Lessons from the Rainy Season

As I write this, streams of rain pour down over the roof of my flat here in Windhoek. We are now going on about three straight weeks of a rain that always comes in sudden bursts. It never drizzles here. The rain either comes not at all or in torrents. The almanacs say it will [...]

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Constructing Sentences

As of yet no one has published an Oshikwanyama-English dictionary, so as I have been taking my language lessons over the last few weeks I have been forced to construct sentences based on the vocabulary terms provided in the grammar notebooks available to me. One of these gave me the correct Oshikwanyama terms for “proletarian [...]

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They Drained the Water

For the past two weeks most of Namibia has seen heavy rains every afternoon and evening. The storms, which usually come on quite suddenly, are invariably intense, with waters rushing down the many hills that define the landscape in this part of the country. The water tends to collect in the dips between hills, making [...]

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On Class Warfare

Wherever there is public parking in Windhoek, there are men and women, wearing blue vests, who act as “Car Guards” for your vehicle. As soon as you park your car, one of them will walk over to you, give you a thumbs up signal, and if you respond with a nod of the head or [...]

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Zebra Tastes Good

During my mid to late twenties I was a strict vegetarian, never eating meat and generally lecturing those who did on the evils of the meat processing industry. For once, this commitment gave me the moral high ground. When a relative once lectured me that the U.S. abortion industry was worse than the Nazi Holocaust, [...]

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A General Update

This has been a relatively slow week here in Namibia. It rains–sometimes impressively–every day, but the weather has been otherwise quite pleasant, with temperatures around the upper 70s or low 80s attenuated by nice breezes. I am gradually getting accustomed to navigating Windhoek’s hills and streets, although night driving remains difficult owing to the lack [...]

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Political Developments

This coming November elections will be held in Namibia for president and the Legislative Assembly, but passions in many parts of the country have already been enflamed in the wake of the creation of a new political party, the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), which was formed in November 2007 after Hidipo Hamutenya, a [...]

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