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About Mondesa
Opuwo
by Robert Mellis
I thought you might enjoy this note from Jo to our girls. It gives a
different point of view of life in The North.
Dear Steph and Lynn,
I thought I would write you a note about our travels. Yesterday we
went west to a town that is having a water crisis. The water company
shut off the water five months ago because the town council didn’t
pay the bill. But the level of poverty in the town is really very
eye opening.
It is composed of tribes of Herero and Himba. The houses are just
small grass shacks or square mud covered houses. The Himba ladies
are a trip. They run around topless wearing goat skins around their
waists.
They wear necklaces with a big shell on a leather string. Their feet
have sandals with small corrie shells half way up their calf. How
they get these shells is interesting because the coast is many miles
away.
In a shop for sale to westerners was a necklace made of ears that I
think would be goat ears that had been coated in this red ochre
powder. How someone would wear this without getting this powder all
over you I do not know. The girls rub this powder all over their
bodies so they look a red brown color.
We went to another settlement where a Herero lady was ironing her
dress with an old fashioned iron with coals inside. It was like
looking back 100 years. But I was amazed that she cared enough.
Their dresses or big flowing things often of patchwork of various
prints. There was just dry dirt all around her and very little water
for her to use. The young girls here are wear western jeans and
pants so tight that I am amazed that they are not so uncomfortable
with that seam up their crotch that they can actually walk.
Yesterday I watched four little boys playing with a cardboard box.
It was wonderful. They made a string out of a bit of plastic that
they twisted and tied on to the box. The four boys filled the box
with items and ran and laughed when things fell out. The four boys
played well, not fighting, but working together. I read an article
about a teacher who was discussing the tribal attitude of working
together and how different it is than in the US where individualism
is expected. The dirt track the boys were playing on had broken
glass and bottles and coke cans and plastic bags all around.
The boys were barefoot and wearing a skin leather apron around their
waist and a tail in the back that had beads on the end of leather
strings that hung down bumping their butt all the time. I didn’t see
how that was very comfortable. Trash is an issue that is not really
picked up. Even though it is a country that reuses a lot of items.
Plastic bags are a terrible issue. They are everywhere.
Last night we were away so long that we were driving home in the
dark. This is the one thing everyone says don’t do is drive in the
dark. I was driving and the wind picked up and started to blow the
dust around. It was like mini dust storms. It cut the visibility
down quite a bit. I thought it was like driving in the fog. The
lower headlights were better than the high beams. I was worried
about the animals on the road side - the goats and the cattle and
the donkeys. The goats on the way out there were all over the
roadside. And they just cross the road right in front of you. Oswald
was with us and he said the goats were afraid of the wind and would
hide. But the donkeys were an issue because they are the same color
as the road harder to see at night. We did see one donkey but I was
on high alert all the time. I was very glad when we got back to
town. The level of poverty really makes you think. The Himba ladies
will ask you to pay them if you take their picture and you really
don’t mind.
You are complaining Steph about five days of rain in Vermont.
Everyone here is waiting for the rain. They last saw the rain in
December last year for a few days. And that is up here in the north.
In the south, they haven’t had rain fall in years… maybe eight
years, they think.
Lynn, you would probably be interested in how the 10 Christian
churches in Opuwo got together to try to save the town’s water
problem. They got a grant from the U.K. to buy and deliver 5 2500
litre tanks. They built foundations for these, as well as a fence
and lock on the tap. Then each church contributed N$50 (US$4) which
allowed them to buy water from the water company to fill these
tanks. They then offered the water for sale to the poor people for
N$2 for 25 litres. All this was led by a Pastor Gideon from the
Seventh Day Adventist Church there.
Let us know if Cassy’s eye problem is improving. It worries us.
Also, we hope that Trisha is enjoying school and her speech teacher
still.
Love Mom
New Namibian pictures are at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/robertsmellis
Sailing story at:
http://www.sailnet.com/collections/articles/index.cfm?articleid=ouread0018
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