Crossing the Line

Bonjour,

As we headed to Botswana after our safari, we drove through Northern Namibia and crossed "The Red Line," where we were stopped and the contents of our trunk checked.

The Red Line is a gated, patrolled border that serves as a veterinary checkpoint. The land south of the Red Line is largely commercially-run ranch land (primarily owned by white Namibians). The land north of the Red Line is subsistence farming land with small villages (operated by black Namibians). Animals bred north of The Red Line cannot be brought into southern Namibia or exported overseas, officially to prevent the spread of some diseases like foot-and-mouth disease.

Upon crossing that line, the change in the scenery (and the smells) was immediate. Within a kilometer or two, we stopped seeing the open, dry ranch land with wide-set fences and began to see many little villages dotting both sides of the road, like those pictured above and below.

After spending a night in northern Namibia (Rundu), we stopped and toured one of the villages and a local private school. The school, the school playground, a village building and a home appear below.

Many families cannot afford the school's tuition (about N$100 per term, or about US $14.00), so their children do not attend. Other children lack warm clothes for cold winter months. And many children go to school hungry. When, after two hours of classes, the school feeds the children a 10 a.m. morning meal of "pap" (a traditional porridge-like dish), it is the first meal many children will receive since the afternoon before, when the school feeds them an afternoon meal.

The classroom walls are decorated with posters, listing the school's rules and policies and educating children about the transmission of HIV and other diseases.

The average life expectancy in Namibia plummeted during the 1990s due to the AIDS epidemic, which is the leading cause of death. At least 15% (a UNICEF figure) and maybe more than 20% (a WHO figure) of the Namibian population is HIV-positive. According to an NIH study I found, 67% of the 33 million people in the world infected with the HIV virus live in sub-Saharan Africa.

While antiretrovirals are now free and widely available to treat villagers (which will hopefully alleviate the devastating impact of this disease), the schools are clearly making a necessary effort to educate children early about the spread of the virus.

The children above are members of a family that has joined with four other families to create a little farm cooperative. They were working in the garden because they had a two-week school vacation when we visited.

The five families pay about N$50 a month for the right to pump water to their patch of land, where they grow cabbages, tomatoes and other produce. They have to sell a lot of cabbages before they see any profit on the farm, since cabbages are sold for about N$.50 a piece.

In northern Namibian villages, most families live in huts like this.

We were told that although concrete homes with tin roofs are viewed to represent "progress," these clay/mud huts with grass roofs are actually cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.

Then, with the patch on our tire hanging in there (300 km already traveled, about 500 km more to go), we headed down to the very sandy roads of the Okavango Delta in Botswana, with our front-wheel drive car. (Yes, another Bob/Kim (mis)adventure is coming right up...).

A bientot,

Kim