Better late than never, right?  Filmed this on the Georgetown campus during the Advocacy Project training at the end of May, but I just figured out the editing tools this week!

Pauline Dempers and Felix Muchila on his NBC Radio show, "The Ninth Hour"

Pauline Dempers and Felix Muchila on his NBC Radio show, "The Ninth Hour"

I had just met my new boss, Pauline Dempers, the national coordinator of Namibian NGO Breaking the Wall of Silence, at one of the central taxi stands (or ranks, as they’re called here) in Windhoek.  It was my first day in Namibia, and I had come directly from the airport – Pauline was picking me up downtown to take me to Talita’s house, where I would be staying for the next three months.  We sat and talked for a moment as we waited for Talita to drop off the keys: mostly small talk and getting-to-know-you chat.  Then she surprised me:

“I’d like you to come with me to the national radio station tomorrow.  We’re being interviewed on the IANSA campaign.”

And so the next day at 9 AM I found myself walking up to the NBC (here, it stands for Namibian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio building to begin the first task of my internship.  Inside, I met Pauline and Felix Muchila, host of English-language radio show “The Ninth Hour.”  NBC has radio shows in English, German, and Afrikaans, as well as several different indigenous languages, and it is broadcast throughout the entire country.  Felix informed us that we would be talking for about 45 minutes and would take calls from listeners as well.  This is where I started to get nervous: 45 minutes?  On my first day?  I hoped I had all the answers to the questions that would be asked of me.

I shouldn’t have been too worried.  Pauline took the lead, discussing the national Gun Free Namibia campaign that her organization has spearheaded as well as the link between guns and domestic violence that is the focus of the Disarming Domestic Campaign that we are launching here in Windhoek as a partner in IANSA’s Global Week of Action against Gun Violence.  Felix asked me how gun violence compared between the US and Namibia, and also what was being done to combat gun violence in the States.  I was not able to compare the level of violence in the two countries, especially as I did not have access yet to Namibian statistics.  But I did highlight that there are several organizations working on this issue in the US, and that IANSA is partnering with many of them.  We had one caller at the end of the show who commented on the difficulty of reducing gun violence, and the importance of ensuring that guns are stored safely.

Perhaps the best part of the whole experience was that since then, I have encountered two people that heard Pauline and me on the radio.  One of them is a freelance reporter, and we had an interesting discussion about gun violence in Windhoek.  It’s exciting to know that the campaign is already visible and sparking discussion.

I’m sitting in my tiny apartment surrounded by piles.  African history books and guides to the cultures of Namibia, boxes from Amazon filled with camera accessories, piles of clothes and shoes of which I will not be able to take even half, and above all, lists.  It is amazing how many to-do lists one person can write in a day.  But in this extremely busy last week of preparation for my summer in Namibia, the lists are necessary.

I am ecstatic about the opportunity Advocacy Project has given me to go to Windhoek to work with IANSA and Breaking the Wall of Silence on their “Disarming Domestic Violence” campaign.  This is my first chance to go to Africa and I can’t wait.  It’s also going to be my first experience working in a developing country, and that is both exciting and essential to my studies in international development.

But the fact is that because these experiences are firsts for me, I don’t really know what to expect.  This means that I have basically had first-day jitters for the last week, and they seem to be getting more intense as my departure date, June 1, gets closer (very close!).  I still don’t know a lot about the place I am going or what exactly I’ll be doing day-to-day.

I do know a few things about Namibia.  I have been reading guides and news articles online and talked to several friends-of-friends who have spent time there.  Here are the top four things people talk about:

-  Namibia is mostly desert and reputed to be incredibly beautiful. Many people go there on safari, as there is a huge variety of wildlife (lions, elephants, baboons, the whole nine yards).

-  It is one of the most unpopulated places in the world, with a population of only 1.8 million spread out over a space that is almost 4 times the size of the UK.

-  It is a middle-income country, but not everyone has benefited.  According to the UN, Namibia is one of the most unequal countries in terms of income distribution.

-  It was a German colony until the end of World War I, and then a part of South Africa until it became independent in 1990.  It is still dealing with the legacy of apartheid and the recent memory of its independence struggle.

These facts intrigue me.  I wonder what effect they have had on the people and their culture.  I have many questions, and most of them can’t really be answered until I get there and start talking with people.  I can’t wait to get started on my journey, and I look forward to telling you all about it.