Party in the Bashus
The Saturday of the 22nd was one of the most random days within Namibia. Around 20:00 I took a taxi to Wanaheda, Katatura to meet my friend Felix. We wanted to chill, and make the evening enjoyable. Suddenly, Felix got a call on his phone and it was his brother billy. He simply told us to meet at a local shebeen where he will pick us up. We waited not more than 15 minutes on that chilly Saturday evening, before two guys parked a blue golf outside the shebeen and said lets go. We drove into Okuryangava. From here the night seemed to get darker, with every metre towards our destination. As I looked through the window the street lamps had disappeared, there were no 'houses' per se only tinned shacks. We were now in the informal settlement. I felt like Simba from the Lion King when he had just entered wilderness. I was just waiting for the hyenas to jump out of nowhere. We drove until we could drive no more. The car could only reach so far, so we then decided to walk. As dangerous as this felt, I could help but feel suprisingly excited. I think there is something about danger that is somehow attractive to me.
As I looked up on the hill I saw a bright light in the midst of the darkness. I heard loud music, and my favourite song by the legend that is Tate Buti. I saw people dancing, drinking, and quite frankly having the party of a lifetime. I felt like I had been transported somehow back to Sierra Leone. There was such a deep sense of freedom and liberation in that partyhouse on the hill of the bashu. But yet, I saw a new kind of poverty. This was a world away from Windhoek central. In the same city I was living in a lucious house with a electric ovens, fancy lighting and a beautiful swimming pool. What's worse that my place was about 10 minutes drive away from these bashus. Poverty and wealth were so close to eachother, but yet their lives couldnt be further apart.
Middle-income country, yeah right!
After leaving the bashus, the fallacy and stupidity of Namibia being classified a middle-income status country hit me. The wealth and cleanliness of such places like Windhoek central, Klein Windhoek, Academia, Kleine Kuppe, were simply a mirage. They are masks hiding the gross suffering of a country with mass poverty. I began to wonder how such 'intelligent' policy makers in Geneva and New York could really be so stupid. Namibia is the country with the highest gini co-efficient in the world, yet the classification of income status is based on gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP is basically the market value of goods and services produced within a country within a certain time. However, GDP is not a measure of standard of living, as it is not a measure of personal incomes. Furthermore, income statuses could not be more skewed in any other country more than Namibia. What you basically have is a mass population with little money and a small minority of mostly white people with a lot of wealth. When these things become apparent one really wonders how far the country has moved since apartheid. Of course political liberation has been achieved but economic incarceration still seems to be firmly intact.
You are perhaps thinking who cares about this middle-income status definition? What does it mean? Well it means that those in poverty receive less support? Donor organisations and NGO's are beginning to pull out of the country as it fails to meet requirements for assistance due to its middle-income status? But still I wonder is this a good thing or a bad thing? What are the opportunities and threats? Could there be a better and more sustainable path towards development that would include a reduced role on international aid? I guess only time will tell, however, I think there is a lot in terms of development that we can learn from the Namibian situation, both from its past, its present and most interestingly, its future.
