On my first Monday of fieldwork, I managed to be up bright and early in order to catch the Free Guided Walking Tour of Windhoek. It was an interesting tour led by a young lady (Yvette) who had just started in this role back in February. She took us along the main highlights of downtown Windhoek – the Zoo Park, the Christuskirche (Lutheran Christ Church), the Parliament building and parliament gardens, the Independence Memorial Museum, the Genocide Memorial, the Alte Feste. We – myself, a Bulgarian guy who had strong opinions on every topic, a German guy was engaged by asking questions and another guy who didn’t say anything on the tour and of whom I don’t remember his country of origin – got to learn about some of the history, stories and narratives of Namibia colonial experience, the fight for independence and contemporary contentions. Our tour ended under the shadow of Dr. Sam Nujoma’s statue located in front of the Independence Memorial Museum (IMM).

I found it really interesting that with just a group of 4 tourist, we somehow came to represent the archetypal individuals in society – the strongly opinionated ones, the silent ones, the engaged middle grounded ones, and those like me a bit engaged, a bit aloof but constantly observation, reflecting and chipping in here and there to keep things ticking along. I was intrigued by how tour guides general attend to these categories of people who come to their tours. I did speak briefly to Yvette our tour guide prior to and just after out tour but it was not a full blown interview so I didn’t explore too much of her experience of our particular tour. I was in a bit of a hurry to get to my next observation site.

The Independence Memorial Museum was to be my next stop and as I hurried to get to the first floor of the impressive building I was told they were closing after being open for just 1.5 hours. The problem was that there was an issue with the water system so the toilets were not functioning. No functioning toilets = no museum for visitors. I was bummed and came to sit on the stairs outside pondering over my next steps. When one is on a recon fieldwork with numbered days, any mishap with the schedule can cause quite some anxiety because there are not many second chances of days available. I got chatting with a lady and a guy taking shade in under the building from the heat. This is when my encounter with local slang began:

The guy: Have you been to the Botanical Gardens?

Me: No

The guy: Maybe you should go and check it out. It’s not far from here.

Me: Where is it located?

The guy: Oh, if you go straight on this road then you just turn left at the Robot and follow that road up a hill and then down.

Me: Robot!

The guy: (seeing the incredulous confusion on my face) Oh, I mean by the lights there.

Me: Those traffic lights?

The guy: Yes, here we call it Robot.

Me: Robot! Interesting.

Yoh! This was an enlightening experience for me. Yoh! Is also another common expression I can’t hearing on the streets as people talked to each other. While he was explaining I suddenly remembered that I had heard a reference to Robots in the previous day but it was someone talking to a taxi driver but it didn’t land on me. Suddenly, I understand that that personal was telling the taxi driver who was going towards a particular traffic light. How did traffic lights become Robots in Namibia? Free research topic for those interested. The other common slang here is Aweh!  which is used in all sort of situations – from happy hellos, to goodbyes, to confirmation of yes and ok cool. It’s a feast of Aweh!all the time, especially when there is Pap! In my house I associate the word pap to oat porridge although my kids associate pap  to even millet porridge. Anyway, so I got slightly confused when at the Singles Quarters market it was suggested to me that I need some pap  to go with my kapana (grilled meat). It turns out pap in these parts refer to a more solid form of cooked maize/corn flour or millet flour. It was delicious and I enjoyed my kapana and pap so much that I will end up going there on 3 occasions across my 8 days stay in Namibia.

Did I mention that people kept speaking to me in Oshiwambo at the local market? Well, I just smiled politely while shaking my head at whatever they were saying. Some were persistent so I had to then smile brighter and respond by saying, I don’t understand. Not every believed me though. I asked some folks to place me in Namibia and they suggested that I could easily come from the Northern part of the country. Who knows, perhaps I was a Namibian in a different life 😊