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Swakopmund Part Two
The expression “it’s a small world” is liberally bandied about but meeting my last boss in a hotel in Swakopmund must surely merit the use of the saying.
Angela and I had visited the Swakopmund Hotel, previously the German railway station, to see if their Internet connection was any faster than the other places we’d tried.
Walking in to the foyer I noticed a big sign board welcoming guests to the Netcare Pharmacy Suppliers Conference. Netcare, a major South African hospital group, had taken over my last employer, a UK private hospital group just as I was leaving. It crossed my mind that my boss, Sally Bennett, a pharmacist and director of purchasing, might be at such a gathering and a check on the guest list at reception confirmed as much.
We spotted Sally, and a colleague Anne Iveson, near the pool area. It was a very strange feeling to sit there in a hotel on the Namibian desert coast catching up on what had happened to the company and people I worked with for 10 years. Even more bizarre was it was nearly a year to the day that I’d handed Sally my letter of resignation.
Swakop by the way is the German derivative of the Nama name Tsaokhaub, a combination of the words Tsao meaning “posterior” and soub meaning “excrement”- a charming reference to the Swakop river in flood, mund is German for mouth. The lavatorial theme to these updates continues!
The local newspaper Namib Times has been a great source of interesting articles. One of the best sections is the classified ads, here is one example:
“Traditional Doctor Kalenga
He can help you through:
Pregnancy, education, court cases, love affairs, marriage problems, bad luck, businesses, protection at home, removal of tokoloshi, men’s powers, sexuality, exams, job problems etc.”
Tokoloshi, by the way, is a Southern African bogeyman, a male demon with a huge penis who can get in to your house if you are not careful. He is often blamed for incidences of rape, unwanted pregnancy and HIV transmission as well as illnesses, thefts and general bad luck.
The Alte Brucke campsite in Swakopmund, our home for the last week, has been full of Europeans (mostly German and Austrian) on 2 or 3 week self drive holidays out of Windhoek, the capital. Every now and then there are interesting exceptions, like Florian and Susie, a German couple with 2 young (well behaved!) children who are touring in a yellow Toyota (Custard Bus)with what looks like an old Nissen hut on the back end. They are having a final long holiday after 3 years in Cape Town before going back to Germany for a new job.
They are managing to do twice as much as us in the same day, despite having the children to look after as well, perhaps we are getting older!
Our plan now is to head up to Etosha National Park in the central northern area of Namibia and spend as long as we can afford staying at the park campsites (there are 3). It is Etosha’s 100th birthday this year and they are re-building most of the accommodation.
We have been warned that most of the campsites are like building sites at present. More worrying is the fact that it has been raining up there; this means the animals will be dispersed and harder to see. We knew that we were not going to be in Etosha at the best time of year for game viewing, but the 3 month visa issue gives us no other option.
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