Swakopmund, Walvis Bay, etc.

Last week, we took a trip to the coastal cities of Swakopmund and Walvis Bay.

On Thursday, we visited the Gobebab research station, which is a small compound way out in the middle of the desert. They do lots of weather and climate monitoring and some biological stuff with the local flora and fauna. They are far enough away from any towns that the information they collect on things such as greenhouse gasses is very free of local "noise" in the data. They also study energy-efficient ways of doing things--they are not connected to the public power or water systems (way too far away), so they produce all of their own electricity and pump all of their own water. They have several different types of solar panels and they are comparing the output and longevity of the different types. They also have some other cool stuff like solar stoves (a giant parabolic mirror with a space in the middle for a pot--boils water in 15 minutes) and big canvass things that collect fog for use as drinking water.

After a brief stop at the Walvis Bay lagoon (lots of flamingos), we visited the Walvis Bay Export Processing Zone. One of the problems of resource-rich countries in Africa (such as Namibia) is that companies come in and mine the resources, but the people of the country don't see much of the profits. One of the ways Namibia (and other places) have tried to address this is to encourage companies to do more of the processing of the raw materials in-country. Among other things, this provides jobs to lots of local people. Namibia's Export Processing Zone is essentially a tax-haven created by the Namibian government to encourage companies to do some processing and manufacturing within the country. The companies pay absolutely no taxes, and agree to hire a large number of local workers (but lots of these jobs sometimes don't seem to ever materialize).

Actually the Export Processing "Zone" is entirely abstract: there is not a physical zone, but these companies can set up their factories anywhere in the country under this arrangement. Some of the companies have been criticized for poor working conditions. The plant we visited (which makes car parts for various car-manufacturers) tries heavily to avoid this image--they have a giant garden in the back which even has a pond and, more notably, has grass (which is pretty rare in that area), but it seems the employees don't really spend much time there (even though they get a 1-hour lunch break....which was heavily promoted by the plant manager who was giving our tour). The factory has several enormous 150-ton presses which are used to create the parts the company makes...it was cool to see those in action. However, it was pretty depressing to see all of the workers doing the exact same small task over and over again on each individual part--they have jobs, but very boring jobs...

In a slight change of pace, we next climbed an enormous sand dune (~150 meters high). Quite the leg and cardio workout! We hung out on top for a while and looked at the ocean (which was visible from the top). A few people took disposable cameras up with them and took some pictures, so I'll try to get copies and put them up (digital cameras would have been harmed by getting covered in sand).

The next day, we visited a uranium mine. The mine itself was an enormous hole in the ground (2 km long, 1 km wide, and 400 m deep)--seriously a big hole in the ground. We got to see some pretty cool shovels and dump trucks (the tires on some of the trucks were taller than our bus). The trucks are so big that "normal-sized" vehicles, such as our bus, for example, have to have a very tall flag on top when they drive in the same areas so that the dump truck drivers can see the vehicles over the edge of the dumptruck.

The uranium is embedded in granite, so what they do is blast a section of the mine and load the rubble into giant dumptrucks. The dumptrucks take it out of the mine and dump it into a series of crushers connected by conveyor belts. After the rock is sufficiently crushed, they do a bunch of chemistry to it (sorry, I didn't follow the exact details of what the guy was saying--it involved sulfuric acid) and the end result is lots of waste, and a bit of uranium-oxide, which is shipped to Canada and France for further processing.

Interestingly, the government of Iran owns a 15% share in the mine (gasp!). As it turns out, owners of the mine actually have no claim to any of the material that is produced (they just get the profits after it is sold), so no one who owns a portion of the mine can actually produce any uranium for themselves; there are lots of international regulations about who can actually buy or take possession of the uranium. Also, in the case of Iran, they can't even access their profits due to international sanctions, so their share of the profits gets frozen in a bank here. The person at the mine wasn't sure yet how last week's new set of sanctions might affect this arrangement...

That afternoon, we visited an informal settlement in a township outside of Swakopmund. We visited a local leader and got to hear about how she mediates local conflicts. She spoke a language with clicks, so it was interesting to get to hear this in person. We also visited a school funded by Angelina Jolie (apparently, she gave birth to one of her kids in Swakopmund). Finally, we visited an afterschool program which is kind of similar to the program that I am working at back in Windhoek. They do a variety of programming for the kids including academics, life skills, athletics, music, computer skills, field trips, etc. Contrary to the program I am working at, this program selects relatively high achieving students in the local schools who just need a little extra support (my program takes students with a wider variety of academic achievement). Interestingly, the person we spoke with there grew up in Cincinnati and went to Ursuline...

While in Swakopmund we had the opportunity to spend time in town and explore the shops, restaurants, and beaches (the place we were staying was 2 blocks from the beach). There is a strong German influence in Swakopmund, and there are lots of German restaurants and German people.

We watched the Ghana vs. Uruguay game at a restaurant in town. All of the people were definitely supporting Ghana, the one remaining African team. It was miserable to be in a restaurant full of people who were all very sad that they lost... : (

I also got the opportunity to do yoga on the beach, which was pretty fun. The instructor of one of my classes also happens to be a yoga instructor. We did yoga with a couple of people who turned out to be a sushi chef and a sushi waiter, and we had dinner at their restaurant. It was delicious!

Pictures are posted at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=179449&id=617471723&l=630aa4ebee I don't have pictures of everything, since I didn't want my camera to get full of sand, but there are several cool pictures...including a few pictures of the sun setting over a (moving) train which happened to be exactly between our bus and the sun at just the right moment....

On Sunday, we traveled back from the coast to Windhoek (about 3.5 hours). Sunday was also the 4th of July. Obviously, it's not a very big deal around here. It is interesting to be in a country that only gained its independence in 1990 (within my lifetime). Lots of people remember very clearly the years before independence and the independence struggle. Independence day here is in March, so I won't be here then, but I imagine people think of it very differently than people in the US think about our independence day (since our country's independence came so much longer ago...many, many generations)....