Katutura tour: Uapii-style

Our year in Namibia is beginning to wind down, so one would think we've explored just about everything we could have in the past 11 months. Think again.

Katutura is a 'township' in Windhoek where the black population was moved in the early 1960's under the apartheid program. It is a Herero word, meaning "The place you don't want to live," which should give you an idea of the history of Windhoek.

Katutura is on the north end of Windhoek. We haven't ignored Katutura. We've driven through it, we've visited Uapii (the Polytechnic agriculture student, the "Cattleman from Kunene" who has served as our tour guide extraordinaire this year), Kelly has volunteered at a couple children's centers, Kelly's visited women's craft centers, Larkin has dropped Polytechnic students off near their homes after field trips. But, we haven't explored it. We hadn't had a chance to see how people live.

Today, we did.

Uapii had invited us on a Katutura tour. He heads back to the family farm in the northwest portion of Namibia tomorrow, and he wanted to give us a personal tour of his surroundings in Katutura. While he attends Polytechnic, he lives with his cousin who is an administrator at Bank Windhoek. They have a wonderfully nice home in Katutura.

We started the day by picking up Aaron Price, a UNL graduate who is finishing up a 6-month internship with World Wildlife Fund in Windhoek. Aaron has had the "Uapii Tour" a couple of times before, and highly recommended it.

We have placed a good-sized series of photos with lots more description and stories on the Picasa photo site, but here is a condensed version of the day, with some photos. Things you won't see here, but will see on the photo site: sheep heads, lion heads, cow heads, SWAPO Tristan, and Herero Kelly,

We visited several markets. It was a Sunday, and early afternoon, so many people were lined up to get their lunch from people selling cooked meat (mostly beef). This is one of my favorite salespersons, creating a SWAPO-colored item while she waits for customers.


Uapii also showed us a local park, where many students were studying for exams. This park is called the UN Plaza, and (as you might guess) was created with funds from the UN.


We also had a chance to explore some back-roads in the 'informal settlements' of Katutura. While most of the homes in Katutura are small, cement-block homes with running water and toilets, the informal settlements really take you into a different world. As Uapii said when we entered the area, "Now you are in Africa!" The settlements consist of plots of land with tin shacks. There are communal toilets and communal drinking water points.


Although it is easy for a tourist to look upon these conditions in wonder, one must remember that the majority of Namibians live in very similar conditions on the communal conservancies, where their homes (similar sized and shaped) are made of trees and mud/dung. That is, the house does not have to be big to be a home. One cannot help noticing that the area is very clean and mostly orderly. Most people who live in the informal settlements have arrived from the north, looking for work, and work as security guards, gardeners, or house cleaners for less than US$15/day (many far less than that...security guard minimum wage is US$0.50/hour).

We stopped and talked to one group, and as often happens, Kelly ended up holding a baby.


We ended the tour back at Uapii's cousin's home, where they had prepared a meal of lamb, boerwors (sausage), green salad, sweet pap (corn porridge), and ice cream. A wonderful way to end the day. We sat around the TV trying to understand a cricket match on their cable TV. You have to go to the Picasa photo site to see what they convinced Kelly to do.

It was a great day, and we're thankful for friends like Uapii who have shown us 'their' Namibia. Travel safely, cattleman!