Living for Disco

It’s Thursday morning at 9am when we drive into Aminuis. We drive into it, and then right out the other side, without even realising that we’ve done it. It’s only the receding sign in the rear view mirror that alerts us to the location of the town we are scheduled to visit this morning.

The view, except for a distant salt pan shining white in the glare of the winter sun, is of scrub and thorn trees. Seen through the filter of ever present grey dust the thorns look as if they are covered in pale blossom. Close up, it’s as if you’re standing on the surface of a deserted but hostile planet.

In the centre of this emptiness stands a building. We pull up outside, and realise that it is a shebeen and liquor store. As I get out of the car, I hear loud voices inside. English voices. Curious, I wander inside, to find a gaggle of San people of assorted ages, ragged and drunk, glued simultaneously to economy size beer bottles, and to the BBC Food Channel. They are learning how to make hazelnut waffles.

As we set up the ’stage’ for the show, people wander over from the shabby collection of huts and corrugated tin shacks that shamble together in the distance. Two mangy dogs lie in the pathetic heat of the sun. I watch as a woman stumbles while pouring neat vodka from a height into the waiting mouth of the man standing next to her. I learn later that he is the representative for this San community. He is staggering drunk at 9.30am. This is the man to whom I should give condoms, and the UNICEF education materials on alcohol and AIDS that I have brought. While thanking me, he drops the papers repeatedly, and they start to blow across the landscape, catching in the thorn trees like so much useless litter.

As the group perform their show, two drunk women wander onto the stage. One of them has left her baby in a pram next to a pile of broken beer bottles the size of a small house. It starts to cry, but I have to give all my attention to a man who repeatedly tells me that his name is John, while tugging at my elbow. I introduce myself several times, each time wishing more fervently that I could leave this place.

I’m not the only one. After the show, a girl in broken shoes approaches me and begs me to find her a better life in Windhoek. She is 16. Her parents are dead, and her uncle will not look after her. She gives me her number and asks me to call someone in the city who can help her. Her name is Lydia, and I don’t know what on earth I can do to help. I wonder if she is now going to be waiting for a miracle that will not happen. As we leave, a fight breaks out. Over the shouting, I hear the rounded vowels of the BBC presenter promising a review round up of London’s best restaurants.

I’m sure that Aminuis is not the most desolate, or depressing place in the world, but it’s the most desolate and depressing place I have ever seen. There is nothing here but poverty and alcoholism. There is no way out. I arrived in my Berghaus fleece and Merrells, looking in from an outsider’s point of view, and even though it breaks my heart, I do know that there’s no way I can hope to understand the crushing hopelessness of life in this place.

It makes me want to cry every time I think about it.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 25th, 2006 at 1:38 pm and is filed under The Devil's Lucozade, Under African Skies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.