First week in Namibia, getting on the right track for the long run…

Maandag, 27 Okt 2008

Written by Clementine Nobl...

I arrived in Namibia a week ago and it’s been quite hectic to start up on the assignment. After a quiet and sightseeing week-end, I met a lot of key people who will help us out to raise funds locally. So many people are very enthusiastic about the project which really motivates me to do my best and get the wellness center running properly!

I arrived in Windhoek, capital of Namibia, last Friday. Already before landing of the plane you can basically only see dry landscape… It is not surprising to know that there are only 2 millions inhabitants in Namibia while it is equal to the size of France and Germany together!
While getting out of the plane, I feel the warmth outside. The air is very dry so it not very uncomfortable but it is nearly 35 degrees here…

After getting settled at my guest house, I went to visit the office where I can work from. I will be located in the office of another NGO named Pharmaccess. They are working very closely with North Star Foundation, especially on the Medication/ Pharmaceutical side and their expertise is very useful to us. They are also running special projects fro HIV/AIDS prevention and among others special programmes to help out mothers, children and pregnant women who are HIV positive. I will be mainly based in Windhoek but will also work a lot in Walvis Bay, which is located on the Atlantic Coast as the Wellness center is there and lots of potential stakeholders and funders as well.

I was lucky to go on a tour of the city during the week end with a nice Austrian man who has been living in Windhoek for almost 50 years! He obviously knows a lot about the city, the country and its history. Windhoek is rather small for a capital where there are only 250,000 inhabitants. It is surrounded by mountains and is often very warm as it is in the middle of the land. The German community is very important here as Namibia used to be a German territory until the beginning of the 20th century. Thereafter it has been attributed to South Africa for administration to reach independence but only became independent in 1990! Obviously it has been very influenced by South African culture but really owns its own culture of food, beers (that’s the German influence ;-)), languages… although the most spoken language remains Afrikaans. Who said Dutch was not spoken in the World?
The city is of course separated into different neighborhoods and logically there is a very important poor community living in Katutura. It remains quite decent and the people living there are very clean which makes it more comfortable for them to live there. As I visited the town on Sunday, it is for everyone here Church day and I’m so amazed by the beauty of these people wearing beautiful traditional costumes and singing songs on the street. Katutura is very lively and I can stop watching the beautiful children running on the streets who are so happy to see me taking pictures of them. All locals are having some drinks in the local bars called the “Shebeen”. While getting out of Katutura we drove next to the cemetery known as “AIDS cemetery”, it is huge and quite unbelievable but good to face reality… this is one of the biggest problem here.
After discovering this part of town, it is quite hard to get back to the “lucky” neighborhoods….
On Monday morning, I’m quite happy to finally really starting with the project and Ian arrives from Jo’burg. He will stay in Namibia for a week to introduce to all our main contacts here as he was very much involved in the project so far.
On Tuesday morning we leave Windhoek to go to Walvis Bay where the center is located. How amazing to drive on a straight road for 4 hours and almost see nobody… There must be 2, 3 villages on a distance of almost 400kms! But the landscape when you finally reach the Atlantic coast is simply so amazing that it’s worth driving so long! It is probably one of the most amazing desert landscapes… The ocean is right next to gigantic golden dunes blown off by permanent wind reshaping them all the time. I couldn’t believe this but again I’m amazed by everything here, it’s all so beautiful, the people, the landscape, wildlife…

When we arrive in Walvis, I finally meet with Sonia, the peer educator and Nurse Gurieras who both work at the center. It is nice to finally get to meet them as they are the central point of our action, actually educating, counseling, examining and as the case may be trying to cure people. The center is located right behind the main entrance of the Walvis Bay Harbor, at a strategic location where people can access it easily. So far the Center has only been open during daytime but it might change and open till later in the evening as fishermen and truckers have some time to kill in the evening… There are about ten/fifteen persons coming everyday at the center and they expect the number to grow very quickly once the center is officially launched.
After chatting with the girls, I decide to sit in the small classroom to watch the education DVD which lasts about 2 hours. Actually I have to say that anyone should watch such programme as I’m convinced that most of the people do not know half of what is explained there.

The biggest problem everywhere is how to convince people to speak so easily about this while it relates directly to sexual intercourse but again I do hope that mentalities can change anywhere…. Conservatism is far from being inexistent in lots of developed countries and HIV/AIDS is not only to be assimilated to Africa…

What has been very motivating during this trip to Walvis is to realize once more that the community is very much mobilizing to combat the spread of the virus. After a very good meeting with somebody at the Ministry of Fisheries delegated to social responsibility and actions against AIDS, he nicely invites us to the DAC. The DAC is the District AIDS Committee reuniting all persons responsible for AIDS awareness in different companies, civil services… The following morning, Ian and I attend the meeting and we decide to make ourselves heard and talk about the set up of our center. As expected it is not yet well known and everybody is very enthusiastic and after lots of discussions, Walvis will focus on the launch of the center on the 1st of December, World AIDS day! Obviously there are lots of celebrations around this day but all have been scheduled during the week end so it is just perfect! I’m very happy to see lots of people who want to liaise with me in the future to have further discussions and also to help me out getting in touch with possible funders… of course, if there are no funds there won’t be any Wellness center…

The trip to Walvis was very beneficial and the last experience of this week was rather striking when we decide to have a few drinks at the local fishermen bar… So many foreign fishermen hang out there and local sex workers just come there everyday with the intention we unfortunately are all aware of… I could take my eyes off what was happening there and to see these girls not being much older than fifteen/sixteen years old trying to get the attention of some guys all the time, it really broke me…. It is hard to realize that you cannot stop prostitution; the only thing we can help them with is to convince them to protect themselves.

This week ending, I am now going to focus on contacting lots of people, hopefully the right people to try to raise enough funds to get the center running on a long term basis, I really cross my fingers; there will never be enough good initiatives such as North Star to try to reduce the impact of AIDS…