Tuuli's Blog
Monday, April 24, 2006
Johannesburg impressions
As I pulled into Joburg, my first thought was: This is LA. Nobody walks in LA... or Joburg. It is a city dominated by cars. The hectic and busy central downtown area of the city is surrounded with hilly suburbs of wide, tree-lined streets. Like LA, in order to travel through the city in comfort, you need a car and a map that will help you navigate the network of freeways and six lane streets. Unless you are me, of course. I don't have a car, but I have spent the last two weeks mentally mapping the routes of the hundreds of trusty minibuses. I wish they had minibuses in LA! At least through these buses, I can still cling to a semblance of familiarity with the Africa I have left behind.
Another comparison with LA (although it is much more disconcerting in Joburg): segregation. I have gotten some strange looks as I board these tro tros (shared minibuses). I get the feeling like this is a color thing. In all places except Southern Africa, I have been welcomed into these transporting machines with smiles and curiosity. Here, things are a little different. In my first two weeks in Joburg, I have never seen another white person board these buses (except for Andrew, the Greenpeace activist who came to visit me over Easter). On board these buses, one can often witness an interesting social experiment which highlights how people mediate conflict. One person sometimes doesn't pay the fare and the whole bus erupts into a swarm of accusations in Zulu.
During most days, I go from the wealthy suburb that I am staying in by minibus to visit the city center. Mostly this is because Internet and everything else is far cheaper in town. Compare 5 rand an hour to 60 rand an hour. Through this commute, I have come to understand the not so subtle reasons for a government initiative called Black Economic Empowerment. If the discrepancy in prices varies this much with all goods and services between black and white neighborhoods, there is a huge inequality present here. Recognizing this, the government has taken bold steps to require businesses and government sectors to equalize race ratios. Black Economic Empowerment is a program designed to level the playing field, fast. But for right now, it is happening too quickly for comfort and is causing a lot of disorientation.
Where do I fit in? I am not so economically empowered at this point. The campaign is quickly running out of money. For the time being, I belong to the less empowered population here in Joburg. But, I am one of the only whites I have seen in this category. Despite the robbery, I like walking around "town" or central Joburg. I am way too fascinated to stay away and fear the place. It is a city unlike any other I have seen. Hawkers and food sellers line the sidewalks, selling goods at bargain prices chanting tenrandtenrandtenrand. Yet, these distinctly African market sellers are nestled in between a grid of gray skyscrapers that house offices and stores. Two blocks down (beyond an invisible boundary that keeps these sellers out: South of Market Street and West of Harrison), is the headquarters of a continent-wide bank. I inquire from a young white office worker how to find an Internet cafe in town. He replies: "I don't know this area at all, I only come here to work and then I go straight home." Hmmm. It seems people are scared, which I understand from the experience of the knife in my throat.
Third comparison point: commercialism. Luxury cars, shopping malls, mansions with electric fences protecting all of the stuff people buy, bars with strict dress codes with names like fashionbar that hire extremely nice people to turn you away, cocktail happy hour, bed and breakfasts, vacations to Durban and Cape Town, shall I go on? This only highlights existing inequalities.
The pace in Joburg is overwhelming. And things are changing, with an unreal pace. South Africa is moving from a time of insecurity to one of prosperity and economic strength. I spoke with a white South African man today whose wife had recently been murdered. He described South Africa in the following way: "It's like Alice in Wonderland." South Africa and its epicenter, Joburg are such a strange and psychedelic mix of poverty and wealth, morality and depravity, black and white, that to begin to understand all the undercurrents will only get you drowned. A survival mechanism could be to know that "everything is changing" and that you should look out for the wormholes. The last ten years since the end of apartheid have forever altered the priorities, goals and hopes of the nation. People are trying to figure out if they should join the tea party and where they should sit.
I am up for the challenge of Joburg because anyone can recognize that this is an exciting place filled with promise. Most multinational companies operating in Africa have headquarters here. Businesses can rely on a rule of law (and a court system) that is unparalleled in Africa. Furthermore, I like Alice in Wonderland and the hallucinogenic way that time and space collide.
Fundraising challenges
Piggybacking on Nate's last blog: We are almost out of money. But don't lose all hope yet. I have been working on getting us sponsors every day. I don't have a computer, I can barely afford a phone but I am doing my best. As every professional fundraiser knows, finding money is not an overnight effort. It is about building relationships. Realistically, I don't want the boys to rely on the fact that I can secure enough funds ($15,000) in the next two or three weeks to complete the trip. Joburg is not like West and Central Africa, where you can waltz into a board room without an appointment. But I have a strategy and it will take some time to execute it. I have been chatting with various people, making calls incessantly and speaking with a few key people to build relationships. Hopefully, we can get sponsorship through these efforts. Hang in there!
As I pulled into Joburg, my first thought was: This is LA. Nobody walks in LA... or Joburg. It is a city dominated by cars. The hectic and busy central downtown area of the city is surrounded with hilly suburbs of wide, tree-lined streets. Like LA, in order to travel through the city in comfort, you need a car and a map that will help you navigate the network of freeways and six lane streets. Unless you are me, of course. I don't have a car, but I have spent the last two weeks mentally mapping the routes of the hundreds of trusty minibuses. I wish they had minibuses in LA! At least through these buses, I can still cling to a semblance of familiarity with the Africa I have left behind.
Another comparison with LA (although it is much more disconcerting in Joburg): segregation. I have gotten some strange looks as I board these tro tros (shared minibuses). I get the feeling like this is a color thing. In all places except Southern Africa, I have been welcomed into these transporting machines with smiles and curiosity. Here, things are a little different. In my first two weeks in Joburg, I have never seen another white person board these buses (except for Andrew, the Greenpeace activist who came to visit me over Easter). On board these buses, one can often witness an interesting social experiment which highlights how people mediate conflict. One person sometimes doesn't pay the fare and the whole bus erupts into a swarm of accusations in Zulu.
During most days, I go from the wealthy suburb that I am staying in by minibus to visit the city center. Mostly this is because Internet and everything else is far cheaper in town. Compare 5 rand an hour to 60 rand an hour. Through this commute, I have come to understand the not so subtle reasons for a government initiative called Black Economic Empowerment. If the discrepancy in prices varies this much with all goods and services between black and white neighborhoods, there is a huge inequality present here. Recognizing this, the government has taken bold steps to require businesses and government sectors to equalize race ratios. Black Economic Empowerment is a program designed to level the playing field, fast. But for right now, it is happening too quickly for comfort and is causing a lot of disorientation.
Where do I fit in? I am not so economically empowered at this point. The campaign is quickly running out of money. For the time being, I belong to the less empowered population here in Joburg. But, I am one of the only whites I have seen in this category. Despite the robbery, I like walking around "town" or central Joburg. I am way too fascinated to stay away and fear the place. It is a city unlike any other I have seen. Hawkers and food sellers line the sidewalks, selling goods at bargain prices chanting tenrandtenrandtenrand. Yet, these distinctly African market sellers are nestled in between a grid of gray skyscrapers that house offices and stores. Two blocks down (beyond an invisible boundary that keeps these sellers out: South of Market Street and West of Harrison), is the headquarters of a continent-wide bank. I inquire from a young white office worker how to find an Internet cafe in town. He replies: "I don't know this area at all, I only come here to work and then I go straight home." Hmmm. It seems people are scared, which I understand from the experience of the knife in my throat.
Third comparison point: commercialism. Luxury cars, shopping malls, mansions with electric fences protecting all of the stuff people buy, bars with strict dress codes with names like fashionbar that hire extremely nice people to turn you away, cocktail happy hour, bed and breakfasts, vacations to Durban and Cape Town, shall I go on? This only highlights existing inequalities.
The pace in Joburg is overwhelming. And things are changing, with an unreal pace. South Africa is moving from a time of insecurity to one of prosperity and economic strength. I spoke with a white South African man today whose wife had recently been murdered. He described South Africa in the following way: "It's like Alice in Wonderland." South Africa and its epicenter, Joburg are such a strange and psychedelic mix of poverty and wealth, morality and depravity, black and white, that to begin to understand all the undercurrents will only get you drowned. A survival mechanism could be to know that "everything is changing" and that you should look out for the wormholes. The last ten years since the end of apartheid have forever altered the priorities, goals and hopes of the nation. People are trying to figure out if they should join the tea party and where they should sit.
I am up for the challenge of Joburg because anyone can recognize that this is an exciting place filled with promise. Most multinational companies operating in Africa have headquarters here. Businesses can rely on a rule of law (and a court system) that is unparalleled in Africa. Furthermore, I like Alice in Wonderland and the hallucinogenic way that time and space collide.
Fundraising challenges
Piggybacking on Nate's last blog: We are almost out of money. But don't lose all hope yet. I have been working on getting us sponsors every day. I don't have a computer, I can barely afford a phone but I am doing my best. As every professional fundraiser knows, finding money is not an overnight effort. It is about building relationships. Realistically, I don't want the boys to rely on the fact that I can secure enough funds ($15,000) in the next two or three weeks to complete the trip. Joburg is not like West and Central Africa, where you can waltz into a board room without an appointment. But I have a strategy and it will take some time to execute it. I have been chatting with various people, making calls incessantly and speaking with a few key people to build relationships. Hopefully, we can get sponsorship through these efforts. Hang in there!
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
I am in Johannesburg for two reasons: 1) to fundraise for the rest of the trip and 2) to figure out if I would want to move here in the future. So far, my impressions of the city have ranged from fascination to disgust at the ever-present commercialism. I will write more about my thoughts in the coming weeks. In the meantime, if you want to call me, my number is 27 84 2212988. I am lonely without my boys!
Monday, April 03, 2006
Botswana Film Festival
Before embarking on this trip, I understood that basically, colonial history is often characterized by horrific and inexplicable acts. But I do not always know the details. Unfortunately, my history classes didn't prepare me well to understand African history and I have lacked facts about the time period. I can recite battles from world war two, but I don't always know where an African country is geographically (how embarrassing!). But these details are valuable. They can set the places I visit within a historical framework. Unfortunately, aside from the Lonely Planet summary in the guidebook, "King Leopolds Ghost" (which explained Congo's history) and the few casual historians that I have encountered, facts and details have rarely been available.
Maybe it is because the historical record is so sinister. Stories of oppression, forced labor and racial brutality are not recorded by the colonial powers. Even oral histories of Africans fade with the passing of time, with each generation the wounds of history heal. But seeing one film at the Gaborone Human Rights festival really opened my eyes and understanding of Namibian history. "Namibia and the Second Reich" narrated the story of the systematic genocide of the Herero people of Namibia by the German Second Reich in the first decades of the twentieth century.
The film itself was a History Channel style narration of the episode with dramatic reenactments and historical archive photographs. It was in the style of a war documentary... and this form of documentary always manages to bore me into changing the channel. However, having just visited Namibia, I was riveted. In Namibia, the wounds of the apartheid era are very obvious: the division of neighborhoods, the economic inequality between races and even the rage of some Namibians toward unjustified and justified enemies. But the wounds of the colonial era have all but healed: the consensus about the Germans is that they were fantastic colonialists (even the most avid nationalist freedom fighter that I spoke with attested to this). German tourists today find Namibia a favorite vacation spot in Africa.
The film relayed a forgotten past, one that seems buried by the magnitude of other atrocities that happened in the twentieth century. It told the story of the genocide of the Herero, a semi-nomadic people of the Kalahari region. In the early 1900's the colonial government made a decision to quell a rebellion by the Herero, who spoke up against the forced labor practices of the colonialists. They sought the help of the national government. The rebellion was heatedly debated in the halls of the Second Reich in Berlin. The newspapers screamed for protection to be sent down to save the lives of German colonists from the brutal hands of the savages.
In Germany, mass hysteria seemed to be interpreting an event that in reality, may have been manageable. The actual rebellion, according to local German representatives was localized and small. But Berlin decided to send down a special commander to systematically eradicate the entire tribe in retaliation. As the ships of cavalry German soldiers arrived, they were instructed to drive the Herero off their land. They were forced to walk east, east to the Kalahari desert, the largest desert on earth. Once they reached the edge of the desert, the Herero seemed to have little choice but to escape into the harsh desert. With little food and water, most of them died.
In the coming months, thousands of survivors were rounded up by the German cavalry into cattle carts and transported by train to Swakopmund, a port city along the Skeleton Coast. There, the commanders of the Second Reich ordered the building of the first concentration camps in history, within the city as well as on an island off the coast...
A searing comparison arises to events of thirty years later. The chief commanders in charge of the camps were later sanctioned to build and operate similar camps during the second world war. The methods they had perfected on the last remaining survivors of the Herero were used to commit later atrocities in Auschwitz and other camps.
The most forceful message of the movie was how little sympathetic awareness the genocide provoked back on the European continent. German military visitors to the camps in Namibia posed in photographs next to the 'savages' with apparent satisfaction. The pictures were kept in family albums because they weren't thought shameful. Who could care about a tribe in the Kalahari?
I admit that I had never heard of the Herero or the genocide before seeing this movie. But I have to wonder, in how many places that I have visited has there been a back story like this? History from the western perspective has a way of categorizing such events pretty low in the order of significance. I just wish I could know more about the places that I am traveling through.
Before embarking on this trip, I understood that basically, colonial history is often characterized by horrific and inexplicable acts. But I do not always know the details. Unfortunately, my history classes didn't prepare me well to understand African history and I have lacked facts about the time period. I can recite battles from world war two, but I don't always know where an African country is geographically (how embarrassing!). But these details are valuable. They can set the places I visit within a historical framework. Unfortunately, aside from the Lonely Planet summary in the guidebook, "King Leopolds Ghost" (which explained Congo's history) and the few casual historians that I have encountered, facts and details have rarely been available.
Maybe it is because the historical record is so sinister. Stories of oppression, forced labor and racial brutality are not recorded by the colonial powers. Even oral histories of Africans fade with the passing of time, with each generation the wounds of history heal. But seeing one film at the Gaborone Human Rights festival really opened my eyes and understanding of Namibian history. "Namibia and the Second Reich" narrated the story of the systematic genocide of the Herero people of Namibia by the German Second Reich in the first decades of the twentieth century.
The film itself was a History Channel style narration of the episode with dramatic reenactments and historical archive photographs. It was in the style of a war documentary... and this form of documentary always manages to bore me into changing the channel. However, having just visited Namibia, I was riveted. In Namibia, the wounds of the apartheid era are very obvious: the division of neighborhoods, the economic inequality between races and even the rage of some Namibians toward unjustified and justified enemies. But the wounds of the colonial era have all but healed: the consensus about the Germans is that they were fantastic colonialists (even the most avid nationalist freedom fighter that I spoke with attested to this). German tourists today find Namibia a favorite vacation spot in Africa.
The film relayed a forgotten past, one that seems buried by the magnitude of other atrocities that happened in the twentieth century. It told the story of the genocide of the Herero, a semi-nomadic people of the Kalahari region. In the early 1900's the colonial government made a decision to quell a rebellion by the Herero, who spoke up against the forced labor practices of the colonialists. They sought the help of the national government. The rebellion was heatedly debated in the halls of the Second Reich in Berlin. The newspapers screamed for protection to be sent down to save the lives of German colonists from the brutal hands of the savages.
In Germany, mass hysteria seemed to be interpreting an event that in reality, may have been manageable. The actual rebellion, according to local German representatives was localized and small. But Berlin decided to send down a special commander to systematically eradicate the entire tribe in retaliation. As the ships of cavalry German soldiers arrived, they were instructed to drive the Herero off their land. They were forced to walk east, east to the Kalahari desert, the largest desert on earth. Once they reached the edge of the desert, the Herero seemed to have little choice but to escape into the harsh desert. With little food and water, most of them died.
In the coming months, thousands of survivors were rounded up by the German cavalry into cattle carts and transported by train to Swakopmund, a port city along the Skeleton Coast. There, the commanders of the Second Reich ordered the building of the first concentration camps in history, within the city as well as on an island off the coast...
A searing comparison arises to events of thirty years later. The chief commanders in charge of the camps were later sanctioned to build and operate similar camps during the second world war. The methods they had perfected on the last remaining survivors of the Herero were used to commit later atrocities in Auschwitz and other camps.
The most forceful message of the movie was how little sympathetic awareness the genocide provoked back on the European continent. German military visitors to the camps in Namibia posed in photographs next to the 'savages' with apparent satisfaction. The pictures were kept in family albums because they weren't thought shameful. Who could care about a tribe in the Kalahari?
I admit that I had never heard of the Herero or the genocide before seeing this movie. But I have to wonder, in how many places that I have visited has there been a back story like this? History from the western perspective has a way of categorizing such events pretty low in the order of significance. I just wish I could know more about the places that I am traveling through.
Eddy, Man of Action
I came to meet Eddy, Man of Action because of our shock (the one that broke into shreds of twisted metal in the middle of the Namib Desert). I returned to Windhoek with Mike to find a solution to our predicament. We found Eddy, who agreed to give me and the German welder, Holger a ride out 200 kilometers into the desert for the fee of $100. Holger originally agreed to work for free as long as we paid Eddy, Man of Action. I thought this was a sweet deal.
Eddy had been a freedom fighter for Namibia's SWAPO movement, a sometimes violent rebel group that formed the only organized form of resistance to the apartheid regime of South Africa in Southwest Africa (former Namibia). Eddy was born into a wealthy, upper-class family in Windhoek. His first house was in a neighborhood later reserved for whites. When the apartheid regime became worried that the instability and the expanding communist movement in Angola would permeate south to South Africa's borders, Pretoria decided on a policy of expansionism that would engulf the Southwest African state. Eddy at that time was a young boxer. He decided to join the freedom fighters resisting the South African forces in the Angolan bush.
The year he spent fighting against the South Africans with his troop of Namibian rebels was demanding. They had to survive off of the bush, dodging the better-equipped South Africans with minimal equipment. "It was a strategy of hit and run," he said. As night approached, his troop would surround the enemy installments and hit them with everything they had. Then they would run in different directions in the bush and hide until danger passed. While Southwest Africa was not able to stop the annexation of their state by South Africa, the Angolans were able to fight them off with help from SWAPO and the USSR. South African tanks still line the roadside in Angola, their empty hulls rusting away with each dry and wet season.
After the fighting ceased, Eddy returned to Windhoek to find apartheid had forever changed his world. All the blacks were rounded out of their houses and forced to live in a neighborhood outside of the city, a place they came to name Katutura which means "we don't want to stay here" in the local language. He was forced to leave his family's house that he had grown up in. The neighborhood was now reserved for whites only. But after his return from the war, Eddy continued to fight... in disguise. He became a championship boxer who stood undefeated for several years on the local circuit.
One day, he was confronted with four South African policemen who had been installed in Windhoek to ensure apartheid policies. After taking verbal abuse from one of them for minutes in defiance, the policeman started to beat him with his club. He looked up at the man and said: "Don't you fucking hit me again. If you hit me one more time, I am going to kill you!" The policeman didn't know that he was clubbing a championship fighter and hit him one more time. As promised, Eddy, Man of Action fought back with all the anger he felt. He sent the three other policemen of the squad running.
But Eddy’s fight didn't end there; he was persistent in offering his voice to the resistance against the regime and became one of the lead members of SWAPO. Pretty soon after that, the South African intellegenicia placed four mines around his house, where he lived with his wife and four children. A neighbor warned him and he was able to remove them without injury. But at this point, he decided to leave the country and go into exile.
For the next nine years, Eddy did not set foot in Southwest Africa. And while his exile was difficult to endure, he spent many years in Germany which he came to enjoy. He especially liked the relations he had with women from all over the world, white women with open minds and hearts, something that seemed impossible to do in Namibia. After watching the Berlin Wall fell in Germany in 1989, he decided that the tides of history were going to change for his home country also. He returned home to his wife and children.
Eddy's cousin ended up becoming the first President of newly independent Namibia in 1990. Eddy today is working as an entrepreneur; he introduces foreign investors to business opportunities in his country. He carries a book with the business cards of every Minister in government with pride. "These are all my friends," freedom fighters and resisters of apartheid that he fought beside.
The first time that he introduced himself to me, I thought he was pretentious. His anti-Americanism was also a little unsettling. He kept repeating that "Americans are enemies, I will never trust them" (this has to do with the war in Angola). But on the ride in and out of the desert with the new shock for the Stingray, I came to like that he calls himself "Eddy, Man of Action," because that's what he is. And, I taught him a new word on the trip: universal love. I asked him to give my three American friends a chance. After Nate explained that he was working to collapse the American media machine, Eddy genuinely exclaimed that he would fight beside him.
Eddy can offer you a tour of Namibia. He knows a lot about his country and will offer tourists a unique perspective of Southern African history as well as an insight into village life at his home of Okahao in the North. Eddy N Willibard, Man of Action, PO Box 7997, Katutura, Windhoek, Namibia, tel. 261449
I came to meet Eddy, Man of Action because of our shock (the one that broke into shreds of twisted metal in the middle of the Namib Desert). I returned to Windhoek with Mike to find a solution to our predicament. We found Eddy, who agreed to give me and the German welder, Holger a ride out 200 kilometers into the desert for the fee of $100. Holger originally agreed to work for free as long as we paid Eddy, Man of Action. I thought this was a sweet deal.
Eddy had been a freedom fighter for Namibia's SWAPO movement, a sometimes violent rebel group that formed the only organized form of resistance to the apartheid regime of South Africa in Southwest Africa (former Namibia). Eddy was born into a wealthy, upper-class family in Windhoek. His first house was in a neighborhood later reserved for whites. When the apartheid regime became worried that the instability and the expanding communist movement in Angola would permeate south to South Africa's borders, Pretoria decided on a policy of expansionism that would engulf the Southwest African state. Eddy at that time was a young boxer. He decided to join the freedom fighters resisting the South African forces in the Angolan bush.
The year he spent fighting against the South Africans with his troop of Namibian rebels was demanding. They had to survive off of the bush, dodging the better-equipped South Africans with minimal equipment. "It was a strategy of hit and run," he said. As night approached, his troop would surround the enemy installments and hit them with everything they had. Then they would run in different directions in the bush and hide until danger passed. While Southwest Africa was not able to stop the annexation of their state by South Africa, the Angolans were able to fight them off with help from SWAPO and the USSR. South African tanks still line the roadside in Angola, their empty hulls rusting away with each dry and wet season.
After the fighting ceased, Eddy returned to Windhoek to find apartheid had forever changed his world. All the blacks were rounded out of their houses and forced to live in a neighborhood outside of the city, a place they came to name Katutura which means "we don't want to stay here" in the local language. He was forced to leave his family's house that he had grown up in. The neighborhood was now reserved for whites only. But after his return from the war, Eddy continued to fight... in disguise. He became a championship boxer who stood undefeated for several years on the local circuit.
One day, he was confronted with four South African policemen who had been installed in Windhoek to ensure apartheid policies. After taking verbal abuse from one of them for minutes in defiance, the policeman started to beat him with his club. He looked up at the man and said: "Don't you fucking hit me again. If you hit me one more time, I am going to kill you!" The policeman didn't know that he was clubbing a championship fighter and hit him one more time. As promised, Eddy, Man of Action fought back with all the anger he felt. He sent the three other policemen of the squad running.
But Eddy’s fight didn't end there; he was persistent in offering his voice to the resistance against the regime and became one of the lead members of SWAPO. Pretty soon after that, the South African intellegenicia placed four mines around his house, where he lived with his wife and four children. A neighbor warned him and he was able to remove them without injury. But at this point, he decided to leave the country and go into exile.
For the next nine years, Eddy did not set foot in Southwest Africa. And while his exile was difficult to endure, he spent many years in Germany which he came to enjoy. He especially liked the relations he had with women from all over the world, white women with open minds and hearts, something that seemed impossible to do in Namibia. After watching the Berlin Wall fell in Germany in 1989, he decided that the tides of history were going to change for his home country also. He returned home to his wife and children.
Eddy's cousin ended up becoming the first President of newly independent Namibia in 1990. Eddy today is working as an entrepreneur; he introduces foreign investors to business opportunities in his country. He carries a book with the business cards of every Minister in government with pride. "These are all my friends," freedom fighters and resisters of apartheid that he fought beside.
The first time that he introduced himself to me, I thought he was pretentious. His anti-Americanism was also a little unsettling. He kept repeating that "Americans are enemies, I will never trust them" (this has to do with the war in Angola). But on the ride in and out of the desert with the new shock for the Stingray, I came to like that he calls himself "Eddy, Man of Action," because that's what he is. And, I taught him a new word on the trip: universal love. I asked him to give my three American friends a chance. After Nate explained that he was working to collapse the American media machine, Eddy genuinely exclaimed that he would fight beside him.
Eddy can offer you a tour of Namibia. He knows a lot about his country and will offer tourists a unique perspective of Southern African history as well as an insight into village life at his home of Okahao in the North. Eddy N Willibard, Man of Action, PO Box 7997, Katutura, Windhoek, Namibia, tel. 261449
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