Shaduka started abusing her immediately after the marriage and the situation deteriorated quickly.  He often threatened to kill her. Despite intervention by various family members, the abuse did not stop.  At one point, after he had threatened her with his gun, she went to the police to get a protection order.  However, she was pressured to withdraw her application by Shaduka’s family, and so she did not go through with the order.  The police confiscated his gun when she took out the order but he was able to retrieve it immediately after the case was withdrawn.  Soon after that, just one year after the wedding, he killed her with it, shooting her in the presence of their 8-month-old daughter.  Selma was just 33.  In this video Erastus describes her murder and what happened immediately afterward.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SKFcp6AtiA

Shaduka is still waiting for trial.

At least somebody is getting some use out of this bus shelter. In Katutura, down the street from my office.

At least somebody is getting some use out of this bus shelter. In Katutura down the road from my office.

To get a taxi, you do not have to go to a rank or a specific stop.  Just walk along a main road.  Cabs with empty seats going in your direction will beep and/or flash their lights.  (As you can imagine, there is constant beeping on main roads, especially at rush hour.)  If you want a ride, just hold out your hand and the car will stop.  All the taxi drivers are private operators – there are no big cab companies you can call to come to your house.  Well, there are one or two such companies that cater to tourists; I called one and they quoted me a price four times what it would cost in a regular cab.

Once in the taxi, there is no telling how long the ride might take, because the drivers try to pick up other passengers.  The fares are per person, so the more people they have in a taxi, the more money they make.  Generally though, the rule is that the first people in are the first to arrive.  There is very little in the way of traffic in Windhoek, which helps.

In many ways, I find this system of transportation more convenient than buses at home.  There are no transfers, and very little waiting.  There is also a little adventure to it – I’ve met some interesting people as fellow passengers or drivers, and also some amusing ones.  However, there is an element of risk.  Women (and some would say men too) are not supposed to take taxis alone after dark, as they could easily be robbed or attacked by the driver.  The risk is elevated for foreigners.  Drivers, too, court danger.  One night I got in a taxi with a friend and the driver told us that he had just been beaten up and robbed by two female passengers!

Drivers are sometimes talkative and I enjoy hearing their stories.  They usually come from rural areas of Namibia, hoping to make some cash and expand their opportunities in the capital city.  They work crazy hours, usually 5 or 6 AM to at least 8 or 9 PM.  Some work late on weekends.  Most that I have asked have greater ambitions – to own some farmland, or to go to university.  The life of a taxi driver is tough and for the young.

Driver Yambo with his chariot. The writing on the side lets you know that this cab is officially licensed.

Driver Yambo with his chariot. The writing on the side lets you know that this cab is officially licensed.

ddv-logo

Every year in June, IANSA sponsors a Global Week of Action that highlights the negative consequences of gun violence around the world.  This year, one part of the Global Week of Action is Disarming Domestic Violence, a campaign to raise awareness about the link between guns and domestic abuse (I talked about this link in an earlier blog post).  Organizations in 28 countries are participating in spreading this message, and I am honored to be part of Namibia’s campaign.  You can read about how Advocacy Project Fellows are contributing to the campaign worldwide here.

The other week, the NANGOF Trust (the umbrella organization that represents Namibian NGOs, including the one I work for, Breaking the Wall of Silence) held a campaign launch event.  It was a panel discussion at a big hotel in downtown Windhoek, and we had four distinguished speakers, including two Members of Parliament and two representatives of civil society organizations.  All the speakers discussed the need for women to feel safe in their own homes.   Rosa Namises of the NGO Women’s Solidarity Namibia gave a particularly moving speech about women’s rights in Namibia and their continuing vulnerability to violence.

Pauline and the parliamentarians talked about how the firearms law here could be amended to improve safety – for example, by instituting a competency test that all gun owners would be required to take and renew.  One important part of any legal changes would be harmonizing the firearms legislation with the domestic violence legislation that they have here.  Harmonization simply means that the gun law prohibits ownership by domestic violence offenders, and the domestic violence law requires the removal of guns.  So far, harmonization has only been accomplished in four countries: Canada, Australia, Trinidad & Tobago, and our next-door neighbor, South Africa.  We’d like it to happen here in Namibia too.  It was great to see the two parliamentarians supporting these potential changes to the law.  Pauline hopes that debates in the relevant government ministries to institute the amendments could begin later this year.  It could definitely be an uphill battle though, as the gun dealer lobby and some in the hunting and farming communities are wary of any changes to firearm legislation.

Member of Parliament McHenry Venaani officially launches the campaign while MP Kaveri Kavari and Pauline Dempers listen.

Member of Parliament McHenry Venaani officially launches the campaign while MP Kaveri Kavari and Pauline Dempers listen.

Connected to the launch, Pauline and I were invited that same day to be interviewed on the national TV network, NBC TV.  We got up bright and early to be on Good Morning Namibia, the daily show that starts at 6 AM.  The anchor interviewed us for about 10 minutes live, and we talked about the problem, the legal side, and announced the launch event later that day.  It was a great opportunity to get the word out, and my first appearance on live TV!

We’ve also been working on getting the message out to the Windhoek community more generally through the Gun-Free Namibia campaign.  We visited two schools last week and talked to their staff to encourage their schools to become Gun-Free Zones.  Goreangab School in Katutura took on the challenge, so we’ll be returning soon to talk to the students and have an official ceremony.

It feels like the NANGOF Trust has a lot of momentum going with the campaign to end gun violence here in Namibia, and it’s very exciting for me to be here for it.  More updates soon.

One of the legacies of apartheid still visible in Windhoek is the different characters of the various “locations” – what would be called townships in South Africa.  In 1959, residents of the Old Location (a segregated area of Windhoek set aside for black people by the Germans in 1913) were forcibly relocated to another location outside of Windhoek, which the people called Katutura, or “the place we do not want to stay.”  On December 10, a protest against the removal in the Old Location turned bloody when 13 demonstrators were shot and killed by police.  December 10 is now recognized in Namibia as International Human Rights Day to commemorate the tragedy.

Katutura is still here.  In fact it has grown significantly, and now about half of Windhoek’s residents live here.  It remains the poorest location in Windhoek.  Although there are some nicer areas, a lot of the houses are just tin shacks erected by squatters too poor to buy or rent a house.  But Katutura is also a vibrant part of this city.  There are nightclubs, shops, markets, even a court, and teens walking home in their school uniforms.   I work here every day, as the NANGOF building is here (NANGOF stands for the Namibian NGO Forum, an umbrella organization that represents Breaking the Wall of Silence as well as many other organizations).  It is still an overwhelmingly black neighborhood; I have never seen another white person here, and people often look surprised to see me.  Recently, a taxi driver taking me home from the office joked that the longer I worked in Katutura, the browner my skin would become!

High school in Katutura

High school in Katutura

Kids at the school, in between classes

Students (called "learners" here) at the school, in between classes

The other locations all have their own character.  My host, Talita, took me to visit with some of her family in Khomasdal.  The houses there are obviously nicer, better-built and bigger.  She told me that it used to be the location set aside for the “coloured” people, or people who are mixed-race.  Now people of all races and tribes live there.

I don’t think the neighborhood where Talita and I live, Dorado Valley, used to be an official location, but it also has a mix of people.  There are black families of different tribes, “coloured” ones, and apparently even some white families.  I take this racial mix, perhaps somewhat naively, as a good sign of healing after the years of abuse and harassment under apartheid.  All is not perfect, however.  Talita told me that I will never see the white people in our neighborhood.  Apparently they only come out in their cars, never walking to the local taxi rank like others do.  And it’s true – at least at this point, I still haven’t seen them, whereas the other families all have children out playing in the yard or people hanging out on their front steps, listening to music.

My neighbor, Junior, in front of his house in Dorado Valley

My neighbor, Junior, in front of his house in Dorado Valley

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 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.