Living for Disco

Well, it was straight alright, but not that narrow. And we drove along it for a good five hours. Because it’s inadvisable to drive after dark in this country - wildlife tends to leap in front of your headlights, causing all kinds of mayhem - we broke the journey to Opuwo at a little one goat town called Kamanjab.

Kamanjab seems nice, but all there is is the Impala Meat Market and Bakery, the New Sheild Supermarket and Bottle Store (god forbid any town should be without one) and the guest house, which is run by the most enormous Afrikaaner bloke I’ve ever seen, who seems to wander around alot in a bath towel looking moist and freshly talcumed. It certainly explains where all the hot water went. He’s generally accompanied around the place by his terrier, which is approximately the size of one of his feet. Must be some kind of symbiotic relationship.

I’ve now crossed the Red Line* three times, although this time was quite different to the last. Along the main road it’s all armed policemen and boot checks, but here, all we had to do was hand over some incentives and they waved us right through. Normally, in tales of Africa that I have heard, at this kind of road block you’re advised to take things like cigarettes with which to sweeten the deal. Not us. We handed over a box of Ministry condoms. The condom idea itself seemed to be in vogue, but they didn’t seem very satisfied with the anonymous looking government ones. They wanted Cool Ryder brand: the power of advertising.

We departed from Kamanjab in plenty of time, and set off on the long drive to Opuwo, along the dusty gravel road. I’ve discovered that if you put your thumb on the windscreen when cars are going past, it stops stones shattering it, and thereby cutting your journey rather short. A fortunate discovery as a toyota belting past at about a million miles an hour threw up a rock the side of my fist which bashed against the windscreen in front of my face. I can’ t imagine getting stuck on the road to Opuwo. There is no traffic. You’d be there for days. I was starting to get worried about the hierarchy in the car in case we became stranded and had to start eating each other, but fortunately we made it. Better still, I saw a couple of giraffe. I nearly wet myself with excitement. I’ve been sooo looking forward to seeing giraffe.

The last bit of road is the most dusty I think I’ve ever been on. At one point we emerged from a mini sandstorm to see a woman, wrapped up to the eyeballs against the heat and dust, miserably waving a little green flag. We rocked into Opuwo, a pale cloud heralding our arrival, and when I’d finally managed to locate the office through the murk, I had to swerve slightly to avoid a large pig that seemed to be having a bath in the dust.

Opuwo is a crazy place. The main topics of conversation seem to be the heat (”Oof, it’s hot today, neh?), the dust (”Oof, is dusty today, neh?)” and the water, or lack thereof (”When we will get water? I don’t know. The government say this Friday, but they have said this Friday for all year.” )

Bare breasted Himba women, with their goatskin headdresses, red plaits, and ochre skin shining in the heat, lug tiny lolling ochre-skinned children on their backs. Herero ladies sashay about in their huge Victorian dresses, elaborately folded headdresses so distinctive through the clouds of dust. I so wish I could draw like Vitrolica, because I know she could do a mean drawing of a Herero couple wandering along - she in her huge dress and he in his fedora, waistcoat and walking stick. I tried last night, but it just ended up looking ridiculous.

We had a little bit of excitement yesterday also, as we sat and watched it try to rain, when a toyota landcruiser started chasing an emormous cow down the middle of the main street. That was fun.

I’m pretty knackered today, as last night it was so hot I couldn’t sleep. At about 2am, I became so desperate that I filled my washing bowl with some precious water, and half lay on my bed, legs protruding from my mosquito net, but feet submurged in the cool, miraculous liquid, dreaming fitfully about oversised mosquitos and the longed for rain.

It’s back to Kamanjab for the next few days this afternoon. Kamati and I will sit again in the front of the Condom Estate, sharing my ipod headphones and periodically seeing who can be quickest to stick a thumb on the windscreen.

And tonight, I will try very, very hard to wash the dust from my hair.

*The line that separates the northern fifth of the country from the rest in the south, and which was used to demarcate who was allowed to live where under the Apartheid system. Guess who got the sweet deal? It’s now an animal disease control checkpoint.