Namibian Ghosts are 'Well Behaved'
An alternative take on our relationship with violence
I’ve spent 16 days working and seeing Namibia for the second time around. It has been quite the trip, I must tell you, but I was reminded once again of the thin thread that holds the safety of my existence as a woman. Before we get into the grim stuff, how are we really doing?
I’ve been away from here so long that it almost feels like I lost touch. But maybe that distance was necessary, because in my time away, I finally cut the threads connecting me to situations that should have ended at the first sign of trouble.
My friend would probably say, “The heart wants what it wants, you know.” It’s the line we always reach for when defending choices we know work against us: that tired hope that broken things might mend if we just stay a little longer. But here’s what I’ve learned: people can be mean and selfish. To keep returning is to sign up for harm again and again, each time bargaining that maybe this round will hurt a little less.
This past month, I let go of a long-term friendship. I stepped all the way back from a budding one, too, one whose entire architecture seemed built on my willingness to overextend, to possibly co-sign someone else’s self-hatred while neglecting my own boundaries.
If you know me, or if you’ve spent any time reading these musings, you’ll notice the contradiction. Everything in that last paragraph runs counter to what I preach, or at least what I’ve tried to live by. But that’s exactly the point. Letting those situations drag on as long as I did revealed more about my own state of mind than it ever did about the people who hurt me. The fact that I still held space for them, while they acted dishonestly, while they took pains to disrespect me, made me confront an uncomfortable truth: maybe I hadn’t severed my connection with people-pleasing after all. Maybe I still carried an unhealthy reliance on validation, seeking it from each person in varying degrees, which explained the drawn-out, painful detachment. Maybe I’ll dive a bit deeper into these situations in the next edition, where I talk about accountability.
Till then, how do you uphold your boundaries?
Namibia was a weird desert country with too many white people at the airport when I first arrived in 2022. Some of that is still true. This time, it took two hours to get through immigration, standing behind nearly 150 pale-skinned travellers in the same queue, all of us visiting this peculiar southern country. In terms of land mass, there’s nothing small about Namibia, but its population of under three million feels almost quaint until you consider how much of the land remains in the hands of its colonisers.
The portion not held by colonisers moves at a strange, contradictory pace. It’s difficult to reconcile forward-thinking narratives and innovative architecture with the reality of weekly aggravated violence against women and the heavy bureaucracy that strangles any enabling regulation. During my stay, two femicide cases made headlines. A major financial institution suffered a ransomware attack, which was carefully reported as a “data breach.” Some livestock were lost to fire, a consequence of the weather that apparently just happens sometimes. All of this seemed normal to most people I spoke with. The only headline that genuinely concerned anyone was the cyberattack, because it affected their credit in tangible ways, and attacks like it seemed to be happening more frequently than ever before.
In a casual conversation, a colleague revealed that femicide was relatively normal here. The social culture encourages violence as a means of disciplining one’s spouse. Yes, it’s even recognised by law in some instances. Pedophilia is not completely abolished by law either. This got me thinking about my plans to find another African country to settle in.
I have a lot of opinions that I enjoy sharing. It’s important for me to feel safe, both physically and emotionally. When you weigh these needs against a decision to live in a country where patriarchal strongholds are backed by law, where heavy colonialist presence persists, and where social acceptance of violence against women is the norm, it becomes clear: it would be a disaster of an experience for me. The realisation stung a little, but I’m glad I stayed long enough to understand it. The truth is, I enjoy being away from home in small, curated doses, even though “home” isn’t comfortable or enabling most days.
You’re probably wondering what the reference is for my title. Well, here goes.
After the serious work stuff, my colleagues and I took a road trip to the coast: Swakopmund. We rented a nice apartment on the edge of town, stocked up on food, and got a car to explore. The weather was confusing, like living in Swansea and getting all four seasons in the same day. Nothing like vacation dressing, because how do you incorporate a bikini into a fall outfit? Fashion girlies, please help.
After the coastal holiday where we rode ATVs through the desert, went on a whale-spotting cruise, and ate really good food on the beach, I returned to my Airbnb in the outskirts of Windhoek, right beside a cemetery. It was quiet, as you’d imagine, but the water went out for an entire day before I left Namibia. That was a bummer.
One of our hosts said at dinner that:
“at least Namibian ghosts are well-behaved”
This was a follow-up to my narration of the not-so-pleasant experience I’d had with a taxi driver who told me to shut up when I mentioned he’d arrived at the wrong spot to pick me up. The living, apparently, were less courteous than the dead.
However, Namibia is a truly beautiful country. Extreme weather aside, the views are breathtaking if you enjoy nature: glorious sunrises, breathtaking sunsets, deserts meeting the sea in ways that shouldn’t make sense but somehow do. And the food. Kapana, coastal seafood, fat cakes, hot wings. I was in street food heaven, which is ironic because Kapana was the only actual street food I ate. They also do good wine here, and there’s still a heavy presence of Dutch and South African businesses everywhere you look.
May I also mention that I think Afrikaans is essentially the pidgin offspring of Dutch and a mix of southern African languages? I can’t prove it yet, maybe because I need to do more research, but it seems the most probable explanation. The cadence, the borrowings, the way it sits in the mouth—it all points to a language born from collision and compromise.
Things I enjoyed…
I like a boy… that’s all I’m going to say
3-Step house music. It’s like amapiano but with club beats and deep cut lyrics. Some of my favourites are: Isaka II and Uwrongo. If you put either on YouTube Music, you’ll likely get a mix of others
KAPANA!!! I thought Suya was the best meat thing ever, but this is on a whole other level
Cooking for myself and the colleagues, don’t ask me what I made…
Watching the idea I spent tireless working hours on get executed in the best way possible. I’m really that girl you know..?
Stay jiggy folks.