On Sunday after returning from Gross Barmen we had our first experience with theft in Namibia.  We let out guard down, and got burned quick and hot enough to really reopen our eyes.  

We arrived home about 11am on Sunday morning.  We were all quite a bit tired and wiped from the night before.  We entered the house and dumped our belongings down in the front hallway to have a rest in the living room not a few feet away.   Within a few minutes Sebastian went again through the front hallway and noticed that some of our bags were missing.  Upon examining the situation further we saw that all of the three gates leading into our house were wide open giving anyone access to our house from the street! 

Someone had walked into our house took their pick of fully packed bags and strolled back out with the loot!  All the while we were sitting within one metre of the crime scene oblivious to it all!   

Marloes lost a very expensive SLR camera, which luckily was very well insured.  I lost my fully packed bag of clothes from the weekend (at least I did not have to unpack).  Luckily I had packed mostly old clothes for the weekend so I did not lose too much.  The biggest hits were my electric shaver and extra camera battery.

We had the police come by and fill out a report for insurance purposes.  Marloes should get full coverage for her camera, but I am not too sure how to claim my clothes and personal items.  I can only hope that the clothes find their way to someone who really needs them. 

Gross Barmen Lodge

This weekend we took a trip north to the Gross Barmen hot springs. The highlight of the trip was hiking the area on Saturday afternoon. It was calm and cool as we set out with the determination to conquer this ridge. It does not look too mighty, but it was tough to climb, battling spiders and clinging to ledges on the way up.


Here Mark and I are approaching the halfway point. We are still quite a bit optimistic of the climb ahead.


The rock formations here were really interesting. In many places the rock had crumbled through years of wear and tear. It looked as if the entire mountain could tumble quite easily.






Taking a little break at the top. It was tough to climb but well worth the views.


Group shot from the summit. We had to experiment with different setups, balancing the camera on the jagged rocks, to get the best shot. This, although not great, shot turned out to be the best.


Here Sebastian gives tribute to the mighty tripod whose primary purpose on our outings is to destroy spider webs which lie in our path.


An extremely dry riverbed.


The crew taking their shots…


Overlooking the Namibian savannah.


We barbequed and partied back at the lodge well into the evening. Finding firewood was tough as we were forced to salvage camel thorn bush from the savannah. My hands are in rough shape from harvesting the thorny bush. Martha, Mark, Sheila, Myself and Marloes gathered around the fire.


Here is s really neat star photo taken with Mark’s digital SLR camera. The stars are very prominent outside of the city.

Sophie Scholl - The Final Days

A very powerful film about the murder of three German students to protect Nazi interests. The students were part of the White Rose with intent to distribute anti Nazi pamphlets to educate the already frustrated German people. Definitly worth seeing if you are interested in the Second World War.


The true story of Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine is brought to thrilling life in the multi-award winning drama Sophie Scholl - The Final Days. In 1943, as Hitler continues to wage war across Europe, a group of college students mount an underground resistance movement in Munich. Dedicated expressly to the downfall of the monolithic Third Reich war machine, they call themselves the White Rose. One of its few female members, Sophie Scholl is captured during a dangerous mission to distribute pamphlets on the university campus with her brother Hans.

Unwavering in her convictions and loyalty to the White Rose, her cross-examination by the Gestapo officer Mohr quickly escalates into a searing test of wills as Scholl delivers a passionate call to freedom and personal responsibility that is both haunting and timeless. She lies and denies, schemes and challenges, lays down her arms and picks them up again, with greater force, nearly disarming her opponent.

Then, the crushing evidence, the confession, and Sophie's last, desperate attempt to protect her brother and the other members of the White Rose. Moved by Sophie's uncommon bravery, Mohr even offers her a way out - but at the price of betraying her ideals. She refuses the offer, sealing her fate...

Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film of 2005, Sophie Scholl stars Julia Jentsch in a luminous performance as the young coed-turned-fearless activist. Based on hitherto unpublished protocols of the incarceration, director Marc Rothemund expertly re-creates the last six days of Sophie Scholl's life: a heart-stopping journey from arrest to interrogation, trial and sentence.

Angola Saudades from the One Who Loves You

This movie was a visual representation of Angola and its people. For me Angola has always seemed like a very mysterious and inaccessible place. This movie focuses on much of the poverty and corruption in the main city of Luanda. The Angolan's in the audience were quite vocal after the film in expressing their desire to have some of the good in Angola represented as well. The film was well done but I had expected more. Very inconclusive, but I suppose that is to be expected fro a movie about a country so recently war torn.



If you thought the Skeleton Coast was neat, just look at the shipwreaks north of Luanda. According to ‘Bjorn the Great’:

The Shipwreck beach right north of Luanda. This ship is not the only ship that has been stranded here, in fact, there are about 15 other ships. The explanation I have heard of these ships stranding here is that the ships were pulled out of the Luanda harbor to make space for new and operative ships. As time went by, the anchors could not hold these ships and they started to drift with the wind and the tides. Today they are stranded on this beach. When you arrive here, the first thing you will see is a ship called Karl Marx, named after the founder of the communist beliefs.

Angola Saudades from the One Who Loves You is a people's story told from the street up, one which captures a unique moment in Angola's history, a country just coming to terms with the reality of peace after nearly three decades of bloody civil war.

Namibian director Richard Pakleppa takes the viewer on a journey across the different realities of Angola, capturing a critical juncture in Angola's rocky path to a fragile democracy, a time in which all kinds of forces are emerging from the rubble and decay of a violent past; a time where the newly found peace also nurtures hopes and dreams; a time of rapid change as a country tries to rebuild itself out of the ashes.

Told through the eyes of carefully chosen characters from diverse backgrounds, we go on a gripping exploration through a shattered country, giving us an insight in what it means to live in an environment which has outrageous opulence derived from its abundant oil and diamond wealth, flagrantly displayed in an almost mocking fashion by the minority political and military elite, but where the man on the street must struggle to put a meal on the table for his children.

Carried by five, seemingly very different protagonists, the narrative and the voices in the film are all united by a dream of a better life and a peaceful future. These are people tired of war, but who still have a very difficult fight ahead of them.

The film provides no answers, makes no judgments, and leaves it up to the viewer to make up their own mind. It was awarded Best Documentary at its World Premier at the Three Continents Film Festival in South Africa, and was part of the official selection Silver Wolf at IDFA 2005.

Friday night we caught the movie titled Dune. It tells the story of the sand's magical journey from the Orange River in South Africa, flowing north with the currents, and blowing out of the ocean on to the shores of Namibia. The sand travels across the costal areas of the country and settles in the Namib Naucluft desert constrained by the Kuiseb river.

Dune
Africa's Namib desert is a world in motion. Swept ashore by mighty winds, tides of sand from the battered fringes of the Atlantic Ocean are on an epic journey across the bleak interior. For centuries the sand moulds and reforms into myriad shapes and patterns, until they find their ultimate nemesis in the banks of the Kunene River.

This is the remarkable story of traveling sand and how the different dune structures influence communities of animals and plants.

A spectacular 10,000 year journey illustrated with thermal, time lapse and natural history imagery - combined with innovative graphics of marching dunes - painting the desert as it has never been seen before. This film captures the story of the forces which have shaped this country, where life is shorter than the wink of an eye.

Every Second in the World
I really think that everyone should make an attempt to see this movie. It was beautiful yet tragic, hopeful and hopeless, and it really opens ones eyes to the perspective of those in poor conditions. It was produced with the help of Unicef. Find it and watch it.


Five different stories from five different parts of the world, which all share one same element: the innocence of children against ruthless life. Yet don't expect a 90 minutes tour of poverty, pain and suffering with dull background information.

All the stories are told by the children involved giving us a glimpse into their world and its different perspective. Three year-old Maca from Argentina shows us the moment of happiness in her life in spite of the realities she cannot yet see. Ravi lives with his grandmother in a remote village in India. He has to walk a long distance to the school in another village, because he is not wanted in his village for a reason he is not aware of yet. Binta lives in a village in Senegal and goes to school every day. But her cousin Soda is not so lucky...

Apart from five touching stories, dealing with some of UNICEF's many concerns, the film is enriched by breathtaking scenes from the around the world.

Views fom the Windhoek International Film Festival

The French National Cultural Centre, probably the best venue yet. Here we saw Every second in the World a breathtaking film which I highly recommend.

The film buffs hanging out before seeing 'Every second in the World'.

AIDS Awareness Day at the Polytechnic of Namibia

It was a beautiful day to gather outside for the annual AIDS awareness day. Local awareness groups set up booths and gave out free condoms and brochures. There was some trivia cast at the audience and I learned quite a few new things.



The fashion show was hot.


All of the clothes incorporated safe sex or AIDS awareness in some way or another.


Some of the outfits were more obvious than others!





Local artist Sunny Boy rinsin'out for the crowd. It would have been a great show but the administration was plagued with sound problems. Sunny Boy refused to sacrifice his reputation through a bad sound system.

MC Faizel steps up to give it a shot. Again the terrible sound system proved to be too much for the artist. The students were all really upset.

Sunny Boy and Polytechnic staff.

The Mother's House
We hit the film festival again last night. So far we have visited all but one of the many venues the festival is using. It’s great to get out to all of the venues as we are seeing alot more of the city.

This movie was extremely powerful. Post film we spoke with the producer who was in the audience. The crew spent five years practically living with the family and documenting their story. It was wonderfully filmed, and at times I really wanted to forget it was a documentary and wished it was fiction.


Astonishingly intimate, overwhelming and shocking, The Mother's House is a record of four years in the life of Miché, a charming and precocious teenager growing into womanhood in post-Apartheid South Africa. Living in a "coloured" township outside Cape Town, she has to face not only life in a community beset by gangsterism and drug abuse, but also what it means to break the cycle of violence imprisoning her own female-only family.

Miché's mother, Valencia, is an ex-Struggle activist, now unemployed, HIV positive and about to give birth to a third child. Dominated by unresolved conflict with her own mother Amy, she increasingly directs her personal problems onto her daughter. Miché is in many ways an ordinary high school girl: she has her ears pierced for the first time, hosts her first dancing party, and finds her first boyfriend. But having to bear responsibility for both her mother's anger and health and the well-being of her younger siblings forces her to be strong beyond her years. Torn between escaping abuse by leaving home and protecting those she loves, she takes a wrong turn - before finally coming to terms with her mother, grandmother and the world she lives in.

Produced by Namibian, Neil Brandt, the Mother's House was awarded Best Documentary Film at its world premier during the Cape Town World Cinema Festival in November 2005.

I have recently suffered some lost posts on this website.  You may have noticed that the Daan Viljoen game park photos were once more complete than they are now.  Its disturbing to lose data like this because it will have to be recreated and most likely not with the same passion.  I will complete the post in time.   Please bear with me as I sort out this problem. 

Film Fest' Madness

This week the city is hosting the Windhoek International Film Festival. A wide range of movies from all around the world will be showing at various locations throughout the city.

http://www.wildcinema.org/

On Saturday we went to see The Trail, a French-Namibian collaboration that was rich in scenery but weak in plot. I would recommend it to anyone who really wants to see some beautiful images from Namibia.

Last night we went to see Buss 174. This was a very interesting, yet disturbing movie. The movie is based entirely on live footage and interviews. Almost the entire hijacking incident was covered live from multiple angles. What an age we live in.


The Trail
Many facets of Africa, from the beauty of the bush to the infamy of blood diamonds and the tragedy of child soldiers, are incorporated into The Trail, a ravishingly lensed widescreen tale in which the scenery almost overshadows the story.

After her mother dies in Europe, 14-year-old Grace (Camille Summers) returns to Africa to see her father, Gary (Julian Sands), a geologist who's taken the exploitation of Africa's resources to heart.

During a supply flight he crashes in the desolateness of the desert and is taken hostage by diamond poachers. They are angry men and combat-addled children, indignant that their continent's wealth has a way of passing them by to benefit the white man.


Bus 174
Based on the extensive research of stock footage, interviews and official documents Bus 174 is the careful investigation of a bus hijacking in Rio de Janeiro. The hijack took place on the Brazilian Valentines day of June 12, 2000, and was broadcast live on television for 4 and a half hours. The whole country stopped to watch this real-life drama unfold on TV.

Bus 174 tells two parallel stories: the dramatic events of the hijacking with police intervention and the amazing life story of the hijacker. Not only does it attempt to explain the events that unfolded as the police tried, and failed, to handle the hijack situation; but simultaneously also reveals how a typical Rio de Janeiro street kid was transformed into a violent criminal, hankering for acknowledgement and fame because society systematically denied him any kind of social existence.

National Art Gallery of Namibia

This morning we visited the National Art Gallery for a showing by talented local artist Cecil Moller. Clive does mixed media work with manipulated photographs.


It was nice to get up early on a Sunday morning and do something. We were joined by Marc's friends from school Marqarita, and Sheila.

The gallery is quite nice and I hope to go back for more showings.

Daan Viljoen

Last Sunday we visited the Daan Viljoen game park convieniently located just outside of Windhoek. It took us about 20 minutes to escape the city and get out to the great Namibian outback. From this point we could actually see the city off in the distance. This really reminded us just how close we were to the city.

We found this twisted and gnarled tree near the top of the outlook. Here we are doing a little photoshoot.

Because there are no dangerous animals in the park guests are free to hike around freely throughout the park.

We decided to take the 1.5km day hike through the beautiful outback. The only problem with this trail is that it did not circle around as most trails should. You basically had to hike in and hike back out on the same path. We had other ideas once we reached the end of the line.


Spiders, what can I say...they were everywhere! Now if you know how I feel about spiders you could probably guess how high strung I was. These spiders were about the size of a closed hand...ack!

On route we discovered a very old cemetary. It was a bit creepy and lonely in the valley.

We followed this little stream on our way.

Look at all of those spiders...can you imagine walking into that web???

Yes, it was a game park but by midday we had seen very little game. Finally we discovered this group of unknown animals lingering in the valley.

We also spotted a group of chimpanzees hanging out on a rocky outcrop. It almost seemed like they were laughing at us as we strolled by. Maybe they forsaw our fate in the valley.

It was strange to find this dead cow in the water at the dam. The cow had died only recently as the body had not begun to decay.

Poly Heights

Last week we discovered the rooftop of the Poly Heights as a vantage point over the city. As members of staff and students we can easily access the roof at our convenience. The roof gives us a great perspective over the entire city and the surrounding area. We went up both at night and during the day. We are still working on our night shots so hold tight for those.

Looking north:


Looking North East:


Looking South:


Looking South-West


Polytechnic of Namibia main office and lecture buildings:


The Polytechnic of Namibia's Engineering Block and Hostel in the foreground:


That’s our house in the middle of the photo nestled in the trees. Our neighbors constantly complain that our yard is unruly. They belive that a nice yard is one that is stripped bare of all foliage. I really enjoy the yard being overrun with plants. It makes me feel like I am back in Canada.

Linux Training

Last week I attended three training sessions in setting up and administering a Linux server environment. It was really enlightening to work with the Linux operating system after having so long been a slave to the Windows Corporation. Linux (for the most part a free operating system) is a viable option for resource scare communities in Africa. Most of the attendees were from the public sector where resources can be very thin.

Our instructor Nicholas Kimolo was from Kenya. He was employed by the Commonwealth of Learning to give the seminar. Nicholas works with a consulting firm in Kenya (Circuits and Packets Communications) that makes most recommendations towards implement UNIX and Linux based systems.

The training was at the other major University here, the University of Namibia. The campus is located on the ourskirts of Windhoek. It really was quite a nice campus and reminds me of the York University campus in Toronto. It was a real campus community with very little else nearby. Enclosed are a few pictures of the campus.

I dropped by the University of Namibia’s visual arts centre to see what the Namibian art students had come up with. I was quite impressed with the work being done there. I now wish I have taken a few more photos but I suppose I can return again.

Life gets that much sweeter for pregnant Angelina

It appears that Angelina Jolie's pregnancy might finally be starting to have some effect on the actress.

According to various overseas media reports, Jolie has flown in some very specific chocolates from America to Namibia.

Jolie was reportedly craving Hershey's Reese's Pieces and after searching for them in Namibia unsuccessfully had some flown in.

A source said: "The cry went out, but none of the sweets could be found.

"Angelina was so determined she ordered a huge box straight from the factory in Pennsylvania.

"She hasn't had many cravings during her pregnancy but suddenly got the taste for their peanut butter and chocolate combo."

* Reese's Pieces are a melt-in-the-mouth concoction of chocolate cups with a peanut butter filling.
Source

Random Shots Around Windhoek

 

  

 

 

 

 

Normal Ist Das Nicht
My colleagues growned when Carnival was mentioned this year. I could not help but be intrigued by such an affair. Similar in nature to Octoberfest (insert heavy drinking here) the Carnival is a celebration of Spring and warmer weather. Carnival in Namibia is just strange, after all the weather is by no means getting warmer as we settle into an African winter. Believe it or not it's getting drastically colder at night here. It was weird to see so many Germans localized in one building, especially in the city of Windhoek. Normal ist das nicht = By no means normal!

Germany, especially the western part (North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate) is famous for Karneval celebrations such as parades and costume balls. Whilst these events are widespread in all big and smaller places of that area such as Krefeld, Mönchengladbach, Duisburg and Cleves , only Cologne, Düsseldorf, Aachen, Mainz, Bonn, Eschweiler are called carnival "strongholds" in the public media. In the South of Germany carnival is called Fasching and especially Munich developed a special kind of celebration. In Franconia and some other parts of Germany a carnival is called Fastnacht, but they celebrate it like a mix of all the other "carnival strongholds".

Although the festival and party season in Germany starts as early as the beginning of January, the actual carnival week starts on the Thursday("Altweiberfastnacht") before Ash Wednesday. German Carnival parades are held on the weekend before and especially on Rosenmontag (Rose Monday), the day before Shrove Tuesday, and sometimes also on Shrove Tuesday ("Faschingsdienstag") in the suburbs of larger carnival cities. Officially, the carnival session, which is also called the Fifth Season, begins each year on 11 November at 11:11 a.m. and finishes on Ash Wednesday.
Wikipedia
 



 

My colleagues brought me a big juicy plate of Eisbein. Eisbein is a traditional German dish. Eisbein is a pickled pork 'hock' covered with a thick layer of crispy fat, or "crackling". It is quite overwhelming to see. Served with a load of sour kraut, potatoes and dont forget the mustard, I washed it down with a pint of swill. I ate it, enough said.

  

Hey look, it's Jack Daniels working the room with his magic! Jack wore traditional Scottish dress for this traditional German affair. Unfortunatly, Jack has returned to Scotland, but we hope to see him back in Namibia before the end of the year.

  

Polytechnic of Namibia's Staff Fun Day

The fun day was designed to enchance team effectiveness throughout the staff and faculty at the polytechnic. Since ours is a support department we were a small group and were therefore teamed with the office of the rector and the library. It was a god opportunity to meet alot of the unseen colleagues around campus.


The Vice Rector Uli Schmitt opens the day with an envigorating speech about team building. Pretty cool hat?

Our team were the 'Reds'. It was a great opportunity to bust out my 'Be the Reds' Korean soccer shirt. Here we are getting prepped by our coach Corneels Jafta, also knows as the school's Registrar.



Illena and James preparing for our game of volleyball. James is very interested in coming to Canada next year to complete his masters.

Even the kids had a blast on the magic bouncy castle.

Awsome day overall but I got a mad sunburn. Even the top of my head was burned through my hair. It appeared like I had really bad dandruf for a week as my scalp peeled!