Around the World

Walvis Bay-

Our visit to Walvis Bay, Namibia was very different from all other tours to date! It is an important port because it has a natural deep-water harbor, attracting whalers and fishing vessels. Located just north of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Kuiseb River delta, in a strategic location to Cape of Good Hope and in a key railway and major road hub.

Walvis Bay was founded at the end of the 18th century as a stopover for sea travel between Cape Town and the Netherlands by the Dutch East India Company. It was incorporated into Britain’s Cape Colony (now part of South Africa) in 1884, the same year in which Germany established the colony of South West Africa. Subsequently, a dispute arose with Germany over the exclave's boundaries, which was eventually settled in 1911, with Walvis Bay being allocated an area of 434 sq miles. It constituted an exclave of South Africa from 1918 until 1992 and with it, a strong Apartheid culture. On 19 April 1960 the South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) was formed as a liberation movement, and in 1966 launched an armed liberation struggle for independence for the area that was soon named Namibia. Unfortunately, it took until 1990 for them to gain full Independence from South African rule.

With this mixed background it’s no surprise to see a German Bavarian type village, as well as an upscale area occupied by people from around the world lined with 3,000 palm trees and a poorer area with those that still speak in native tongues and follow older customs and traditions. We traveled through these different areas but spent most of the day exploring in the traditional areas where we met with three families in their homes.

On the road, we learned that this is the only place where a road goes between sand dunes and an Ocean. Interesting views. Our first stop was visiting the dunes with an opportunity to climb on the sand dunes and take photos in this exotic environment that is estimated to be 80 million years old (older than the Sahara). Then we drove through an area with beautiful homes on the beach and then onto German town.

The highlight was our visit to a working-class residential district in the Mondesa Township. It has been a community since the 1950’s and provides housing for the Ovambo, Damara and Herero people that work in the city of Swakopmund. There are actually 13 different tribes but the Ovambo are the predominant in Namibia. The town has 85,000 people speaking English, German and Afrikaans. First stop in this neighborhood was through the “marketplace”, where you could buy anything and everything. What was so interesting is that all the wares, new and old, were laid out incredibly neatly on tables and on the ground. Many people had “shabeem” pubs in homes where they often brewed their own alcohol. We saw the interesting “stores” that covered this community.

The next stop here was to visit a family (Mama Erica) and got to see how they lived, learn about family life of the Ovambo Bantu-speaking people (who can get married, how many wives most men had and how the first wife picked the other wives) and were given the chance to spend time asking them questions and answering their questions of us (see video). They are part of the Heroro tribe and their hats are adorned to indicate the number of cows they own (the more cows, the better). A very interesting description was about how they make purified milk.Läs mer