no time to waste
There's no time to wait…”
-Kathleen Edwards, “Pink Emerson Radio”

getting robbed by a baboon

workday wednesday update

2012-01-18T16:43:00.005+02:00

"Gloria," you say. "what is it you do all day? you're not actually paid by our Canadian tax dollars to just climb mountains in bikinis...are you?"

No, no, I do actually work regular 8-5 hours during the week, although you probably can't always tell with this blog. Because it's hump day wednesday, here's an update on some of the stuff i've been working on.

My organization has been tasked with helping the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration re-write the Births, Marriages and Deaths Registration Act. Currently the Act in power was put in place in 1963 and is left over from the South African apartheid days and is, to say the least, a little bit archaic. Before we put a new law in place, however, there are all sorts of issues to explore and who is better than the visiting young Canadian lawyers to get to research these issues?

The topic I'm looking at concerns the use of birth certificates as proof of citizenship. Here, not everyone travels outside of the country, so not everyone has a passport, and so sometimes it's hard to prove you are a Namibian citizen. So the Namibian government likes to use birth certificates as proof of Namibian citizenship. This can create practical problem for some people though. For example, foreign parents may be reluctant to register the birth of their children, even though it's important to register all births in order to ensure that children have access to social services and even the right to vote. All of this stems from the fact that Namibian citizenship criteria is a bit complicated and involves the concept of "ordinarily resident", which is a legal concept that is applied differently in every case. My task it to conduct a international comparative analysis of what other countries do to prove citizenship, especially with regards to birth registration.

I'm also helping to design a comic book! We publish many comic books every year, explaining to the public their legal rights and obligations in a manner that is fun and easy to understand. You can read one of the comics here. As an avid comic lover, this assignment pleases me immensely.

we did not die in the desert

2012-01-16T01:53:00.019+02:00

“after two days in the desert sun
my skin began to turn red.
after three days, in the desert fun,
i was looking at a river bed
and the story it told, of a river that flowed,
made me sad to think it was dead…”
-“Horse With No Name” by America

“So do you want to do the four hour hike or the eight hour hike?” Julia asked as we prepared to set off on our girls’ camping trip in the hot Namib Desert. We had planned a fun weekend of girly bonding, climbing the Naukluft Mountains, and burning things.

I was tempted to go for the eight hour hike, because like Julia, I love hiking and could do it all day. The ultimate hike in the Naukluft Mountains, of course, was the 120 km eight-day-long Naukluft Trail, famous for being one of the toughest hiking trails in Africa. Maybe we’d save that for another trip.

We packed the car full of more food and snacks than I eat in a week – this is what happens when you travel with girls – and hit the road. We left the city, passing the enormous Heroes Acres monument outside Windhoek, which one of the girls joked would be the only phallic symbol we’d see all weekend. The rest of the car ride was full of girly conversation about Lisa Loeb, yoga and the like.

when girls pack for a camping trip

The Naukluft Mountains are a mountain range located in the Namib Desert, not too far from Sossusvlei and Sesriem, a couple of hours southwest of Windhoek. We passed the mountains on our way to Sossusvlei last year and I remember being completely awestruck at how beautiful they were, like nothing I had ever seen before. The feeling returned as we pulled into the Namib-Naukluft National Park.

Other than the two friendly park staff at the camp office and one quiet French family at the next campsite, we seemed to be the only people in the entire area. The park gets a lot busier around March and towards Namibia’s wintertime. Apparently not everyone wants to go hiking in the desert at the height of hot summer, like us.

We unpacked some of the massive storage of food we had brought along and made ourselves a nice little picnic lunch in the braai area of our campsite.

By the time we finished eating, the sun had climbed to the highest part of the sky and it was the hottest part of the day. We saw on our rudimentary map that there were some swimming holes along the Waterkloof trail, the eight hour 17 km trail that Julia had referred, so we set off on the trail in search for water.

Along the way we came across a gopher-like animal that looked awfully cute at first, but got angrier and angrier as we kept taking pictures.

angry gopher thing

Eventually we came across a nice little natural pool at the foot of a small waterfall that was perfect for swimming. Feeling unbearably sweaty, we immediately jumped in, trying not to feel too grossed out by the soft mushy moss-like surface beneath our toes. Besides the spongey things, the cool water was wonderfully refreshing.

When we continued along the trail, we found an even nice swimming hole that was deeper and gross-mushy-stuff-free.

imitating a Sports Illustrated cover photoshoot

After our swim, we headed back to camp to build a fire and cook our dinner. Allison and Julia are both vegetarians to some degree, so I cooked my own separate dinner of delicious boerewors sausages.

Yes, my sausages are dripping grease into the girls’ healthy vegetarian meal.

We had a lovely evening of watching the fire, drinking vodka, burning things after dousing them with vodka, and gossiping about celebrities and chick flicks. As the night set in, the stars came out shining more brilliantly than you could ever see in the city. We lay down on the ground by the fire and watched the night sky until clouds came in at midnight and I hit the sack.

Smores!

burning things

things in the night watch our campsite

The next morning, I left my tent to find broken egg shells all around the campsite and the largest baboon I had ever seen strolling right past me. The baboons had eaten our feta cheese and eggs overnight.

After a quick breakfast of peanut butter banana sandwiches and fruit, Julia and I got ready to try the the Olive Trail, while Allison lounged around the campsite - she was not feeling up for the 10 kilometre hike. It was 38 degrees, and our four hour hike through the desert would take us through high noon, the hottest part of the day. Because neither Julia or I are early risers, we keep doing this, hiking through the heat. It’s like we are gluttons for punishment.

“on the first part of the journey
i was looking at all the life
there were plants and birds, and rocks and things
there was sand and hills and rings
the first thing i met was a fly with a buzz
and the sky, with no clouds.
the heat was hot, and the ground was dry,
but the air was full of sound...”

The Olive Trail

“Where do you think the nearest person is?” Julia asked me after some time hiking. We had not seen a single soul for a while, not even an animal. The silent isolation of the Naukluft Mountains was something that we could never get used to. To step back and look all around you and see that you are surrounded by nothing but wilderness – it was an incredible feeling.

The Olive Trail was a curious route and despite being the shortest trail, was by no means an easy hike. Unlike most mountain hikes, this trail got progressively more and more difficult as we went on. The first hour involves a steep but fairly safe climb to the summit of one of the mountains (another hour on nature’s Stairmaster), and then the next three hours is spent descending carefully into a deep and long canyon with often treacherous footing. I felt like it should have been called the Ankle Breaker trail, because it was so easy to trip on a boulder and sprain your leg – and then what? Inevitably someone would have to go on without you to get help from the park staff, if they were even around, but medical rescue in the canyon seemed difficult, if possible at all. But it added to the excitement of the hike.

standing at the summit

Julia

gloria on the rocks

The trail was marked by the occasional posting of a white footprint. I kind of wish they had chosen a more obvious colour, because a lot of the rocks had white markings on it that was confusing. Furthermore, as the trail become more difficult, the footprint, or Mr. Foot as we called it, became less frequent and much more hidden. It soon became some sort of twisted game like Where’s Waldo, except this one was called Try To Find Mr. Foot Or Else You Will Get Lost and Die In The Desert. I have no idea why anyone would plan a trail this way.

Mr Foot

yeah that's quite the canyon.

At one point, we were climbing down a giant boulder with about a ten foot drop when Julia stopped.

“Gloria, there’s a dead body at the bottom.”

“What?”

She meant a dead animal’s body. It was half-eaten, so we couldn’t quite tell what kind of animal it had been originally, something similar to a small deer. What was much more of a concern was that the thing had the insensitivity to die in the best spot to jump down from the boulder. How were we going to get down?

time to heat up the braai?

“Maybe the carcass will provide some soft cushioning for our fall?” I suggested.

Julia the vegetarian did not agree.

Eventually we found our way down the boulder around the carcass. But then we came across another obstacle.

It was kind of amusing to follow our gradual realization of what we had to do to move on.

“Ew, that is a disgusting pool of water….wait, how are we supposed to get past it?...Oh, there’s a chain.”

Let me explain. At one point of the trail, the canyon narrows to about ten metres wide, with the canyon walls still deep and totally vertical. Ahead of us is a steep drop from the boulder we stood on and at the bottom was, not a dead carcass this time, but a deeper gross-green pool of swampy still water. Of course Mr. Foot had disappeared at this point, leaving us to figure out how to get across. When I spotted the chain fastened to the side of the canyon wall, I realized that what we were meant to do was scale across the canyon wall using nothing but the chain. Essentially we were rock climbing without any safety harness gear.

oh that's right, i'm also afraid of heights.

I went across first, pretending to be totally okay with it. Thank God I’ve been going to the gym lately and have awesome upper body strength. At a few points there simply were no footholds so it was all about using my sweet biceps to carry me across, dragging myself along the chain, trying not to think about the fact that if I fell, I would

1) possibly hit my head on the boulders
2) touch the gross green water

At one point I slipped off the rock and found myself dangling with my hands, my feet kicking in the air. I tried not to picture that scene from Cliffhanger. This is nothing, I told myself, just pretend you’re doing pull-ups on Joseph’s chin up bar. I imagined that I was just doing one of the aerial courses at Camp Fortune, found a foothold, and made it across. As soon as my foot hit solid ground, my lawyer’s mind released its fury. This is such a tort liability. Tort! Tort! Tort!

“Yeah, that was a piece of cake,” I told Julia, who was making her way across now.

Tort!

Luckily that was the toughest part of the trail and there was no more insane bouldering. Mr. Foot reappeared finally and led us to the end of the trail. We picked up Allison from the campsite and headed home, stopping off at the bottle store in the little town Rietoog to buy some ice cold mango pine juice. We played Alanis Morrissette’s Jagged Little Pill album on the way home, singing along to every line – because that’s what you do when you travel with girls.

“you see i've been through the desert on a horse with no name,
it felt good to be out of the rain.
in the desert you can remember your name,
'cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain”
-“Horse With No Name” by America

we now return to our regular programming

2012-01-13T11:59:00.003+02:00

after this.

So much better than bungee jumping into the Zambezi river with a faulty bungee cord.

In case you're joining in just now, here's an overview of my awesome Christmas vacation:

hitting the road
arriving in Zambia
Victoria Falls, Zambia: getting robbed by a baboon, swimming at the edge of the waterfalls
Chobe National Park, Botswana
ironic high tea in Zimbabwe
living the life of the rich and famous in Sandton, Johannesburg
living a different kind of life in the township of Soweto, Johannesburg
Christmas Eve in Soweto
Christmas and church in Soweto
my birthday in Soweto
...partying some more on my birthday, in Soweto
road trip around the Cape Peninsula where I get bitten by a penguin
Table Moutain, Cape Town and sushi
Robben Island, Cape Town and beaches, and kimchi
New Years Eve in Cape Town featuring a wild wine tour
New Years Day in Cape Town and gay burger joints
Lion's Head Mountain, Cape Town

I also highly recommend reading the blog entries of my colleagues that I traveled with, particularly Joseph's (and this)and Eleonora's

gloria at the top of nothing: my last day in Cape Town

2012-01-13T08:31:00.004+02:00

“and the mountains said i could find you here
they whisper the snow and the leaves in my ear
i traced my finger along your trails
your body was the map
i was lost in there..."
-"Your Rocky Spine" by Great Lake Swimmers

We awoke on Monday morning to find that the city of Cape Town had exploded into a giant parade. That’s right: January 2 is another designated day for celebrating carnival style. Because it’s been too long since the last party two days ago on New Years Eve.

Folks and their families were filling the streets wearing sparkly face paint and brightly coloured costumes. A different brass band marched down the street every minute, with children dressed as ringleaders leading the bands to a ferociously strong beat of African drums. Sometimes the band would play Simon and Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence, which was a bit ironic, given how noisy it was. It was impossible not to be dancing in the streets, and everyone was doing it like a Motown song. The good mood made everyone mind a little less the fact that all the major roads were blocked and it was impossible to drive anywhere.

"And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence..."

ok, it was not really that silent.

Despite all the festive fanfare, I was feeling disappointed that it was cloudy and chilly outside. I had my heart set on going to the beach for one last tan and indulgence in Cape Town’s beautiful bodies. But you can never depend on Cape Town weather – they say you can experience all four seasons in one day. So I consoled myself with some boutique shopping on Long Street.

Several credit card purchases later, Joseph and I decided to conquer one more mountain on our last day in Cape Town: The Lion’s Head. We built up our energy and protein grabbing a couple of multicultural shawarmas at Mixie’s, a local favourite recommended to us by one of the designers at the boutiques I had shopped at. Then we set off to climb the mountain.

We had been told that the climb to the Lion’s Head summit was much easier than Table Mountain – only 600 metres, rather than the 1000 metres – so we weren’t expecting a big challenge. But it turned out to be far more thrilling than Table Mountain, even if the climb was shorter. The summit was far steeper and narrower. At one point, the entire path was only about 2 metres wide, with sharp drastic drops on either side. There were many boulders to scramble over, and this time there was no protection in form of a barbed wire or even makers. Close to the peak, there was the option of going the exciting route or the recommended route. Hearing the voice of my parents begging me to go the safe route, I chose the exciting path.

As we climbed up the boulder face and peered over at the long way down, I felt the same feeling that came over me when I watched the waters rush down Victoria Falls as I swam in it. Fear, followed by an urge to face that fear. I could do it. Besides, someone’s middle-aged mom had just gone up ahead of me.

There was a thick fog that hugged the mountain face like a blanket, only lifting once in a while to reveal just how high in the sky we’d gone. The other times we were hidden in the clouds, where we couldn’t see anything behind, ahead around or above us, just the rock that we clung to. It gave off the air of a creepy scene in a Harry Potter film where Voldemort is going to suddenly show up. Quite the contrast from our climb up Table Mountain, where the hot oppressive sun beat down on us without mercy.

so it goes like this. gloria says, "Where's the freaking top of this mountain?"

Joseph says, "Nah, it's still cool, we could still climb it."

so we climb, wearing mountain climbing appropriate clothing.

Joseph says, "man, you're right, you really can't see the top of this mountain."

aw, road buddies.

The summit was small and narrow, less than half the size of a soccer field, but I was feeling fantastic. I was so cold inside and out from the wind and foggy dew, but climbing a mountain always gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Gloria at the top of nothing

After we climbed back down, I had to say good-bye to Joseph, my wonderful traveling companion / partner in crime / Road Oppa, as he returned to Johannesburg that night. I checked into a cheap backpacking hostel on Long Street for the night, and rode in a cab with a taxi driver who was blasting songs about lady body parts. He told me that he’d fought in Namibia for four years in the eighties against the insurgents. Back then, he said, all the white boys were conscripted to fight the freedom fighters. All of this was punctuated by the music shouting about lady body parts. It was very odd.

I decided to have my last Cape Town dinner alone at a Thai place. I love Windhoek and I looked forward to returning home, but I was really going to miss Cape Town, the magical land of mountains, hipsters, gay men, Asian food, and oceans on all sides.

view from my bus back to Windhoek

"your soft fingers between my claws
like purity against resolve
i could tell then there that we were formed from the clay
and came from the rocks for earth to display

they told me to be careful up there
where the wind rages through your hair...”
-Great Lake Swimmers

New Years Day: the morning after

2012-01-12T08:23:00.002+02:00

"on your request, i compile a list
of my top five resolutions for this year
i declined 'cause i decided
that i do not believe in the new year anymore..."
-Los Campesinos

I woke up on New Years Day with a swollen eye and what looked an awful lot like injuries from trying to do a fireman’s spin on a dance floor pole that was not meant for fireman’s spins. I was surprised at how fine I was feeling. I wasn’t sick at all, despite drinking for almost twenty-four hours and watching the sun rise. I celebrated my fine feeling with a mimosa, and later on, a cocktail at the brunch place, Arnold’s, the we walked to with Eleanora and Cesar. Unfortunately, I soon realized that the reason why I wasn’t hungover was because I was still drunk. When the hangover finally hit at 2 PM, I went back to bed.

morning mojitos

breakfast ribs: Cesar and Joseph eat warthog ribs for breakfast. disturbingly, they sing keep singing Pumba's lines from the Lion King's "Hakuna Matata" as they eat.

By the time I had slept it off, it was dinner time. Dean had wanted to go check out a gay burger joint called Beefcakes in Greenpoint. I think it is a brilliant concept. Glitter and burgers. Milkshakes and men in tank tops. Unfortunately, Dean was nowhere in sight and not answering any of our calls. We decided to go without him, with Joseph obliging us as the group’s only straight male once again. When we showed up at the Beefcakes, we found that Dean had not only decided to go to the restaurant without letting us know, but had also take our reservations that were under our name. We had to find new seats. This is typical Dean. I was not impressed.

Beefcakes was bumping, busy with burger eaters and waiters who were all incredibly in shape. Our table of girls (plus Joseph and Dean) had more females than all of other tables in the restaurant combined. The place was decorated with with a pink theme of fuzzy cowboy hats, feather boas, and general festivity. The menu offered items like Brokeback Burger, Macho Nachos, and an All "Gay" Breakfast. It also offered a body shot off the waiter of your choice for 200 rand. I did not take up this offer.

After dinner, everyone else was sleepy and headed home. Meanwhile, Joseph and I met our couple for the night, Sabrina and her husband Sasha. Sabrina is a lawyer from the CBA like me, working in Grahamstown. Sasha is a doctor. I had him look at my eye, and he assured me that I don’t have eye cancer or ocular herpes, but should probably see another doctor, seeing how he was a cardiologist and we were standing in a bar. He did not, however, say that it wasn’t an eye teratoma.

We went back to our trusty bar Cubana, which was totally packed, with barely enough room inside the bar to move around, and a lineup around the block outside.

“Isn’t anyone hung over from New Years’ Eve in this city?” Joseph demanded, sipping his fourth girly cocktail. Joseph is old. But it was true, the party never seems to stop in Cape Town. That is why I have this lump under my eye: it’s a physical manifestation of the sleep debt I’ve accumulated in this city.

new years wine

2012-01-11T08:32:00.002+02:00

houses in Amherst spaced out like the waitress' teeth
who served us coffee on the way to a useless beach
kids in the parking lot just barely getting by
since the cops found your stash, this whole town's run dry...
-the Diableros, "No One Wants To Drive"

We wanted to start celebrating New Years Eve as early as possible, but the only way we could justify drinking this early in the morning was by booking a wine tour for 8:30AM in Stellenbosch, South Africa’s famous wine country. We had a lovely South African woman of British descent named Fern as our guide who drove us around and explained to us why people do things like swirl the wine around in the glass, raise it to the light, and sniff it, rather than my preference to just chug it down.

wine tour! wine tour! wine tour!

At that point I was starting to come down with a cold and a stuffy nose, which meant I couldn’t really smell or properly taste anything, but I was not going to let that stop me from going on the wine tour. It was still a rip-roaring good time. We went with Eleanora, Cesar, Sarah, and Till.

eleonora inspects the casks

so...much...wine...

The first place we went to was a beautiful sunny champagne farm, where we got to view how champagne is made. Fern opened the bottle with a sabre. I would like to get a sabre so I can get into sabrage.

cesar wields the sabre

The second place was a wine farm called Tokara. By this point I was on my fourth glass of wine so I actually remember very little about this place, except for a vaguely racist piece of artwork on the wall that only I seemed to have noticed.

wait, when did this photo happen?

We stopped for lunch at a cute little place called Le Pommier, which had a petting zoo outside with animals that Cesar bonded with. My main question was whether the animals were for petting and pet-related purposes or for fresh food. We were served a yummy dish of bobajtie, a South African meal that comfortingly reminded me of Rob’s shepherd’s pie, with a glass of wine, of course.

Our next stop was Solms-Delta, located in the little village of Franschhoek. When we arrived, a high school brass band was performing on the lawn, which made me happy because it reminded me of my own concert band days in high school. When I die and go to heaven, I’ll be playing in a big brass band. I particularly like this winery because they gave us like nine drinks, pushing me over the edge into bubbly cheerfulness. The estate featured wines with lovely names like Cape Jazz Shiraz and Lekkerwijn. It also featured the expensive Africana wine, which incidentally was included in the 1001 Wines To Try Before You Die book. We did not get a taste of this, no matter how much we tried to plead with our drunken charm.

Our final stop was Fairview, which in addition to providing many samples of their yummy wines like their Pinotage, also offered samples of their famous cheese. Yesssss.

By the time we got back to our hotel after the tour around 6PM, we were feeling pretty darn tipsy. But it was New Years Eve! There was still much more partying to be done for the evening. It was time to man up.

We dealt with our headaches caused by red wine and hot sun by ordering some Ethiopian take-out food from Addis in Cape. I. Freaking. Love. Ethiopian. Food. We invited folks to gather at our hotel suite for pre-drinks and soon enough we were dipping back into the wine we had bought from the tour that day.

We made our way through the crowds at the Waterfront, past the overpriced restaurants packed full of overdressed tourists. it was as hectic as Canada Day on Parliament Hill, and we could barely move. there was a street party going on around every corner.

We finally found ourselves climbing down a concrete wall on to a remarkably empty dock, overlooking the harbour. It was the perfect Gloria Guns sort of moment, waiting on someone's private dock in my little black cocktail dress with my friends for the midnight countown, with a Powerade bottle full of wine wrapped in a plastic bag, bare feet dangling into the Atlantic Ocean. it was like a scene right out of my high school days, or a line from a Diableros song.

Sarah and Till

incredibly unflattering photo of me on the dock

Midnight snuck up on us without warning. If there was a countdown, we missed it, possibly because of the Powerade bottle. We initiated our own second countdown and cheered with champagne and hugs. Then it was time to go dancing. Somewhere on the streets we found Mathieu and his lady.

Several clubs and bars later, we went back to our hotel with our CBA couples, where Joseph whipped up some food that he had magically found in our fridge. It was no McDonalds, but magnificent nonetheless and we all appreciated it. By the time I stumbled into bed, the sun was already up – we had been drinking wine for nearly twenty-four hours.

here is a picture of me riding a lion for some reason.

Robben Island

2012-01-10T08:21:00.003+02:00

It was a beautiful day, the perfect kind of day to go to the beach or visit an island. Not just any island though – for the morning, Joseph had booked us a tour of Robben Island, which was used as a prison for political prisoners under the apartheid regime. Okay, so maybe hanging around the South African version of the Alcatraz not quite tropical island fantasy material, but it was definitely an enlightening trip.

I’ve been reading the novel Invictus (yes, it was made into a Hollywood movie starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon). It’s an inspiring story about how Nelson Mandela used an important rugby game to try to unite the country after apartheid. The first part of the novel is fascinating because it talks about how Mandela managed to get his political plan in place even from prison, including during the eighteen years he spent in Robben Island. So it was pretty interesting to get to see the actual place where some of this stuff happened.

To get to Robben Island, we took a “ferry”, although Joseph drily remarked that it was more of a dinghy.

Once we arrived, we got to see a lot of the sights around the island

before Robben Island held prisoners, it used to be a leper colony.

some of the dog kennels holding the guard dogs were bigger than the prisoners' cells.

the lime quarry where prisoners such as Nelson Mandela had to dig, in conditions so rough they frequently fell sick. Our guide tells us the quarry caused permanent damage to Mandela's tear ducts, making him unable to cry.

What was particularly interesting about this tour was that our tour guide was a former prisoner named Tumisani, who had been sentenced to thirteen years for high treason, and spent five and a half years in Robben Island. It sounds strange and possibly morbid to have guys that spent their worst years in the prison showing us around their bad memories, but I can tell you we all listened to everything he had to say.

our guide

tourists view Nelson Mandela's cell

view of the garden where Nelson Mandela hid his draft manuscripts of A Long Walk To Freedom, which he wrote while in prison.

photos of prisoners

One of us asked Tumisani why he would choose to go back to the prison and work as a tour guide as he and many other former prisoners did. Tumisani explained that when he was first released from Robben Island, at first he couldn’t speak to his family about what he had gone through. He would get flashbacks and would have to call someone to help him through it. Eventually though, he found that it was better to talk about it, and he explained to us that someone has to do it.

i'm not sure why there is a picture of santa in the prisoners' quarters.

The ferry/dinghy boat right back to Cape Town’s harbour was turbulent, as the ocean waters were quite turbulent, but I still managed to sleep right through it.

In the afternoon, we did my favourite outdoor activity: beach!

Clifton has four beaches. Number one seemed empty. Number two, according to our guide book, was for models and narcissists. Number three was popular with gay men, and number four was four families. Obviously I was going to beach number two.

Clifton Beach Number 2

As it turned out, our guide book did not lie. It was like there was some kind of unseen “No Ugly People” rule at beach number two. I was quite amazed at how absolutely beautiful everyone was on the beach, guys and girls. Even the teenagers were buff. It made me feel like I was inadequate and had to go to the gym, and those who know me know that normally I’m a self-worshipping narcissist with an ego as big as the sun and a tendency to kiss my own biceps.

yessss popsicles

maple leaf shaped sand castles

some beach performers donning santa hats

In the evening, our couple for the night was Sarah and her German boyfriend Till. The two of them met us at Galbi, a Korean fusion restaurant. You can guess who chose the venue.

I had been missing Korean food for a long, long, long time and was excited to be able to have some again once I got to the metropolis of Cape Town. Korean food is, after all, one of the healthiest diets out there. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that it was more of a Korean fusion place, rather than the authentic grandma’s cooking hole-in-the-wall joint you’d find at Yonge and Finch, but honestly, it had been so long since I’d had Korean food that wasn’t made by me that I was still grateful. It was definitely my first time eating Korean food served by white people, cooked by black people.

banchan! galbi! ssamkyupsal! 반찬! 갈비! 삼겹살!

sojitos (soju + mojitos)

pouring soju drinks with both hands, as per Korean custom dictates.
mmm 소주.

kimchi chigae 김치 찌개

The kimchi wasn’t made with the traditional nappa cabbage, but I was surprisingly impressed by the spice level of the kimchi chigae. I took the leftovers back to the hotel and later on used the broth to make kimchi ramen noodles, which totally hit the spot for a New Years hangover. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I still have to tell you about New Years Eve.

afraid of heights on top of Table Mountain

2012-01-09T08:11:00.008+02:00

”from the mountains i heard you call
so i went running to collect them all
the gifts you showed me are your best part
when i get there, well, i saw what is

…over my heart over these hills you'll go
over my heart over these hills you'll go…”
-“Blue Mountains” by Jenn Grant

There was an option, you know, of taking the cable car up Table Mountain. It would have been nice and easy. It would have been short and scenic. It would have been not so freaky for an acrophobic baby like me. But Gloria Guns laughs at the idea of taking the easy route (and then secretly cries when she sees how high it is), so Road Oppa Joseph and I set off to climb up Table Mountain by foot.

Table Mountain

By foot and by hand. Many parts of the hike involved a steep ascent, so with my short legs I found myself scrambling up certain parts.

As you can see from this sign, it was supposed to take about 2.5 to 3 hours to climb, but Joseph and I managed to do it in 84 minutes - and yes, I did time it by the minute. We took the Platteklip Gorge route, which was supposed to be the simplest, easiest route (as in, you didn't need rock climbing gear to do it), but as I mentioned, it wasn't all that easy after all. For one thing, for even the steepest trickiest parts, all we had as protection was a barbed wire as someone's sick idea of a guard rail. How exactly was that going to stop me from falling off the cliff face? I guess the idea was that I'd fall into it, and then the barbs would latch on to my flesh and I wouldn't fall further. It still wasn't comforting for my fear of heights and my bigger fear of falling

Also, the incline was about as pleasant as going on the Stairmaster for an hour and a half. Table Mountain has an elevation of about 1000 metres, similar to that of Vancouver's Grouse Mountain, which I also found to be about as pleasant as going on the Stairmaster for an hour and a half. Unlike the Grouse Grind, however, there was very little shade, and Joseph and I insanely decided to climb during the hottest part of the day, so my thought process most of the time oscillated between "My legs are on fire" and "My skin is on fire."

The lack of forest trees did mean that we had an unspoiled view of everything.

Okay, so maybe I complain more than I mean to. It was a lovely invigorating hike with a beautiful view, and the exercise helped me feel great about myself once I reached the top, knowing that I had burnt off the rest of the calories I'd obtained from my Mexican burrito the night before.

Table Mountain has a flat top (much like, actually, a table top), so we got to walk around some more. Our hardcore hike was rewarded with more beautiful views, views with depths that I didn't know how to properly capture with my camera.

looking down at a cloud

I felt proud of myself after that hike. However, we still opted to take the cable car down.

During my stay in Cape Town, we got into this funny habit of dining with a different couple from the CBA program every night. Tonight our dinner date was with Eleanora and Cesar at a sushi place recommended by the hotel staff called Beluga. I was itching to try sushi in Cape Town. As you can imagine, I’ve had my doubts about Windhoek sushi, since it’s many kilometers away from any sort of major body of water. But Cape Town is right on the sea, so it was sushi time!

yes, i ate an oyster

Beluga’s was nothing like the izakaya-style sushi joints I’ve gotten accustomed to in Canada. Instead it seemed like a regular, fancy white square plate sort of restaurant that happened to sell sushi. But it was good, and it was a good feeling overdosing on sushi, sushi that wasn’t made by me.

A road trip to the end of Africa

2012-01-06T08:00:00.018+02:00

the sound of the waves crashing against the end of the day;
i think back on this place, all the things that you could have saved
if i'm sleeping through the day, i feel like from this dream I'm awake,
as the sun is making its way down to the edge of the shining lake

all these thoughts spent on you,
they're the only things that are getting me through
all the heartache and the pain,
but i know that summer will come again someday
-"Beach Dreams" by Teen Daze

Cape Town! Everyone who mentions the city does so with a certain sparkle in their eye and excitement in their voice. Cape Town! A hidden hipster hotspot tucked in the corner of Africa, known as the Las Vegas, San Francisco, and New York of Africa, all in one. Cape Town! “I might get robbed once a year in Windhoek, but in Cape Town, it’s more like seven times a year,” says my Namibian friend. We’re certainly not in Windhoek anymore.

We checked into our fabulously luxurious hotel suite and then I grabbed dinner at Mamma Africa’s with Joseph, who I’ve started calling my Road Oppa. Cape Town natives claim the restaurant’s too touristy – and really, anything on Long Street will be touristy – but we still enjoyed it our Zimbabwean dovi and lamb curry, with a side of sweet live music, a band that sounded almost like an African jazz version of Tortoise, with mesmerizing marimbas and drums, culminating in a percussive cover of Shakira’s Waka Waka. Cape Town!

I didn’t think it was going to be a late night, but then we hit up some clubs, including a lively place called Cubana’s, and then all of a sudden we found ourselves in a McDonald’s drive-thru, arguing about what South African laws are about public urination. Yes, Cape Town has McDonald’s. Happiness is going to bed at 4AM with Filet-O-Fish on your breath.

On our first morning in Cape Town, we went for a road trip to the end of Africa, driving around the Cape Peninsula to see what we could see. The entire area is absolutely beautiful, flanked by the ocean and mountains on both sides and palm trees throughout. As you know, the three things in nature that make Gloria happy are oceans, mountains, and palm trees, and so I was very happy (sadly, my hometown Ottawa has none of this).

We drove through the beautiful beaches of Clifton and the beautiful people bathing there. The houses overlooking the water are, as you might imagine, ridiculously affluent. I decided I need to make friends with people who have houses there, maybe set Allison up with a rich Afrikaner boyfriend so I can invite myself over and use the oceanside swimming pool.

clifton beaches

clifton houses

In the midst of all the affluence, we suddenly came across a much poorer informal settlement. It came as a bit of a surprise, because Cape Town is generally very effective at keeping its social problems like crime and poverty hidden out of sight, swept under a rug. With rich mansions surrounding the settlement on all sides, I can only imagine that there must be pressure to push the settlement out for its valuable real estate. Whatever social problems it might face, this ghetto probably has the best scenic view in the world.

We drove through more little towns, stopping at various lookout points to take in the view. Eventually we got to Simon’s Town, a quaint little place with all sorts of neat little shops and more importantly, penguins on the beach.

cuddling penguins

Yeah, I totally thought they were cute too, until one bit me. What a jerk. I like to think it was just a love nibble though. I like to think I have that kind of effect on penguins.

i've been kissed by a rose

Boulders Beach is kind of a magical place where these African penguins hang out, and people swim alongside them. It’s like right out of a friggin’ Disney movie, except the Disney movies don’t portray how much the penguins stink, and also, the penguins bite.

boulders beach

We drove on.

The sun was starting to set by the time we hit Cape Point, which has a lot of great hiking trails in the area. One of them was a very high, narrow and freaky looking walk to the light house at the edge of the cliff. Of course my fear of heights and water kicked in. Of course Joseph made me do the hike anyway. I do what the Road Oppa says to do.

cape point

the walk to the lighthouse...do you see it?

it's a pretty hike, but pretty narrow and high...

When we got back into the car, we were confronted, quite randomly, by ostriches on the road.

Eventually we got to our final destination, the Cape of Good Hope, the most southwestern point of all of Africa. We’d basically driven to the end of the continent. It was a surreal feeling, not just because there were ostriches grazing around us. I just kept envisioning a map of Africa, and seeing the exact spot on which I stood. I get these moments sometimes, where I just can’t believe that I’m here where I am, in this faraway place in Africa.

By the time we got back to Cape Town, it was night and time to go for a Mexican dinner at the Mexican Kitchen, washed down with a Naked Mexican beer. We had a great server who we called Awesome Chris, who personally ran to the store to buy bananas for our banana dessert because the store had run out.

We also had a creepy restaurant manager who we called Awkward Nick, who was trying to sell us drugs. I think. He actually asked me for drugs, and when I said I didn’t have any, he told us that we could buy some from Rasta Joe, off in the corner of the restaurant. I asked Awkward Nick why he didn’t just buy the drugs from Rasta Joe himself. I didn’t really get an answer. I don’t know if Asian stereotypes are different here in South Africa, but for some reason people keep trying to get me to sell/buy drugs. Even at the South African border, while the South African police had their dogs searching our luggage for drugs, a guy sauntered up to me and asked me for rolling papers at the same time. Apparently there’s something about Gloria – it makes penguins want to bite and people want to do drugs.

After our yummy Mexican meal, we hit up the gay clubs in Greenpoint, which was nice because Cape Town actually has an overt gay scene, unlike Windhoek. The two clubs Bronx and Cruz were right next to each other, and both full of beautiful sweaty boy bodies bumping into each other on the dark dance floor. The bartenders were all shirtless toned guys wearing silver spandex shorts – and were all straight men, I found out. I imagine the tips must be good in a place like this. There were actually a lot of shirtless straight guys in the club too, as apparently gay bars in Africa are a great place to pick up women – go figure. I got my dance on and didn’t leave until four in the morning again, which was rapidly become my new bedtime. Cape Town!

the heat and the heartburn

2012-01-05T13:41:00.005+02:00

So I've made it safely back to Windhoek after my big holiday trip. Windhoek is empty because everyone's still on vacation, which is smart. it's hot here, forty degrees, and my place has no air conditioning. It hasn't rained in forever.

It's been one of the best Christmas vacations I've ever had, but also one of the most physically trying ones, as is evidenced by the fact that I'm battling a cold, asthma, heartburn, allergies, and an eye infection all at the same time as an aftermath. i'm having some trouble sleeping at night, partly from the heat and the heartburn, but also because for the first time in three weeks i'm not sharing my room with three to six othr people. it's an odd feeling to wake up to.

I'm going to continue posting about my adventures in Cape Town. You can also read my Road Oppa Joseph's take on our Zambian trip:

"This side you are safe. This side you lose your life."

"I don't like your shorts. I like your face."

Also, feel free to check out my feature article on Mr. Gay Namibia that Canadian LGBTI newspaper Xtra published recently:

A Pageant for Tolerance

Happy New Years, y'all!

birthday celebrations part 2

2012-01-05T09:02:00.000+02:00

I woke up early the next morning at what seemed to be Lebo’s grandmother’s house in Orlando, with pain shooting up and down my right knee. Why do I keep trying to hop these fences? Last night to get out of the driveway we had to scramble over the concrete walls and I’d forgotten that I’m twenty-seven and not twenty, or seven anymore. Ah, everyone reaches a point in their life when they realize their knees aren’t actually made of rubber – I managed to avoid learning this lesson till I turned twenty-seven.

Music was still pumping from down the streets – somebody was either partying all night or starting really early. I was feeling hot and icky from the night before and wanted to wash my face, but the only water tap I could find was the basin out in the yard. Soweto toilet facilities are the biggest adjustments I’ve had to make since coming here from posh Klein Windhoek or Emmarentia.

We loaded into the car in search for a hangover breakfast. Timo’s been trying to teach me German and Zulu at the same time, which I find to be confusing and difficult. He also gets mad because I use a French accent whenever I’m try German words.

“You must learn German,” he tells me. “It is a much better language than Afrikaans, the language of the oppressors.”

“I don’t want to learn German,” I reply. I also don’t want to point out that in Namibia, German is also the language of the oppressors. “Where will I ever need to speak German?”

“In Germany,” the kids point out. “And Austria. And Switzerland.”

“Every time I learn some German, I forget some Afrikaans,” I complain.

This conversation is interrupted by a spectacular Coca Cola explosion. Several crates of soda pop bottles plummet from the delivery truck ahead of us and suddenly the road is awash in Coca Cola showers as plastic bottles bounce down the pavement through the traffic, Coke fizz spraying in every direction like a magnificent fountain. Without missing a beat or slowing down, Marcus pushes open the driver’s side door, and while still hanging on to the steering wheel, swoops down and scoops up a litre bottle of orange Sparletta. As he continues driving, I see in the rearview mirror people scrambling through the traffic right in the paths of oncoming cars to grab as many pop bottles for themselves. As we pass by the truck driver pulled over frantically trying to secure the rest of his load, we salute him with our thanks.

“Danke,” I say.

Nothing tastes quite like soda pop found on the ground.

Calories don’t count on your birthday, so I had McDonalds for brunch – my first time in months, since Namibia doesn’t have any – and canned spaghetti-O’s and ramen noodles for dinner. The McDonalds wasn’t serving sausage McMuffins though, and the spaghetti-O’s were nothing like Chef Boyardees, and the ramen noodles weren’t Korean. Not to mention that back at home, my man and my family were having a turkey dinner together, thousands of miles away. I missed home.

Just when I was starting to feel the most homesick, the Germans surprised me with some special birthday cake, and then we headed out for gloria’s birthday partying part two. Bonga brought us to an empty parking lot that had been converted for the night to a dance party. I love the way South Africans can turn anything into a party. Booze was being sold out of a window of one of the building, there was a braai in the corner, someone pulled up their car and was blasting music out of their car stereo, and girls were dancing their butts off all around. It was fascinating to watch. We headed in for a relatively early night though (2AM instead of 4AM): the next day I was finally leaving Soweto and flying to Cape Town for the next part of my adventure.

my Soweto birthday

2012-01-04T09:34:00.000+02:00

Burger dinner at a roadside stand down the street from Lebo’s

We were playing poker to kill time until it was a decent hour to go out. We didn’t have any poker chips, so we hunted through the hostel for anything that we could use as chips instead. We found lentils and condoms. We decided on the condoms. They were being given away for free in order to advertise the BazBus. I was winning, cleaning out everyone’s stash.

Just as I was wondering what on earth I could do with a hundred condoms, Phil got a call from his buddies inviting us out to a street party in the Orlando East part of Soweto. By then, it was midnight and my birthday. The boys told me that I was welcome to join them for my birthday celebrations. I told them they can’t have my birthday party without me. Although, to be fair, my family back in Canada did the same.

We first stopped by at a house party being held down the street from where the boys live. The boys told the host that it was my birthday, and all of a sudden I found myself surrounded by a bunch of girls all singing Happy Birthday to me in Zulu. I could tell it was going to be a good birthday night.

We left for the next party, walking along the side of the road under the streetlights.

“So, last week, there was another Chinese girl, and she wanted to go out,” Phil told me. “So we took her to a party. She was a little weird.”

“I’m a little weird too,” I replied.

“No, she was weird in a not good way,” Phil said. “She was, like, very weird.”

I nodded, wondering why he’s telling me this. It’s the most he’s spoken to me all weekend.

“So anyway,” Phil continued. “I’m telling you this because our friends at the party might get confused and think you are still her.”

Ah, that was it. Gloria Guns has a reputation to beat.

This street party was the biggest street party I’ve ever been to. It was clear that it had started out as a house party but grew so big that it was spilling out into the next yards, and the yards next to that, and filling the streets. You could hear the beat of the music pulsing from miles away. Guys were climbing up storey high electrical boxes and stomping out their dance moves at such precarious heights while the people below cheered them on.

Phil and Timo have spent enough time here to miraculously blend into the crowd of entirely black kids, despite the fact that they are uMlungus. They’ve made the right friends, imitate the right mannerisms, know the proper Zulu greetings, and let’s face it, they’re guys. China Guns, on the other hand, sticks out like a sore thumb wherever she goes. As I tried to make my way through the thick crowd, I was constantly greeted with excited salutations of “China!” and “Konichiwa”, random disembodied hands reaching out from the crowd to touch my hair, girls rushing forward to kiss me and get a photo taken, men pushing each other out of the way to introduce themselves to me. It seemed like everyone was thrilled at the chance to meet an Asian girl. Eventually Bonga had to grab me by the hand and rescue me as we moved through the yard to a less crowded spot of the party.

everyone wants a photo

I met all sorts of interesting characters at the party. I met the boys’ buddy Shaun, a sweet guy who designs Soweto clothing. There was one charming charlatan who kept assuring me that he had singlehandedly thrown this whole party together, and that he was an MP and an ambassador of safety, and that if I ever needed anything, he just needed to make one phone call to the right person in the government and he could make it happen.

I also met one man in a wheelchair who had also been recently called to the Bar, just like me. He told me that when he was younger, he had been caught up in bad things, and when he was sixteen, he had gotten shot, and that was why he was in a wheelchair. By now he had turned his life around, become a lawyer and opening up his own chambers, and thinking about doing a masters. His name was Gift.

Soon the chill of Johannesburg summer nights kicked in and it was time to leave the party. As we walked home, we passed by some graffiti on the street declaring SOWETO in large letters. Phil was really proud of his work and was looking for more spray paint. It made me realize just how young the kid is and it made me feel old.

We stopped by Shaun’s place, careful not to wake his sleeping grandmother, and in his room he showed us the new merchandise he’d designed. And then what really made my birthday night – besides winning a hundred condoms at poker and being sung Happy Birthday in Zulu – was when he gave me my own Soweto shirt he had designed, as a birthday present.

By the time I went to bed, it was past four am. I was only four hours into my birthday and had already partied myself out. We’d see what the next day would hold.

Merry Christmas from Soweto

2012-01-03T08:02:00.000+02:00

We all woke up Christmas morning with massive hangovers. I also woke up to find that the dorm that I had been enjoying all to myself was suddenly filled with five snoring South Africans who had driven up the night before from the Eastern Cape for a wedding that day. My bunkmate also included the bride herself, who was in the process of getting dressed into her traditional clothing. I thought it was really funny that I had slept in the same room as the bride on the night before her wedding (better than being in the same room on the night after her wedding, right?). We shared a special bonding moment complaining about the costs of weddings these days and how sometimes we’ll just be glad to have this all over with and to be married.

As my Christmas celebration, I attended a nearby church in Soweto, the Bophelong congregation of the Phomolong Meadowlands Parish, an evangelical Lutheran church. It was pretty much like out of the movies. People were singing hymns in Zulu from memory without hymnbooks, and dancing up and down the aisle. The pastor would occasionally punctuate songs with “God is good!” and the congregation would reply with “All the time!”, and then the pastor would say a few words before being interrupted by another woman starting up a chorus and the whole congregation joining in at the next line. It seemed chaotic but there was obviously enough routine that the children could follow along. It was incredible.

After the church service, they handed out goodie bags and jack-o-lanterns (??) to the kids, and ice cream to everyone else. People were really friendly and eager to talk to us. One man even insisted that we come over to his house to visit his ninety-five-year-old grandmother, who very much wanted to meet us and take photos with us.

Timo, chatting up the church girls like a player

I decided to walk home from church with Phil and Marcus. By that point, all of Soweto had become a jumping, bumping street party. People were wandering the streets drunk at eleven in the morning. It seems here like even if a house was too poor to fix their gate, they still somehow could afford an excellent stereo system that would pump house music out into the streets. Today, it seemed like every one of them was playing the Facebook song.

Walking home from church took on the feel of club hopping: we’d only walk a few metres before occupants of the next house shouted “Merry Christmas!” and “Welcome to Soweto!” and insisted that we come over and join them, all while begging to take photos with the Chinese girl. We’d oblige, then move on to the next house, where all of this would be repeated.

We were invited to the bride’s wedding, but were given vague instructions on the location, so we piled into the car to try to find it. We drove and drove all around Soweto until I fell asleep in the car and dreamed that I understood German. When I woke up, we had accidentally arrived at a birthday party instead. We decided to head back home and keep napping on the hammock under the palm tree.

The rest of the day was spent gently nursing our Christmas hangovers and trying to beat that hot summer heat. The hostel had no Christmas CDs so we played someone’s mix CD of oldies, full of Dusty Springfield and the Shangrilas, really depressing lyrics like the way oldies songs are. From my hammock I could hear at least three different house parties from down the street. The cacophony of the different music crashing together was wild and delightful; it seemed like the essence of an African Christmas.

Christmas Eve in Soweto

2012-01-02T09:15:00.000+02:00

When I got back from my bike tour of Soweto with Thomas, I arrived in time to see Phil and Timo donning Santa hats, taking care of some forty Soweto children in the park, all carrying pictures of Santa Claus that they had coloured in themselves. Some Swedish group had arrived with a big bag of Christmas presents for the kids, who were completely beside themselves with excitement and anticipation.

Timo told each kid receiving a gift to give their little colouring sheets to someone in the Swedish group as a thank you. One of the kids gave their paper to me, I guess because in their eyes I could be Swedish. I have to admit that it melted my heart to see the kids’ reactions when they received their gifts. It’s unbelievable how little it takes to make these kids so happy. Friso was so excited about receiving a little race car that he was shouting and showing it off to everyone, including me, running the car along the table and the ground and people’s arms. Another kid received brand new soccer shoes to replace his worn sandals, and after Timo tied the shoelaces for him, the little boy’s beaming smile was almost wider than his face. It was so cute to see that it hurt my heart. I was filled with deep regret that I’d shown up in Soweto empty-handed. Just buying a big bag of lollipops would have made the kids’ day. Instead, I gave out a couple of racist mints that I’d gotten from the Spur restaurant the night before.

Apparently Germans celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, so Phil’s mom, whom we’ve now dubbed “Mama Africa”, insisted on Christmasifying everything on Saturday night. While the boys went out, she decorated the whole common room with candles, real pine branches she’d smuggled from Germany, marzipan, Christmas fudge, chocolate santas, and all sorts of German Christmas treats with names I can’t pronounce. She also sported a ridiculously small Christmas hat. Sometimes moms are great to have around, even if it’s not your own.

I asked the Germans, if they celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, what do they do on Christmas? They didn’t have an answer.

The hostel owner was all in a tizzy because we had been promised a Christmas dinner, but due to miscommunication, or something, all of the hostel staff had gone home and nobody had lit the fire for the braai. He managed to whip together a Christmas miracle however, and soon enough we were enjoying a delicious meal of braai meat, wors sausages, mealiepap, and like four kinds of salads, only one of them consisting of vegetables.

And a lot of South African brewed Castle Lager.

After dinner, we all sat around the fire with Trigger and Stanza, who was working the night shift at the Lebo’s that night. We found a bunch of drums and I busted out my ukulele so we sang Christmas carols, mostly in German. I discovered that my ukulele playing improves vastly when I drink.

Then we had many rounds of Jagermeilter (I don’t understand why Germans like Jagermeilter so much), which resulted in many bizarre photos that I looked through the next morning and have no recollection of taking, and also cannot post because *somebody’s* fly was open the entire time. Sigh, boys.

Lil phil passed out

arriving in soweto

2011-12-30T06:31:00.000+02:00

My arrival in the township of Soweto was greeted by an incredibly adorable six-year-old boy named Friso running excitedly to me. He had been playing by himself with the broken bumper of a car in an empty lot, but when he saw me, he dropped it and ran right up to me. He just wanted to say hi. I said hello back to him and let him walk me to Lebo’s. I started thinking about maybe having kids one day.

At Lebo’s, I met two young guys named Phil and Timo who live near the hostel and work at the after-school program for Soweto that’s connected to Lebo’s. They were going to grab a bite at Maponya Mall. Even though I generally feel like malls are the ultimate opposite of culture,I decided to come along. I’d been spending my entire afternoon in Soweto napping and drinking beers while watching MTV (Lebo’s has satellite) - if I did that any longer, I was going to get drunk by 7PM.

Maponya Mall

Maponya Mall is the biggest mall in Soweto, and was still open and full of people when we arrived. The frantic shopping days before Christmas is pretty universal around the globe. Club music was being pumped throughout the mall, with the occasional shopper dropping their bags to dance (I told you, people here really love to dance). The boys walked right past a McDonalds and this awesome looking restaurant called Tavern specializing in “African soul food” like lamb stew, and into this chain restaurant called Spurs.

They have the Spurs chain in Namibia too. It’s found throughout South Africa and specializes in steaks and stereotypes. It basically could not exist in North America. Even though all the meaty ribs, wings, and filet mignons would suit a more Cowboy theme, for some reason the chain decided to immerse itself into the “Indian” side of the theme, decorating the entire interior with fake totem poles, dream catchers, and smiling natives with feathers in their hair.

I mean, just look at the place mats.

Having a lifelong passion for First Nations issues and having just finished working for the first Aboriginal judge to be appointed to the Federal Court, it took my strongest sense of tact and hipster irony to keep a straight face. I mean, nobody else saw any cause for discomfort, not the black waiting staff, or the German guys I’d come with, who were adolescent boys craving steak. So I struggled to build my bridge to this cultural iceberg, and ordered a chicken mayo toastie, trying not to think too much about the loaded ironies of spending my first evening in the world’s most famous black township with two white boys in a vaguely racist restaurant in an affluent mall. At least the dessert was delicious, and our South African wine came in a bottle shaped like a Christmas tree.

The next morning I went on a bike tour of Soweto which showed me another side of the township. Because I am freakishly short, I was given a child’s bike. I was guided by Thomas, a twenty-one-year old Soweto resident with a rich knowledge of his place of birth.

thomas

me and my kid-sized bike

Soweto is a township of Johannesburg, but it has a population of 3.5 million people, which is almost twice the population of the entire country of Namibia and more than three times the population of my hometown Ottawa, so really it could be a city on its own. It has 38 suburbs, all sprawled out as far as the eye can see, as there are no skyscrapers to block out the sky.

soweto sprawls out as far as the eye can see

In Namibia, white people always warn me about being careful going into the black township of Katutura. They paint a picture of the black townships being full of misery, poverty, and people waiting to rob you. Going through Soweto with Thomas was a different experience, however. Obviously the crime and poverty was certainly present, but what I had not expected was the friendliness of people. As I sailed down the streets of Soweto on my kid’s bike, children ran out into the streets to greet me, waving out their hands so I could give them a high five, and breaking out into beautiful song.

I also had not expected the rich cultural and artistic history of Soweto. Being North American, I’ve been used to believing that nothing culturally revolutionary comes from the suburbs. But it was Soweto, and particularly the artsy neighbourhood of Orlando West, that brought the world stirring political poetry against apartheid, kwaito music, and the song made famous by the Lion King as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. We saw children playing soccer in the streets, referred to by the locals as “indoor football”, because the “field” was surrounded by houses. There is so much feeling of life and energy that you could sense it everywhere, even in the poorest parts of the township.

Thomas took me down to the Mzimhlophe informal settlement area, one of the poorer parts of Soweto. Even here the little kids ran up to me to say hello and to throw their arms around me in a heart-melting hug.

the communal toilets

cow heads

I watched a man sit on a bucket, getting his head shaved in an outdoor barber shop. Thomas also took us into a shebeen, which was no more than a dark shack full of flies and old people drinking at eleven in the morning. I felt a little claustrophobic in there. It certainly made the shebeen that Tshuka took us to seem like a luxury hotel bar in comparison.

trying out a locally brewed beer in the shebeen

Thomas spoke of the persistence of apartheid attitudes even after the regime fell. The blacks and the whites are still quite segregated to different areas of Johannesburg. He told me how often when white people see a black person approach them, they nervously hide their purses and wallets. He told me one story when he had gone to Sandton City to buy designer shoes for his uncle. As he browsed through the shoe section of one store, the white manager came after him and told him, “Boy, this is not a place for you to play. Get out.” When Thomas explained that he wanted buy a pair of shoes, the manager laughed and told him there was no way he had enough money. Rather than arguing with the manager, Thomas simply left, found another shop selling the same shoes, and brought the shoes back to the original store with the receipt, just to prove to the manager that he really had meant to spend his money there.

We also biked down to the Hector Pieterson Memorial. I’ve already mentioned in a previous blog entry about how personally moving it is for me to think about the 1976 Soweto Uprising, where the high school students of Soweto decided, in the words of Thomas, “To hell with Afrikaans in our school, to hell with a Bantu education” that was designed to keep the blacks uneducated and enslaved to their white employers. In the midst of this demonstration where hundreds of students, mere teenagers, were shot and killed, thirteen year old Hector Pieterson died. The Memorial was full of thoughtful symbolism and once again I felt my eyes filling with tears. There was a row of olive trees planted in a line from where Hector was shot to where he finally died. There was a water fountain, symbolizing the tears that were shed by Soweto parents who lost their children during the protest. The fountain contained stones, the students’ only defense against an army of policemen wielding guns.

olive trees

This was a more upper-class area of Soweto. It also contained the house of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela’s house.

We finished off the tour back at Lebo’s where we were served a “Soweto burger”, known as a kota, consisting of sausages, processed cheese, some sort of abnormally bright pink processed mystery meat, and fries, all stuffed between sandwich bread. It was the beginning of a long series of meals where I would not touch anything resembling a vegetable for days.

vegetables are what food eats

from sandton to soweto

2011-12-29T08:12:00.003+02:00

After doing five countries in five days, not to mention catching a nasty case of bedbugs and unmerciful mosquito bites, I was ready to lay low for a while in Johannesburg. Johannesburg has kind of become my break from “Africa” in quotation marks in a certain way: it’s a land where businesses take credit cards, where there is an abundance of McDonalds, where there is public transportation, where skyscrapers blot out the sky, and many parts of it are virtually indistinguishable from, say, York Mills in Toronto. It’s a pretty good place to lay low after trekking around waterfalls getting robbed by baboons. Especially with Joseph, who seems to share the same idea of laying low.

Deep down inside Joseph and I are actually forty-something-year-old rich white housewives, as is evidenced by our activities in Johannesburg:

going for refreshing runs in the morning
enjoying Joseph’s signature breakfasts of nutella-banana-bacon-beans and Lebanese salads
mending our sore backpacker backs with a Thai massage
eating a healthy lunch of Moroccan wraps and mango juice at Benmore Gardens
getting pampered with facials (Joseph’s facial was done by Luna Lovegood herself)
going shopping at Sandton City, a huge luxury shopping centre which is where you would go to get your Louis Vuitton/Chanel/Gucci fix (I bought some sunglasses at Mr. Price)
sneaking into the fanciest hotel we've ever seen
complaining about our maids
having a laundry party with a bottle of wine.

shopping at Rosebank

nelson mandela square

joseph also likes dinner for breakfast, like me

fancy hotel!

Sandton city: more shops than you'd know what to do with

As you can see, I’ve been enjoying the more luxurious side of Johannesburg. As a major contrast to Sandton though, I decided to spend Christmas and my birthday in Soweto, the famous historical township where blacks were relocated to during South Africa’s apartheid. It also became the main headquarters of resistance against apartheid, culminating in the Soweto Uprising in 1976 where hundreds of teenage students were killed while protesting apartheid policy in their education. I’d learned about Soweto while visiting the apartheid museum the last time I was in Johannesburg, and thought it’d be a fascinating place to visit. Over the next little while I'll be posting about my adventures there.

British high tea in a Zimbabwean dream

2011-12-22T08:45:00.012+02:00

I have been reading a few interesting novels about Zimbabwe, including Robert Mugabe and the African and Douglas Rogers' The Last Resort , which was especially good at describing the situation that has been unfolding in Zimbabwe for the last few decades. For a complete history of Zimbabwe you should look elsewhere other than this blog (like maybe read those novels), but to over-over-oversimplify it, Zimbabwe gained its independence from British colonial rule in the early 1980s, and were pretty unhappy about what the British colonialists had done to them in the past and so implemented a policy of expropriating land from white farmers, some of whom had been living in Zimbabwe for hundreds of years (and were, arguably, more African than Americans are American). Much of this process was quite violent, with many farmers and their families being brutally assaulted and murdered, and did not follow any sort of rule of law. SADC even released a judgment condemning these actions. Meanwhile, as time went by, the Zimbabwean economy plummeted and inflation reached ridiculous levels, to the point where people needed to carry around suitcases full of money just to pay for groceries.

I feel like I’m not doing enough to explain the situation in the country, but maybe you get the idea of why I was a bit nervous at first about visiting the country. The Last Resort was published in 2008, so it’s not like these events were ancient history. Street vendors still sell ten billion Zimbabwean dollar bills to tourists for the equivalent of three US dollars (Zimbabwe’s tourism industry basically runs in the US dollar). But the Zimbabwe border is just a stone’s throw away from my hostel, and so many tourists go there, and we’ve been told that Victoria Falls is most beautiful from the Zimbabwean side, so we decided to go check it out. Also, I once had a fever-driven dream where I met Robert Mugabe and asked him, “So if you hate white people, how do you feel about Korean-Canadians? Would you consider me to be white?” Given the fact that I’d had a dream about the death of Kim Jong Il the day before he died, I wondered if this dream had some meaning too.

On this trip so far, I’ve crossed the border from Namibia into Zambia by bus. I got from Zambia to Botswana by boat. Now, we were crossing the border to Zimbabwe on foot. We had a shuttle drop us off on the Zambia side of Victoria Falls, and we walked across the bridge into Zimbabwe.

The bridge at the border

The country has something against Canadians. Zimbabwean visas are pretty cheap for most people, except for British citizens, which, I guess is because Zimbabwe was a former British colony and they’re still not too pleased about that. But what surprises me, and this is where my knowledge of foreign of affairs fails me, was the fact that Zimbabwean visas were most expensive for Canadian citizens. Why?

Once arriving on the Zimbabwe side, many Zimbabwean vendors tried to sell us wood carvings and bowls. I wanted to tell them that they should be selling After-Bite and mosquito spray, as that is what tourists truly need here. Joseph bought me ten billion Zimbabwean dollars for a few US dollars, for me to give to Rob. Which would make my fiancé a billionaire right?

Then we hiked along the main trail in the park that allowed us to view the majestic waterfalls of Victoria Falls from various picturesque vantage points.

We also got a good view of the Devil’s Pool, where we had swum only a few days before. Crazy.

It was hard to take good photos because there was a lot of mist – I could see why the place was also known as the Smoke That Thunders. I welcomed the mist – it was really hot and humid. I enjoyed walking through the forests though. There aren’t a lot of green forests in Namibia, just savannah and desert, and I’ve been missing Canadian forests a lot, so it was kind of nice to have all these tall trees surrounding me, even if they were full of monkeys.

This one didn’t rob anyone.

Gloria loves trees!

The fences along the cliffs were interesting – makeshift fences created by spreading thorny branches along the ground. It worked, I guess. The thorns were sharp.

The smoke that thunders

After we’d hiked the whole trail, we decided to relax by doing high tea at the fancy Victoria Falls Hotel.

I found the whole hotel setting to be an odd experience for me, although I couldn’t quite place my finger on what was so unsettling about it. It had such a distinct colonialist feel to it, as though it was stuck in time in an era from a century ago when the British still ruled and lived an easy aristocratic life. I guess it was a combination of the architectural feel (it was, after all, built during colonial times), the rich white guests, the black serving staff, and, undoubtedly, the very British tradition of high tea in a former British colony in Africa.

“Doesn’t it feel like we’re white?” I asked Joseph and Allison as we were seated at the hotel restaurant by the host. Allison pointed out that she actually was white.

It almost reminded me of this wedding I’d read about which had caused a worldwide scandal. A British couple had recently for some reason decided to host a colonial-themed wedding in South Africa. Perhaps they had some good intentions in wanting to present a nostalgic fond longing for the “good old days” in the past, but it was also one that was selective and clearly ignored the suffering caused by racial oppression. Maybe I felt like this hotel preserved some kind of similar “good old days” sentiment to it, which seemed so out of place given what has been happening in the rest of the country in terms of political unrest. I don’t know if I’m reading too much into it; certainly in general I can’t help but uncomfortably notice how much privilege I carry whenever I go about in southern Africa. At any rate, it wasn’t a feeling I couldn’t shake off.

Nevertheless, it really was a beautiful old hotel, with mango trees and warthogs that would run across the manicured lawn, and the heads of many animals displayed on the walls. We enjoyed many teapots of the local Tanganda tea as well as scones and sweets. Our table on the patio also had a great view of the Victoria Falls bridge we had crossed to get here.

It was a curious experience. Zimbabwe is probably the second most politically/economically different country I’ve ever been to (the first being Cuba), and I’ve been reading about all sorts of crazy things happening. But my entire (albeit short) experience ran like a pleasant, Valium-induced dream. Although, unlike my dream, I never did get to meet Robert Mugabe to ask him what he thought about me.

Watching tortoises duel in Botswana

2011-12-21T06:34:00.010+02:00

When I woke up yesterday, I found out that Kim Jong Il had died, which is a bit coincidental after my dream on Sunday night of his death. It felt almost surreal. I’ve been feeling so removed from everything these days, traveling around southern Africa, while back at home young people are occupying Wall Street and back at the homeland people are wondering how North Korean relations are going to change. Meanwhile, I’m here trying to figure out how to avoid baboons.

We got up right after dawn to drive to Botswana. We were piled into a minibus full of girls (Joseph is always stuck with the girls) and drove to that unique part of land where Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia all meet.

Once we left Zambia, our minibus left us and we found ourselves in an interesting no man’s land that involved us having to cross the river in a little tin boat that made me feel a bit more like a refugee than a tourist.

She asks, “Is this seriously what we’re taking to cross the border?”

The border guards also made us wash our shoes in order to stop the spread of foot and mouth disease. Washing our shoes, however, consisted of standing on a really muddy mat. I have no idea how that cleaned my shoes but I hope it worked.

On the other side, the Botswana border crossing was hectic, but not in any way that, say, the Canadian-American border is hectic. There were trucks parked on the side of the road for kilometers, waiting to get over the border. There were chickens and goats wandering around everywhere, and our minibus continuously had to keep honking to get them out of the way. Various truck drivers engaged in shouting matches with officers, who kept telling them to return the next day. As we approached the border control building, we were swarmed by half a dozen vendors trying to sell us bracelets that all looked the same. Meanwhile, baboons watched from the trees. I held my handbag tight.

The streets of Botswana

Once we made it out alive, we had lovely little safari trucks waiting for us which took us deeper into Botswana….

..and on to another boat. I had wanted to do this particular trip into Botswana’s famous Chobe National Park because it was a very different kind of safari than the one I’d gone on in Etosha. This one involved going along the Chobe River in a boat, looking at animals that like the water, like hippos. Hippos!

It’s a hippo party! Or as I like to call it, a hippoPARTYmus

Another hippopartymus

And other animals.

Scary crocodile!

Scary crocodile approaching a boat…watch out!

impala

In the afternoon, we loaded back into the safari truck and went on a game drive through the land part of Chobe National Park. It was a neat landscape, very green but full of dead trees that animals had stripped bare, leaving the place looking a bit like a Tim Burton film set.

We saw lions!

And so many birds.

vultures...creepy.

And other animals.

Elephants!

Crossing in front of our truck!

Buffalo

More hippos! More impalas!

Warthogs!

These warthogs are dirty.

This warthog is suckling.

A waterbuck. Looks like he has the mark of a toilet seat on his butt.

We also saw an epic tortoise battle. Actually, it started off more like a tortoise date, with a tortoise couple having a romantic date, when another jealous male decided to interrupt. The two males then engaged in the most fascinating display of male tortoise aggression, slowly charging at each other and headbutting each other’s shells at a glacial pace. One of the males eventually retreated, but instead of claiming the prize (the female), the victor continued to pursue the loser, chasing him away (if you can call a tortoise crawl a “chase”). It was actually probably the most fascinating thing I’d seen that day.

I guess we could call it a torgy?

Chobe National Park

Living on the edge in Victoria Falls

2011-12-20T08:29:00.013+02:00

Allison got robbed by a baboon yesterday at Victoria Falls.

It seems like it’s almost a rite of passage for everyone who lives in Africa to get robbed at some point. Joseph was taken down quite violently in Johannesburg but nothing was taken from him. I barely noticed the guy that took two bucks from me. Allison was deprived of her chocolate bar by a baboon, who was, quite frankly, kind of a jerk.

We had been hiking all over the Zambia side of Victoria Falls, exploring the various trails and admiring the impressive views it had to offer at various different vantage points. Victoria Falls is not the largest waterfall in the world, nor is it the strongest, or anything like that. And yet it’s still world famous for being an awesome site. David Livingstone described it as consisting of “scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.” The locals call it Smoke That Thunders. I’ve been to Niagara Falls many times, so it was pretty exciting to discover a new world famous site.

We first hiked down to the Boiling Pot, which is a bend in the canyon with crazy rapids that Joseph had gone down in a white water raft the day before (he only fell out once). The sign to the trail claimed it was only a 650 metre trail, which we thought would be nothing, but then we realized it was all stairs.

Almost looks like a scene from Jurassic Park. I was waiting for an angry T Rex to jump out

Boiling Pot

Still, it was worth the cardio exercise. After we finished admiring the view, we headed back on the same trail only to be confronted by about a dozen baboons, hanging out on the steps.

What the.

After my last encounrter with baboons at Daan Viljoen, I have developed what some may refer to as an irrational fear of baboons. I don’t consider it to be irrational. Baboons are jerks. Sometimes, they are face-ripping jerks.

Dude, that’s a scary baboon.

Luckily, these ones were used to tourists so they weren’t feeling threatened enough to rip anyone’s face off. Instead, they kind of just looked at us. Eventually the babies lost interest and went back to hanging out with their mothers. However, one large male baboon, clearly the alpha male of the pack which the locals call Prince, strode up to Allison, gave her one more look, and then grabbed her bag.

Allison put up a noble fight and there was a brief tug-of-war that ensued, but eventually Prince the baboon won, and Allison was forced to sit back and watched as the mischievous thief went through her bag, tossing aside all of her clothes, flipping through her Lonely Planet guidebook, and then finding the goldmine – her chocolate bar.

What a jerk.

Allison patiently watched him rip off the wrapper and eat the chocolate bar, all while staring at her in the face, daring her to do something about it. When he finished, Allison politely asked him to go away so she could collect her bag again. He refused. Allison asked him again, because she is a polite Canadian.

Allison watches baboon

Eventually some Zambian men came by and said something sternly to the baboon. The baboon shrugged, put down the bag and wandered off. I think we need to learn how to speak baboon.

That was not the craziest thing that happened to me that day, however.

This was the craziest thing I did.
(WARNING NOTE TO MOM BEFORE SHE SCROLLS DOWN: DON’T WORRY. THIS LOOKS A LOT MORE DANGEROUS THAN IT ACTUALLY WAS. IT’S ACTUALLY ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR TOURIST ATTRACTIONS HERE.)

We had a guide take us on a walk to Livingstone Island. Walking to an island may sound totally benign and unremarkable, but this island is actually right on the edge of the waterfalls, and you’re walking through the rapids to get there.

I am not making this up.

I have a fear of heights and water so this was a great exercise in staring at my fears and saying “Poo to you.” I had the chance to do that with my fear of baboons that morning, but having completely failed at saving Allison, I decided to walk to Livingstone Island instead. The trick is to hold hands so that even if you slip, you aren’t swept away because your friends will pull you back up.

That was the most intense hand holding session of my life

We are standing on the edge

And then, if that wasn’t crazy enough, we swam in the Devil’s Pool. Again, swimming in a pool sounds not so dangerous but it’s a lot more hardcore when you realize it’s right at the edge of the waterfall.

The Devil’s Pool is a natural waterhole at the edge of the water fall. You can’t see it in the photos, but right at the edge there is a ridge under the water that stops you from going over the falls. I have no idea how anybody discovered this ridge. I can’t imagine someone going around jumping into random parts of the fall to find out which parts won’t send you over and kill you. But someone evidently did.

And then we went home in a speed boat. Once I got back to the hostel, I had a hot bowl of eland stew and a cold bottle of local Mosi lager. I think that was possibly the craziest thing I’ve ever done in my life.

arriving in zambia

2011-12-19T08:57:00.005+02:00

This is the view that I have right now as I type on my computer

We’ve arrived in Zambia! After a long long long twenty four hour bus ride. We took the Intercape bus line, which is like the Greyhound of Southern Africa, except it’s a Christian company so they pray before each ride, and show really bad religious films on board. Sometimes I think I can’t deal with overnight bus rides anymore, where the seats don’t recline enough to get a proper night’s sleep (not when the person behind you is kicking you). Backpackers take the philosopher that the journey there is part of the adventure but these days I’m feeling I’d be perfectly happy to skip the sore back by flying straight to my destination and having more time to spend there.

At Oshiverongo, we had a pit stop. I went into the Puma gas station, which was advertising a contest where you could win a whole live sheep, where I bought some guava flavoured Oshikandela. Then we were informed that the bus was experiencing mechanical problems so we would have to wait while they tried to fix it. We sat on the curb in the parking lot, drinking beers and popping malaria pills out of boredom, feeling like a cliché from a Diableros song, wondering if we were going to have to camp out here all night. Then the bus roared back to life. Yay! The bus was fixed!

It turned out the bus wasn’t fixed. The oil was still leaking into the diesel. The driver had just decided to see how far the bus would go anyway. Sigh. I kept repeating the mantra “the journey there is part of the adventure” and tried to make myself believe it.

When I woke up the next morning, the bus was still running and we were in the thick of the bush, honking to scare animals off the road. I was fascinated to see rows and rows of traditional dwelling huts at the side of the road. I had never been up north before.

[north house]

A barber shop in the Caprivi Strip

A shop in the Caprivi Strip

The Zambian border was kind of an African stereotype. People lined up before a guard standing by a broken fence with a bucket of water. We were supposed to use that to wash our hands from food and mouth disease. I preferred my hand sanitizer. After that, we had to find out way to the border control building, navigating through a hectic maze of sad stray dogs, roadside snack stands, and guys waving wads of dollar bills offering “ForEx” (foreign exchange). Once we actually found the unmarked building, there was a mess of people inside pushing and shoving their way up to the desk, with nothing even resembling a line. This distressed British Dean, who remarked that the whole system was uncivilized. I remarked that having a white British man call African ways uncivilized was kind of a stereotype. We signed our information in the paper book, had our passports stamped, and miraculously found our way back on to the bus.

The Zambian border control building

Snack stands at border control

Once we crossed the border, we still had another three hours to Livingstone. Zambia was very cloudy and green, compared to Namibia. We drove through the Zambian countryside, which was filled with flooded greenspaces, cows, giraffes, huts, the occasional beautiful white orchid, and Coca Cola billboards. We arrived in Zambia only five hours later than scheduled, which was actually pretty good apparently.

Livingstone, Zambia

At the Livingstone hostel, we found a note from my friend Joseph saying he had gone white water rafting. He suggested we go on a sunset cruise while we waited for him to come back. We asked the front desk about what was available. She told us that there were two, one for $45 and one for $55.

“What’s the difference?” we asked her.
“About ten dollars,” she answered.
“Um, is the more expensive one at lot better?” we tried again.
“Not really,” she said. So we went for the cheaper one.

Once we arrived at the “harbour”, which was a dock at the end of a noisy beach bar, we saw why it was cheaper. It was basically a big covered barge with a bar in the middle, the kind of barge Rob’s friends built themselves and float down the Clyde River on every summer in Lanark. The other more expensive cruise was a fancy white double decker ship. But we didn’t mind. The other ship was full of quiet older tourists. Ours was full of partying friendly Zambians and a braai cooking sausages and chicken. And an open bar, of course.

Our boat

The other boat

The boat bar.

The boat braai.

On board, we quickly met up with some local Zambians, including Lucy and Levi. Lucy gave us each our own Zambian names. She named me Chilashan, which she explained meant “kind hearted” but I wasn’t so sure, seeing how it suspiciously had the word “Asian” in it.

Drinking with Zambians

Maddie and I reenacting a scene from the movie Titanic at the bow of the “ship”.

There was not only a sunset, but also hippos and crocodiles and elephants!

You looking at me?

A bigger crocodile. Delicious.

It was my first time ever seeing hippos.

When we got back, Joseph had left a note in our room saying he had gone to Zambezi restaurant and we should join him there. Having enjoyed his last piece of advice, we found our way there, where I ate more mapone worms (caterpillars), which I now seem to like munching on as snacks. I also ate crocodile meat, which was pretty delicious.

Afterwards we hit up a club that the locals had recommended to Dean. Dean told us it was called Pheromones. “Really?” I said. They named a night club pheromones? That’s certainly trying to sell something. When we got there though, we realized it was actually called Fairmont, and it was empty, which just goes to show you can’t believe anything Dean says.

hitting the road through southern Africa

2011-12-16T08:49:00.006+02:00

today is my last day at work before the holidays. This afternoon I'm going to be getting on a bus and riding for 20 hours to Livingstone Zambia. Over the holidays, I'm going to be traveling through:

-Livingstone, Zambia
-Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
-Chobe National Park, Botwsana
-Johannesburg, South Africa
-Soweto (Johannesburg)
-CAPE TOWN OH YEAH

so for the next few weeks, my updating will be a bit sporadic, since I'll have less regular access to the Internet. I imagine all you folks will be busy with your own holiday plans anyway.

packing...is still a work in progress. it's very difficult to pack for a trip when all of the clothes you own are still wet from the laundry machine. Also, I've decided for the first time this year to give up trying to cram everything into a single backpack and to take a spacious suitcase instead. It makes me feel slightly old and uncool. I feel like cool young people go backpacking. Uncool old people vacation with big suitcases. On the other hand, cool slightly-older-but-still-young people PARTY FOR A WEEK IN A PENTHOUSE IN CAPE TOWN.

this is what i did last night instead of packing for my trip:

김밥! Or at least my own version of 김밥.

I'll see you all on the other side of the border. Happy holidays everyone, and totsiens!

hiking in the waldorf area

2011-12-15T08:16:00.008+02:00

the trouble with being an expat in a faraway country is that the friends you make come and go all the time. It's kind of the Eurofriends mentality that Douglas Coupland spoke of, so maybe that makes it a bit easier to deal with the people constantly appearing and disappearing and reappearing in your life, but it still takes a lot of adjustments, and reminding yourself that you can see the friends you've made as little dots moving all over a world map, which is kind of neat to envision.

Last night we said good-bye to Tshuka, our friend from the Congo, who is moving to Paris for his post-graduate studies in mining law. He's a recent law school graduate from UNAM and he's kind of amazingly brilliant. He has his own radio show, runs his own law magazine as the editor-in-chief, and his thesis on the introduction of jury trials will be published in the Namibian Law Reports because it was deemed to be the best thesis of the year. And he's only 22! I certainly was not that accomplished by that age. I can't wait to see what he gets up to in Paris. Besides being cold and seeing snow for the first time, that is, as we keep teasing him about his first trip out of Africa. We gave him our bittersweet farewell by cooking him a Thai curry noodle dish at my place. It was his first time trying Thai food, and he seemed to like it. It's nice that no one seems to have gotten food poisoning from my food yet. He told us we're not allowed to have any parties after he leaves.

Sunday was Karen's last night in town. Karen is one of the coolest gals I've ever met. She's younger than my fiance, but she was a pilot in the US military and flew in Iraq and Afghanistan for six years before deciding to do a masters at Georgetown and then get into the prestigious Presidential Management Fellowship Program and come to Namibia on behalf of the Pentagon. Really, there's nothing you can say to her that would be impressive, because she could easily respond with, "Child, I flew our boys into Iraq." She doesn't actually say that, of course, because she's modest, sincere, and seems like a perfectly normal girl. But she could say that.

karen at Daan Viljoen

Anyway, for her last day, we decided to join the Hashers on their hike to the Waldorf School area just outside Windhoek. Although once we got there, we found out that Karen still hadn't packed yet, so she was going to skip out on the hike and join us for drinks aferwards. Oh well. It was a lovely hike. I'm not sure why it's referred to as the Waldorf School area though, because I never actually saw the school. Just a lot of wilderness.

a view of the Waldorf school area. with no school.
just a dog, running into my shot to do his business right there.

This was an interesting route because it took us through the wilderness that is Namibia but also through parts of Auasblik, one of the small neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Windhoek that is under construction. The juxtaposition of suburb and wilderness (and construction junk) was a pretty neat sight.

wilderness

auasblik, off in the distance

auasblik under construction

the route also took us to a couple of serious looking fences, but you know that never stops me.

note the sign.

I love the exercise and socializing that I get from these Hashes, but i especially love one particular Hash tradition: sake stops.

enjoying Hector's homemade sake

I also enjoy the post-hike rituals of Hash tradition: car bars.

Afterwards, we went back to Hector's place in Ludwigsdorf for more beers, pork, and of course, one last Hash ritual for the Hashers who would be leaving us: chugging beer from pisspots (I am not making this up)

A final Hash tradition was to give our departing members a Hash name. A number of inside jokes we had made us want to give Karen a bunch of crude names that I won't repeat here since my relatives read this blog, but we ended up giving her the name Savanna Dry, after the delicious Southern African cider and another inside joke.

i'm not good with good-byes, but I'm sad to see Karen go, as she goes back to the States to go work for the Senate (because she's awesome like that). I feel like after you get together to fight a horde of angry baboons with nothing but your bare fists and a rock,* you really share a bond with someone. I'm going to miss that girl.

*some exaggerations may have been made

church in the khomasdal township

2011-12-14T08:53:00.002+02:00

one of my most interesting colleagues is a South African born woman named Lynita. During the week, she works as a lawyer at my office. On weekends, she's a pastor. In her spare time (whatever spare time she has), she's a doctorate student. She's also blind, so she does all of this - reading legal documents, writing sermons, studying textbooks - without sight at all. And she's brilliant. There's just something about a blind African pastor/lawyer/student that seems straight out of a Coen Brothers movie.

I asked her if it would be okay if I could come with her to church last Sunday, because I've been really interested in the local churches, especially since Namibia is such a predominantly Christian country. She preaches at a Methodist church way out in the township of Khomasdal, which was where the "coloured" people lived during apartheid, and still do predominantly. I haven't been back to Khomasdal since my first night clubbing there, so i figured that visiting the neighbourhood on a quiet Sunday morning for church might be a bit different than the night club.

it was a nice church, a simple building with a cosy sanctuary and a small but very friendly congregation which was mostly composed of older motherly women. It kind of reminded me of the Korean church that my parents helped start up back home, where everything was do-it-yourself and grassroots. There is no dazzling sound-and-light show, no Christian rock band leading the worship with a full PA system. Instead everybody lends a hand in running the service. Hymns are sung with voices only, and from memory without hymn books. It was less about putting on a show and more about joining together as a community, which is what I think churches should be about anyway.

the churchyard

Because the congregation was mostly "coloured", many of the hymns were sung in Afrikaans, but I found myself surprisingly able to follow along anyway. Even though there wasn't a choir to lead the music, I was amazed at how lovely the congregation's voices sounded in the acoustic space, filling in the harmonies naturally. It was one of the most beautiful sounds I've ever heard. And such a wonderful atmosphere of love and community. Nothing fancy or pretension, just sincerity and devotion, just like the way churches should be.

going to the gazza show (without gazza)

2011-12-13T08:38:00.006+02:00

On Saturday night, we went to the Gazza album release party. Gazza is one of the most commercially successful musicians in Namibia, and is the godfather of the kwaito music scene here. Clearly it was going to be one of the biggest things happening in the Namibian music community, so I knew I couldn’t miss it.

Namibian concerts are another kind of breed here. They start insanely early (like 6PM) and run insanely late (the main act still hadn’t gone on stage by 1:30AM). Unlike Canada, where there might be two or three opening bands before the main headliner, these Namibian shows have dozens of performers that do a few songs each, all warming up to the main climax of the night, which tends to happen in the wee early hours of the morning. Also, there is a lot of coordinated dancing. Julia is a big fan of coordinated dancing. Heck, I’m a big fan of coordinated dancing.

So yes, there were lots and lots of acts, and lots of dancing between acts. We heard the Facebook song at least three times. Exit performed his signature I AM ROCKAZ song, a phrase I still don't quite get, and there was also this other act where I saw my very first white rapper in Namibia:

There really aren't a lot of them here.

Sadly, we didn't end up sticking around to see Gazza. I had every intention to stay at least for one or two songs, but 2AM was rolling up quickly and I was finding myself falling asleep while standing up. The last act we saw was this large man who liked to shimmy - and honestly, there is nothing as beautiful in the world was watching a large man shimmy - but I knew I wouldn't be able to stay awake for the next act.

Besides, the crowd gave new meaning to the phrase "thick as thieves". It was really robby and pickpocket-y. I guess it was easy with such a large crowd. Some guys tried to steal Dean's wallet, three times within five minutes. Unfortunately they were more successful with me: some guy shoved me from behind, grabbed the equivalent of three Canadian dollars from my jean pocket, and then ran away, disappearing into the crowd. It wasn't a big deal, really, although I feel like it's never worth the effort to rob someone for less than the price of a beer, but it did leave me a bit uneasy for the rest of the night. Unfortunately they made off with Pinehas' phone as well, which was a much bigger bummer.

Nevertheless, it was pretty fun night full of dancing, and coordinated dancing.

and randomly posing by strangers' motorcycles

I really like the new single that he has out called Seelima. It's really upbeat and catchy, and the music video is awesome, a really cute throwback to retro 1970s with a good look at what the townships look like (and people having fun in them), with lots and lots of coordinated dancing.

my first namibian house party

2011-12-12T08:11:00.011+02:00

I threw my first Namibian house party on Friday. Nobody hurt themselves or broke any of my furniture or got involved in a fist fight, so I would consider it a successful party, although some might consider vandalism and brawls to be an indication of a successful party.

I wasn’t sure how everyone would get along, because it was a very mixed crowd of blacks and whites, straight and gay, foreigners and locals, coworkers and random friends I’ve met at bars. To my relief, everyone was really friendly with each other and eager to chat with new people. Wendelinus showed up and was in great spirits, considering that he’d been assaulted and robbed shortly after being crowned Mr Gay Namibia. The male winner of the Ministry of Health beauty pageant I’d attended last week was there too, so really we were in no short supply of beautiful people at the party.

wendelinus posing with me and leio, looking much better than I am

Pinehas, posing with Mr. Ministry of Health and Freida

Pinehas, not posing with Mr. Ministry of Health and Freida

My friends from the Ministry of Health showed up, all dressed in white because they had just come from a White Party (nobody appreciated the humour of this but me). Once again, they tried to teach me how to dance, but I still sucked.

I’ve noticed that most Namibian house parties start really early – like four PM – and usually serve a delicious dinner. I tried really hard to impose my Canadian tradition, telling folks to show up any time after eight o clock, and that I’d be serving snacks. Namibian customs stuck, though, and people still started coming by at three o’ clock. Luckily I had enough food in my cupboard to whip together a Korean mapo tofu dish to feed folks. I may be Canadian, but I’m also Korean, and we never let our guests go hungry.

For the party, I also attempted to make sushi maki rolls for the first time. I’ve made kimbap with my mother before, but I’d never tried hand rolling this stuff on my own, so they came out looking rather irregular, but everyone assured me that it tasted fine. Luckily, this was the first time many of my Namibian friends were trying sushi rolls so they had no comparative basis to know whether they were good or bad, so I will take these compliments gladly.

sad sushi

The party went on till late in the night. We brought my speakers out to Dean’s porch and had our own dance party under the full moon and the street light. I discovered that a shocking number of my friends can lift their legs behind their heads. My coworkers pulled out a giant hookah pipe and smoked seesha in the corner of the terrace. we considered, but resisted the urge to hop the fence and go skinny-dipping in our neighbour's pool.

Soon as people left or passed out in the apartment, it was just me and a girl named Will Be Done, sharing a glass of wine under my palm tree. She told me the incredible story behind her unusual name. During Namibia's war, her parents feared it was too dangerous for her so when she was a baby, they sent her away. She was smuggled out of the country on the back of a woman, who was traveling with another woman carrying a baby. As they were fleeing, a helicopter appeared overhead and shot the woman carrying Will Be Done as well as the other baby. the other surviving woman picked up Will Be Done and ran off. Will Be Done was then sent to Germany, where she was raised by foster parents until the war was over and Namibia's independence from colonialist apartheid rule was won, and when she was twelve, she was brought back to her biological parents again (of whom she had very little memory). Her parents considered it to be a miracle that she was still alive, and thus gave her the name Will Be Done.

By the time Will Be Done finished her story, everyone else had fallen asleep. She was picked up by her ride, and the party finally closed down around 3AM. We’d partied for a full twelve hours.

an open letter of support to Wendelinus, Mr. Gay Namibia, after his attack

2011-12-08T14:49:00.017+02:00

Dear Wendelinus,

I am sorry.

When they announced your name as the winner of the country's first beauty pageant for gay men, and as the chosen spokesperson for Namibia's LGBTI community, I felt so proud of you, even though I've only met you recently. I was so excited to see all your friends cheering for you, and to see that big smile on your face. I know it must have been a happy moment for you, and I hope it still is.

I was sorry to read in the newspapers today that you had been recently assaulted. I hope you are okay.

I am even more sorry that you can't yet live in a world where you can be who you are, without having some hate-filled ignorant individuals wanting to hurt you for it. I am sorry that you are still being denied your basic human right to love whoever you want and be whoever you are. But I am still proud of you, and I admire you for your courage. I know that you've already been persecuted in the past. You knew that it wasn't going to be easy, and that you would face intimidation in the future for being openly gay and unashamed, and yet you still did it anyway. Thank you for being so brave. You are braver than I could ever be. I hope you don't let this stop you, and that you keep on going strong, because you truly are a role model.

There is a boy in my Canadian hometown who is fourteen years old, gay, and suicidally depressed because he is constantly bullied by his classmates for being gay. There was another boy in my hometown, who was fifteen years old, gay, and suicidal from the bullying - and then, almost two months ago, he committed suicide. You see, every country has people that face problems like the problems you face. And every country has ignorant guys like the guys that attacked you. This problem is bigger than Namibia, or Africa. It's a problem all over the world. So when you stand up for your rights, you are standing up for the rights of people all over the world, even young Canadian boys on the other side of the world.

That Saturday night, when you accepted your title as a role model for the LGBTI community in Namibia, and maybe for the rest of Africa, and maybe for the rest of the world, you looked not only happy but beautiful and strong. I passed you on the streets about half an hour ago. You still looked beautiful and strong. Please, I ask you to keep on being our hope, our courage and our voice. Keep reminding people around the world like you that they are not alone. And let's work together to change the homophobic attitude of society. Because I cannot, in good conscience, tell these sad kids that "It Gets Better" if it actually doesn't. So let's make sure it does.

I know you will be all right. I know that your strong faith in a loving God will help you rise above the hate that is being directed at you right now. My own prayers are with you and the rest of the community.

Sincerely,

Gloria

PS: If you want something to cheer you up, you should check out this website which is dedicated giving worldwide encouragement to that little boy in my hometown. It's pretty touching.

picture by Chris De Villiers

here is the media release i got from the Mr Gay Namibia organisation
MEDIA RELEASE
08.12.2011 – Mr Gay Namibia assault

Wendelinus Hamutenya, Mr Gay Namibia title holder, on Sunday evening , 04 December 2011, was physically assaulted near his residence in Katutura, Windhoek, in what can be described as a brutal “mugging” with monetary gain as incentive.

Hamutenya arrived home around 22:00 from visiting with friends. He was dropped off at the corner of his street of residence and made the short walk up the road to his home, when noticing two men sitting at the further end of the road, visible by street light. As he neared his house, the men approached him and requested “the money (he) won at the Mr Gay competition”. After a short confrontation one of the perpetrators kicked Hamutenya to the ground, while the other aimed for his mobile phone and wallet. Several blows were exchanged between Hamutenya and his attackers. In the end blows from a cold drink bottle from one of the two men to Hamuntenya’s head, face, chin and ribs saw him hospitalized for observation at a Windhoek private clinic for 24 hours.

The culprits made off with approximately N$200 in cash.

Contrary to some media publications, Wendelinus reiterates that this incident and his position as title holder to Mr Gay Namibia should not be confused and used to fuel unnecessary agendas.

“Violence in various forms occurs to persons from different walks of life in our country. The relevance of this incident may have connotation to my title, perhaps they thought I had heaps of “prize money” in my pockets. Likely it was my sexual orientation that made me a target - even my political support that angered them. Or perhaps, and most likely, it was just plain and simply out of greed,” states Hamuntenya.

What remains relevant is that any person, no matter race, gender, orientation and/or ethnicity has the right to safety and should not feel threatened when walking down his/her own street of residence any time of the day.

The Mr Gay Namibia Board condemns this violent act of assault, but also reaffirms that “we are in sensitive times and we should focus on the facts. Propaganda, misinterpretation and wrong reporting on matters will not suffice – factual and mature deliberation on matters is what is needed to embrace the future.”

While a case of assault has been opened with Namibian Police on this incident, Wendelinus remains focused on his participation at the Mr Gay World event in South Africa next year, confirming that his vision and dream for a sensitized and more accepting Namibia towards human rights in terms of sexual orientation remains his core focus.

Questions and/or information relating to the above brief can be directed in writing to the Public Relations Office of the Mr Gay Namibia Board at info@mrgaynamibia.com

bikini models...and babies

2011-12-07T08:17:00.004+02:00

My organization held its office Christmas party on Saturday. It was at Ramblers Sports Club in the Pionierspark neighbourhood, which during apartheid had been developed as a white neighbourhood with all its black residents removed to Katutura. Now it seems like a friendly mixed-race middle-class neighbourhood, which is good, because otherwise an apartheid setting it would have made for a depressing atmosphere for an office party.

Most of my experience with work Christmas parties in Canada involve me trying not to freeze my butt off on the sleigh rides in the snow. This was less of a concern here: The summer sun was shining down bright and hot as the staff’s screaming children ran around the playground outside, while one of the city’s football teams practiced in a nearby field. There was a small Christmas tree set up inside (artificial pine tree, of course), but most of my coworkers sat outside to enjoy the lovely weather. It was only four in the afternoon, but they were already blasting African house and people were dancing. Unlike me and most Canadians, Namibians are not afraid to dance in broad daylight where they actually will be seen.

We had been told that there'd be an animal roasting on a stick which I was really hoping to see so I could take photos and gross out my vegan friends, but unfortunately it was in the back. It certainly tasted delicious though!

My coworkers all seem to have adorable kids, so work parties tend to be a punch in the ovaries for me every time.

this is emmerentia with my coworker Grace's daughter Abigail who is pretty cute

for some reason i have a lot of photos of Abigail holding beer bottles.

see?

er, yes.

girlfriend knew how to work a phone before she could walk

okay i might have a hangup about babies right now

I ducked out of the office party early to help Mark work the doors at a fashion show at the Playhouse Theatre, where the woman he lives with, Rosina Leonard, was debuting her clothing line. Rosina is a geologist by day, fashion designer by night. She is incredibly cool.

I have to explain something. I used to crochet a lot, especially during undergrad. A lot. And not just conventional things like scarves and tea cosies. If you were a good friend of mine in university, chances are I'll have made you a wool thong at some point, even if you're a guy.

(for folks who don't know, crochet is a type of knitting, but better because you only use one needle and you can't stab anybody with it)

Anyway, Rosina took crocheting to the next level.

yes, everything here has been crocheted.

See why I think she's awesome?

The dress code that night was "high fashion glamour", so there were classy guys in sharp suits and gorgeous girls sporting four inch heels all over the place. It kind of made me wish I wasn't wearing a summer dress that I bought from the kids' section of the PEP store (Namibian equivalent of Giant Tiger) (size 13 - girls). There were a lot of photographers and models posing for them while I awkwardly tried to stay out of the lens' view so nobody could see my worn out ballet flats.

yeah right, like i could ever resist the stage

It was a pretty interesting night and it was neat to rub elbows with folks from the artsy Namibian high fashion scene. It's too bad I've already bought my wedding dress; otherwise I could have been walking down the aisle next year in a beautiful crocheted wool white dress. Wouldn't that have been sweet?

postscript on December 6

2011-12-06T11:06:00.003+02:00

continuing from my previous post on gender based violence

December 6 is also the Sinterklaas holiday in the Netherlands. Two years ago, while I was studying in the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam, a public announcement came on saying that the library was closing early that night for Sinterklaas. I hadn't realized that it was a holiday, because North Americans don't celebrate Sinterklaas - we just wait for Santa to come on Christmas. As I biked home through the red light district, I noticed that the prostitutes were still working, even though it was a holiday. It made me wonder what kind of clients spend a family holiday visiting prostitutes, and then I got to thinking about how lonely it must feel to be a sex worker working during the holidays. I wrote a song about it. It's not the best song I've ever written, but it definitely is the only Christmas song I've written. I feel it's quite relevant to the topic of gender-based violence, since sex workers suffer a disproportionate amount of violence.

a day to fight violence against women

2011-12-06T08:35:00.001+02:00

On December 6, this day in 1989, an angry young man entered a classroom in École Polytechnique in Montreal with a rifle, ordered the men to leave, and shot all of the women in the room, claiming that he was "fighting feminism". In total, he killed fourteen women, one of the most tragic massacres that peaceful Canada has ever known. Since then in Canada, December 6 has been the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

Internationally, November 25 to December 10 also marks the "16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence" Campaign. People all over the world have been taking part in this campaign in all sorts of ways, including Namibia's own Lize Ehlers, who dedicates part of her new album "African Cleavage" to the issue.

"and for those women like myself,
who get carried on the hands
who get flowers and respect
all we can do is fight for those
who have never felt some tenderness
sing for those who have always been oppressed
and who will never be strong enough alone
to walk on out of their bad situation
women who think that they will always need someone
to make them feel slightly valid
women who think thin is more important than health
women who just exist..."
-Lize Ehlers

At work, I've lately been working a lot on the topic of violence against women while helping to finalize our report on the Combating of Domestic Violence Act. One of my tasks involved going through boxes and boxes of court files containing applications for protection orders against abusers, and reading the affidavits of hundreds of women who have been suffering abuse for years at the hands of their partners. You can only imagine how heart-breaking it could be to read some of the stories. What's even more frustrating is the sheer number of files that only have interim (temporary) protection orders and no final protection orders. I have to wonder what happened in those cases? Did the woman go back to her husband? Did he promise to not to hurt her anymore? Did anything change?

This is the thing: gender-based violence is real. Not just in Namibia, not just in Africa, but in Europe, in North America, in your own neighbourhoods. Chances are you know somebody who has silently experienced an abusive relationship at some point in her life. Chances are that many women in your life are survivors of sexual violence, even if we don't tell you about it. And the effects of violence on its victims are devastating and long lasting: even if they manage to keep up a strong face and never show their pain in public, they still struggle with the pain, the fear, and the memories for the rest of their lives.

It's a very sobering and depressing thought, but the thing is not to dwell on the tragedy of it to the point of feeling hopeless or numb, but to use your sadness and outrage to fuel your motivation to fight the issue. Really, it's all we can do, right?

So let's do it. Let's save the next generation from these scars of ours. Moms and dads, let's raise our kids to learn that we can work things out and express ourselves without being violent. Educators and politicians, let's recognize the fact that the more gender equality there is in a society, the less violence there is, and let's put that idea into practice. Men, wear those lovely white ribbons and be proud that you are enough of a man that you would never feel like you need to hurt a woman. Go out and set a shining example to younger boys. Let's all be examples of respect. And to the survivors: sisters, stay strong. You're not as alone as you feel you are.

So in remembrance of this day, I'm posting a song about violence against women that I wrote and recorded in my parents' basement when I was a teenager (so i apologize for the recording quality):

"panga" (2004)

...one day i’ll leave you for someone that loves me
and he won’t rip me up and tear me down inside
one day i’ll leave

i spent the night with the bailiff
he keeps me warm at least
but in the morning he was gone
he always, always leaves
what a wound he left me
i could barely breathe
they say girl you need to find a better way to sleep

one day i’ll leave you for someone that loves me
and he won’t beat me while i sleep and leave me sore
in the morning, i’ll leave...

*****

I finish this entry by naming the fourteen victims of the École Polytechnique Massacre. This is usually done in remembrance ceremonies across Canada. Since I'm in Namibia, I can't take part in these ceremonies, so I'll participate in spirit.

Geneviève Bergeron
Hélène Colgan
Nathalie Croteau
Barbara Daigneault
Anne-Marie Edward
Maud Haviernick
Maryse Laganière
Maryse Leclair
Anne-Marie Lemay
Sonia Pelletier
Michèle Richard
Annie St-Arneault
Annie Turcotte
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz

partying with Namibian beauty queens

2011-12-05T08:51:00.003+02:00

It’s midnight. We’re driving in Andrew’s car through Katutura blasting an old Daft Punk album. I am totally stone cold sober. We reckon that this is probably the latest on a Friday night that we’ve gone without a beer. We’re stopping off at a liquor shop in Katutura. These liquor shops are nothing like the LCBO or the SAQ. They are not-so-sturdy-looking tin shacks on the side of the road with impressively-sturdy-looking bars, behind which the owner will sell you bottles of whatever you want, as long as you speak some language that is not English. We get word that the police are coming to shut the shop down so we’re in a hurry to pick up our big bottles of Windhoek lagers and Savanna dry. There is much confusion because I speak English. Pinehas takes over because I am just not helping. Then we head off to the next party....

Katutura State Hospital grounds

Our evening started off at the Katutura State Hospital, which seems like an odd place to hold a beauty pageant, but since it was being run by the Ministry of Health and Social Services, why not? Certainly the whole theme seemed to be health-oriented. There were free condoms everywhere. Not just on the seats in the audience, but all along the catwalk and the stage, as though it was part of a strange and elaborate decoration scheme. One of the patrons from a cancer charity gave a speech at the beginning of the night, warning about all the things that could give you cancer, which is, basically, almost everything. It was going to be a health-conscious night.

The opening number was a dance sequence involving all of the contestants, set to a dance version of the Lord’s Prayer. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but Namibia is a deeply religious country. I’m cool with this. However, it was a bit jarring to see people rocking out to the Lord’s Prayer on a stage covered with condoms.

I was at the pageant to support my friend Saima, who was one of the beauty pageant contestants. The event was being directed in part by Thaddeus, my cardboard-girl-stealing-goat-slaughtering friend, who had somehow double-booked himself at his own events and was going back and forth between the pageant and the housewarming party he was also throwing at his house. That in itself was pretty impressive

There were several rounds, including casual wear, evening wear, and questions from the judges. My favourite round though, was the traditional wear one. I don’t get to see my Namibian friends in traditional wear very often, because they normally wear street clothes, just like the way I don’t go around wearing a hanbok but wear jeggings instead. So it was kind of cool to see young people dressed up in the outfits of their ancestors. It helped me appreciate all the different social groups within Namibia.

Saima, in her traditional Oshiwambo dress

traditional Herero style - modelled after Victorian fashion at the turn of the last century. Basically some German missionaries convinced Herero women to cover themselves up with huge dresses - the bigger, the better.

so, like, I'm pretty sure this guy is wearing construction pants. Are these traditional?

In between the rounds, there was entertainment from local acts, including an amazing male kwaito dancer, a fantastic hiphop troupe that really know how to whip their hair, an R&B singer who assured us that he loves all sexy ladies, even Canadians, and a group of adorable little girls doing interpretive dance to “Open the Eyes Of My Heart, Lord.” I’m not a fan of Christian rock at all, but those kids were cute.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the emcee, who kept repeating “I won’t waste your time”, but would do precisely that, just to build up the suspense before announcing the next round, and the final winners. It was nearing midnight and my sober patience was wearing thin. At one point while he stalled before announcing the runner-ups, I got fed up and wandered to the concession stand to grab a Fanta, some maize snacks, and a boerewors sausage freshly cooked on the braai. When I finished and got back to my seat, the emcee still hadn’t managed to announce the winner yet.

When he finally let it slip out that Miss Shikomba had won the beauty pageant, I was caught off guard because I had stopped listening. Neverthless, I was happy for Saima.

there she goes

Claudia and Dean wanted to go to a shebeen, so they and Allison and Julia left without me. I wasn't feeling very touristy and wanted to go out with friends my own age instead, so I jumped into Andrew’s car and we headed over to crash Thaddeus’ after party with the beauty queen.

I got a lot of curious attention at the party, being the only non-black girl there, and more importantly, probably the only Korean in the entire country. As soon as I arrived, a girl ran to me and said something to me I didn’t catch.

“Huh?” I said
“I’m speaking your language. Don’t you speak your own language?” she asked.
“My language is English,” I answered. “And some French. I’m Canadian.”
“But don’t you speak a little of your own language?”
“Seriously, I’m not Chinese…”
“But not even a little?”

I actually get that a lot.

Thaddeus had just moved into his apartment, but I was pretty sure he was going to get kicked out, with the way everyone was stomping their feet and moving to the music. Namibians love to dance, and they can dance in a way that puts Canadians to shame. It does constantly put me to shame. I'd be standing up against a wall, enjoying people's moves, and then inevitably someone would pull me in, "Gloria, won't you come dance with us?" and then I'd do my little shuffle-hop, and everyone would laugh, and then I would back to the wall until I felt that I've had enough beer to dance better.

Pinehas, surrounded by what our R&B singer would describe as "sexy ladies"

eventually I wandered into the kitchen where Saima was feeding everyone meat with a knife. What I really appreciate about Namibian parties is the way they feed their guests a real meal, even if it's midnight. I'm not talking the bag of chips and peanuts that Canadian frat boys will leave out on the counter at their parties. We're talking meals, stews, curries, rice, punch, big chunks of meat. I think I'm going to go broke if I ever throw my own party.

what a beauty queen: Saima wields a knife like the way she wields power and beauty

Suddenly it was 3AM and Thaddeus could no longer avoid the fact that he was going to get evicted if we partied any longer. So we were hustled out the door. But I was nowhere near ready for bed. So we went club hopping downtown.

Club Ibiza was like a strange dream, or a scene from the next Matrix movie. We were lead down a long dark corridor which suddenly drops you into a big sterile white empty room. Everything is white, including the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. The music is pumped so loud you have to scream to be heard...and yet it was pretty much empty. We danced for a bit anyway. Sometimes it's nice to dance when no one's looking, especially if you dance the way I do.

Eventually, we made our way to Chez Ntemba, where we ran into Sean and his friends, which just goes to show that I have a special talent for finding out where the gay men are at, in any given city. More dancing.

You know, I used to hang out at my friend Jameel's house in Toronto, and we used to say there was a time warp at his place where 1AM would suddenly turn into 4AM. That exists here. It doesn't help that there doesn't seem to be a closing time like the way we have in Canada - they just keep pumping out the old school hiphop and serving drinks all night and all morning. nobody kicks you out. So all of a sudden, in the middle of dancing, I heard the deejay announce "ARE YOU READY FOR 6AM?"

what?? okay, time to go home and watch the sun rise.

sign on Thaddeus' fridge

we talk in music notes

2011-12-01T22:54:00.001+02:00

at the studio i was working with this Angolan guy who didn't speak any English, and I don't understand Portuguese, so instead of talking we just listened to this French Cape Verdean musician

Mika Mendes

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...kind of.

2011-11-30T22:17:00.009+02:00

Every Saturday morning, I wake up at 7AM by force of habit an I think, today is going to be the day that I will go for a forty-minute run. In truth, though, I usually get to the twenty minute mark and then I get distracted by something - usually shopping. Last Saturday, it was the Christmas craft sale at the Bougain Villa.

Christmas in Namibia is something that I'm trying to get used to. I'm used to associating Christmas with snow, pine trees, hot chocolate, the usual stuff. Christmas shopping with summer sales is bizarre to me. So are Christmas lights hung from palm trees. The German Christmas markets here serve chilled sangria rather than hot gluvine. And it's been getting really hot these days as it turns to summer.

the images in this Christmas display by the Kalahari Sands Hotel is what I'd normally associate with Christmas...

...but this is what Christmas actually looks like here

The Christmas craft sale at the Bougain Villa was just as odd for me. Set in the beautiful courtyard of the building, vendors sold traditional Christmas items, like cards, fudge, handmade beadwork, and traditional african items like biltong, and less traditional items like airsoft guns. and peculiarly traditional Christmas items like wool mittens and toques, although i have no idea who would have any use for these things in thirty-five degree summer Christmas weather (which was another reason why I wasn't jogging for much longer).

So basically, it doesn't actually feel like Christmas to me, even if the store displays are all trying to push it. Despite this, I had a lovely evening of Christmas music tonight. Lately instead of tutoring the kids at the after-school program in Katutura, I've been singing Christmas carols with them. It's just adorable to watch a dozen kids singing their hearts out - they have fantastic voices.

it's interesting to see which Christmas songs they like the most, and which ones they've never heard of. Their favourites seem to be "Joy to the World" and "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town". They'd never heard of the "12 Days of Christmas" and I didn't think it would go over well because it's so long and challenging, but once the kids learned it, they can't get enough of it and insist that we sing it over and over and over again till my voice gets hoarse. They also seem to be quite gifted rhythmically too - they clap complicated beats while they sing, even without me showing them. Given the fact that Christmas happens in the summer here, I wonder what the kids think about all these references in Christmas songs to things like snow, snowmen, pine trees, reindeer, boughs of holly, being cold.

I feel like maybe someone should "Namibianize" some of the Christmas carols. like this:

Johannes the red-nosed kudu
had a very shiny nose
and if you ever saw it, you would even say "izzit, bro?"
All of the South African colonialists
used it to classify his race
they never let poor Johannes get in any kudu place

then one sunny Christmas eve
Father Christmas did say
Johannes, with your nose so lekker,
won't you drive my minibus, nie?

then all the kudus loved him
and they shouted out lekker, bra!
Johannes the red-nosed kudu
you'll go down in history, ja.

After singing christmas carols, I left Katutura to go listen to Christmas music in a more formal classical setting at a choral concert at the Christuskirche, a historical Lutheran church built in 1910 located on Fidel Castro Street (yes that's the name of the street).

(image from Wikipedia)

inside
A mixed voice, mixed race local choir called the Harmony Chorali Choir was putting on a performance of Christmas carols, classical pieces, traditional African music, and random extras like songs from the Sound of Music and Phantom of the Opera. I enjoyed them a lot. they had a varied repertoire and their rendition of "Ave Maria" was beautiful enough to nearly move me to tears. I also really liked their unique gospel soul arrangement of Handel's Messiah. Most of all, I loved the traditional Oshiwambo folk songs they performed, complete with djembe and coordinated dancing and ululating. Generally I think there should be more ululating in churches.

I also got a big kick out of the fact that many of the choir members, including the conductor, read their music sheets from iPads.

Anyway, after a night full of Christmas tunes, and a promising upcoming weekend of my office Christmas party, I'm starting to get into the holiday spirit. especially the part about not working.

picnic on the Katutura side at Goreangab Dam

2011-11-29T07:19:00.003+02:00

Beach Dreams by Teen Daze
you should play the second track "Water" off Teen Daze's "Beach Dreams" album.

On Sunday, I woke up to the unmistakable roar of Andrew's cherrybomb exhaust pipe that the previous owner had inexplicably installed on his car, despite it not being a sports car at all. Andrew was outside the house, wanting to go meet up with Namibian friends at Goreangab dam. I had literally just rolled out of bed in my old T-shirt, and was still exhausted from clubbing till 4AM the night before, but I never turn down a chance to visit water and have a picnic, so I got dressed in record time and got in the car.

the park at Goreangab is pretty different from Avis, mainly because it's located by Katutura rather than Klein Windhoek. So instead of seeing rich old German couples walking their dogs and young Afrikaners going for jogs, Goreangab has loads of folks from Katutura, friends and families, braaiing up food in the picnic steel structures casting shade over the dirt floor, blasting African house music from their cars which they've pulled up close to the picnic tables, small children constantly begging for money and bottles, and self-employed entrepreneurs in suits going from table to table selling photoggraphs and biltong (mmm biltong). It's a good place to party on a Sunday afternoon in the summer.

At the picnic was the whole crowd of kids that work at the Ministry of Health, including Leio, Pinehas, Thaddeus, and Tutu. they handed me a Windhoek lager and some spicy stew that Tutu had made. I have no idea what was in it or what kind of meat it was but it was delicious - I adore that woman. It was certainly a big contrast from the picnic we had at Avis Dam last weekend. It may not have been a beach on which to have beach dreams, but it was a great time, the kind of fun time that a music video might show friends having. Honestly, if i could just fill up my second summer of the year with Sunday picnics with great friends, I'll be happy.

pretend this is a music video of all the fun that friends have

the picnic area

the water

Leio and I trying to be twins

eating biltong

andrew, being andrew

Mr. Gay Namibia and some Friday night pool

2011-11-28T09:32:00.001+02:00

On Saturday night, I went to Mr. Gay Namibia, the first beauty pageant for gay men in Namibia. My friend Micheal had asked me to accompany him on the guitar while he sang Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah during the wardrobe changes in the pageant. There was no way I was going to turn down an opportunity to perform a Canadian classic at a gay beauty pageant, especially one that served a full three course dinner with wine and champagne for what came out to be less than ten Canadian dollars.

there will be an newspaper article out soon about the event so I won't post too much details here, but you can enjoy the final moment where drag queen Solange announces the winner:

I love the part where all of the winner's friends and fans rush up to the stage and cheer loudly - I love the way African ululations sound. I also love the footage of the man jumping up and down excitedly with a giant rainbow flag. It was a beautiful moment, an important one for the repressed gay community in Namibia, and I felt tears in my eyes.

we celebrated afterwards getting photos with Mr Gay Namibia, and by going to a night club called Zanzibar where we danced our pants off (not literally - but it was pretty hot).

*****

Friday night, i thought it would be a good idea to eat only a cinnamon bun for dinner, drink two big glasses of beer, and then take on the local pool league.

after work i sent out my usual "so what's going to be then, eh?" SMS to my various droogs in the city to see what the evening would bring. my appointment to meet Mr. Gay World was cancelled, so I ran some errands downtown; tried to go get into a cab on Independence Avenue, but got pulled out by a cop who told me cabs can't pick up there. he put me in another cab...and then promptly ticketed that cab. I can't say I totally understand how everything works around here.

Julia was off salsa dancing, but andrew was up for shooting pool at a nearby bar called Jokers which had a set of pool tables in the back. We sat at the bar for a couple of drinks first, where we met a local guy named Reggie who convinced us not to use the kiddie tables. Instead he'd show us where the "real" pool tables were. We took our beers, and followed him out the back door, across the yard, up the fire escape, and past a bunch of strongly worded signs in English and Afrikaans saying DO NOT BRING BEERS FROM JOKERS HERE. For a moment I was convinced he was taking us to a Scientology conversion meeting or something, but then we entered a unmarked room that was inexplicably a different part of Jokers Lounge, despite being ridiculously far and hidden from the main part of the bar. the room was filled with smoke, the sharp sounds of pool balls bouncing against each other, and extremely serious looking guys. Clearly this was where the real pool players played. Reggie had led us to their secret spot.

a security guard headed towards us with a disapproving look on his face, i'm not sure if it was because of our beers that we'd snuck in or because i smelled like a noob, but Reggie stepped in and negotiated intensely for a few minutes in Afrikaans. And then suddenly, it was all right. the security guard stepped aside.

"You may play at any table," he told us.

I looked at the room. All of the tables were in use. "Which table can we play?" I asked nervously.

"You must challenge one of the players," the guard replied. "They play for money."

Oh dear. I'm not that good at pool. I spent most of first year university in the pool hall, sticking cups into the holes so we could get endless games without paying for it, but that was nearly a decade ago and since then, thanks to law school, my vision has gotten terrible and I've lost the ability to focus on a nearby object enough to line it up with a farther object. Not to mention I've got a silly haircut that makes my bangs hang in front of my eyes. Looking at this room full of intensely concentrating guys and piles of money on the sides of the table, I didn't think I was going to get much sympathy from them. I also didn't think I was going to be able to borrow a bobby pin to pull my hair back here. This was going to be interesting.

"Okay. Who are the worst players here?" Andrew asked.

We ended up joining at table at the back with two young architecture students from Polytech. They were pretty friendly, especially after Andrew started conversing with them in Portuguese (i could have used him in the studio, darn it), and we played a couple of games. Andrew did pretty well. I did about as well as I expected to, which wasn't very well, especially with no substantive dinner and two larger Hansa draughts. but it was still fun, and neat to discover another hidden hangout spot not too far from our place.

it's going to be an interested weekend

2011-11-24T16:23:00.000+02:00

The Canadian news media organization OpenFile published my story on the gay rights situation in Namibia. You can read it here.

long day

2011-11-23T14:22:00.000+02:00

whew. let me tell you about my day yesterday.

7:30-8:AM - walked to work.

8AM-1PM - had to quickly learn South African law.

1PM-1:30PM - tried once again to understand from my visa agent why things are moving so slow when i am trying to offer free labour

1:30-2PM - decided my lack of clothing is becoming a problem; went to the PEP (like our Giant Tiger) and bought some clothes from the children's section...because that's what fits me.

2:00-5PM - worked on the domestic violence report

5:00-6PM - music rehearsal at the College of the Arts with Michael for an upcoming gig

6:00-6:30PM - waited for Victor to pick me up. sat on the steps of the college and played the guitar while people walking by gave me strange looks.

6:00-9PM - recorded more guitar tracks at the label's studio. quickly learned how to play R&B style guitar. I still don't speak Portuguese, and LG still doesn't speak English. everyone's feeling a bit stressed because there's a rush to start mixing next week. Ran into the girls from Gal Level again, discussed boys.

9:00-9:30PM - Victor drove me home. He tells me that he's originally from Kenya. I asked LG why doesn't he learn to speak English so he can talk to other people.

9:30-10:00PM - arranged an interview for an article that OpenFile Ottawa is getting me to write

10:00-10:30PM - job interview over the phone

10:30-10:45PM - ate a yoghurt for dinner

10:45 - 11PM - Skyped with my sister and dad

11:30 - 6:30AM - slept. managed to pull a leg muscle while dreaming.

Today is much of the same, except replace recording at the studio with teaching Christmas carols to the kids in Katutura. busy busy busy...

all my friends shook it out

2011-11-22T18:09:00.000+02:00

"i fall down to the ground
lay out your blanket,
the sand is a blanket over us
all the running we've done, all throughout our dreams
in everything we're gonna do because it's me and you...."
-Teen Daze, "Let's Fall Asleep Together"

is it snowing at home? listen to this song and think about the sun.

i'm really into songs that are about hanging out with your friends, maybe because i've been missing all my friends back at home lately. if my band ever makes a music video, it's going to be about me and all my friends and all the fun we're having, so that other people watching the music video will wish they were with their friends having the kind of fun we're having, instead of sitting there alone watching my music video.

Sunday afternoon, I was in the mood to get together with all my friends and have some fun, probably because I had spent most of the weekend hiding in the dark of my room alone playing the guitar and recording new music. I mean, to be fair, that's generally what I prefer to be doing, and it wasn't like I was capable of doing much else - for days I had been trying to ignore the fact that I had obvious signs of either food poisoning or a stomch bug, but by the weekend I had to give up the Chuck Norris facade and had to give in, stop drinking beer, and stay home.

I digress. By Sunday afternoon, I emerged from my cave, ready to be social again. A bunch of us piled into Andrew and Julia's cars and drove over to Avis Dam for a sunny Sunday afternoon hike and picnic.

the beautiful sparkling Avis Dam

It was a lovely hike, where we met all sorts of friendly folks walking their dogs, fishing with their families, diving off high points into the water with friends. We found ourselves a pretty spot by the water and treated ourselves to a giant picnic feast and wine. of which I only ate bread, bananas, and apple juice, because i was still on a BRAT diet. i played Sufjan Stevens on my iPod, and we lounged as the sun went down, watching the other kids chase their fishing poles into the water and pull out giant fish.

okay, now play this song by the Pains of Being Pure At Heart, and scroll down and pretend that these photos are a music video of all my friends having a lot of fun

kids diving into the water

the feast i could not eat

claudia and i

dean aspiring to be andrew

gloria trying to blend in with the boys

/>
"all my friends shook it out..."

i love picnics. they are my favourite social activity, combining my love of the outdoors, food, company, and non-commercial establishments. my favourite dates with rob are when we pick up sandwiches at the Italian grocery store and then eat on the grassy hill at the Aboretum of the Experimental farm. If only I could bring all my friends back at home over to this new city I've found. There are so many beautiful places to watch the sun go down.

each shade of blue is kept in her eyes
keep blowing and lighting
because we own the sky
-M83

MORE MUSIC VIDEOS OF FRIENDS HANGING OUT AND HAVING FUN

Great Bloomers, "Catching Up"

My Dad vs Yours, "Happy Wanderer/Carry the Weight" (the fun begins at 2:45)

No Joy, "Hawaii" (probably not safe for work)

recording at the studio

2011-11-22T01:00:00.000+02:00

I went back to the recording studio on Saturday evening. Sula wanted me to lay down a few guitar tracks for the new Gal Level album that the Ogopa Butterfly label will be releasing soon. I was a little nervous about foraying into the world of R&B (do R&B songs even have guitars anymore? answer: apparently yes) but was up for spending a few hours playing the guitar and having someone actually listen.

I’ve been in plenty of North American recording studios before, but it was pretty interesting being in a Namibian studio. The record label’s impressively numerous industry awards are proudly displayed at the entrance. Sula's in-laws drifted in and out of the building, as did a number of other random folks. The building looks like any other house in Windhoek, with its yellow walls, red dirt lawn, and massive gate, but the interior has been transformed to suit the company’s needs. The dark recording booth looks somewhat has a homey DIY touch, with black cloths stapled over wall frames to absorb sound, little holes in the material letting in the daylight. Between the black cloth walls, though, are all sorts of recording equipment that I’d love to spend all day playing around with.

“Victor, will you close the gate before we get mugged?” Sula mutters. I want to ask him if this was a problem, given all the expensive sound equipment housed in the building.

I'm introduced to LG, an Angolan refugee, who will be working with me that day. I set up my guitar and LG plugs it in. He turns on the system and plays the song that I’m going to record on, a sweet slow ballad that kind of reminds me of Des’ree’s “Kissing You”. The computer is making a weird beeping sound but I try to ignore it. I pluck the strings, trying to come up with a decent guitar riff to suit the style, all while I’m chattering away to him, but LG seems like a quiet shy guy.

Victor drops by and hands me a bottle of water and a delicious carton of Oshikandela as hospitality.

“The computer keeps beeping,” I tell him.
“It’s got a virus,” Victor replies.
“Oh.” I turn to LG. “Did you know your computer has a virus?” I ask LG.
“He doesn’t speak English,” Victor tells me as he leaves. “He only speaks Portuguese.”

Oh. That would explain why he’s not replying to anything I say. He hasn’t understood a word I’ve been saying all this time.

The recording is therefore a pretty interesting experience, since I don’t speak Portuguese. We communicate mainly through music and sign language. When he wants me to play louder, he hits his fingers on the desk. When he wants me to try a particular melody, he sings it to me and I play it back to him. Once in a while, when the message is too complicated, he uses a program on his computer which works like Google Translate, typing in his messages and hitting the “traduzir” button. The messages always come out garbled (“You can finger pick know how”) but I get a basic idea of what he’s trying to say. Usually.

Meanwhile, the crazy computer continues to beep throughout the song. This is a little annoying, especially when you’re trying to follow the beat of the song and keep getting distracted by the beeps. Soon enough it becomes background noise and I’ve hammered out a few tracks. It takes a while. I have had thick guitar calluses on my fingertips since I was fourteen, but now I feel like my fingers just might start bleeding.

When I’ve finished recording the first song, LG plays around with a bunch of controls. I watch him transform my tracks, adding a touch of chorus, turning up the reverb, playing around with a bunch of effects, until we hear a rough idea of the final product. He’s managed to make my stuff sound awesome.

“That is so cool,” I tell him. I assume that he understands “cool.”

LG says something in Portuguese to me with the words “R&B” and “guitar” in it.

“I don’t usually play R&B,” I tell him. He wants me to try anyway. So I start playing a few bossa nova chords. He fiddles with some buttons and is soon writing a R&B beat on top of my riffs. It’s pretty neat. This is the first time I’ve jammed with someone on a computer. The beats are complicated, and it’s a challenge to keep up.

Afterwards LG pulls out his iPhone and plays a song. “Kizomba,” he tells me. I’ve heard of kizomba, a popular music genre from Angola, but have not had the chance to listen to it before. It sounds beautiful, a lovely blend of synths, synthetic beats, live instruments including guitar, and smooth crooning reverb-heavy R&B vocals. LG sings along

I realize that I understand the words. “This is in French,” I say in surprise.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“Do you speak French?”
“Francês? No. Português.”
Darn. That would have been a better way to communicate than sign language.

I reach for his keyboard and type into the program. Can I buy this CD in Namibia?

He looks at the screen. “Memory stick?” he says to me in English. In the old days, musicians would have swapped mix tapes, but today, you just fill up a USB key.

By this time, other people have come into the studio, including two girls I’ve never seen before. “LG, have you still not learned English yet?” one of the girls demands. LG slinks away before I have a chance to say good-bye and thanks for not making my guitar sound horrible. Not that he would have understood anyway.

By this time, I’ve received multiple texts from Andrew insisting that I must come out to a house party. After feeling puzzled at the change in his tone and vocabulary, I realize that it’s Leio and Pinehas both texting me from Andrew’s phone. Sula drops me off at the party, which is curiously the same place that we saw Rochon off at her good-bye party. There is an absurd amount of game meat to be cooked on the braai, and the largest bowl of pasta salad I have ever seen You could bathe a child in it. This makes me incredibly happy, and I stuff myself until my tummy hurts.

There’s a laptop at the party playing music, and somebody puts on the Facebook song, and everybody jumps up to dance. Man, I just love the way people dance in this country. We party until the neighbours close it down.

turning the dining room into a dancefloor

showing us how to do a dance that looks an awful lot like the macarena