Saturday, June 29, 2013

Swazi dancing to Namibia dancing

Namibia is about the size of France and Germany combined with a population of approximately two million, so one can travel for long periods of time without seeing anyone. One of the striking features of Namibia is the often glorious blue sky.



The red sand dunes of Sossusvlei are stunning, as shown in a clip from a production by schalkallroundsafaris on YouTube.


The society is rich in multiple, very distinct, cultures. The Basters, for example, are descendants of the Dutch and indigenous  Africans who traveled to Namibia from the Cape Colony in the late 1860s. The Western influence can be seen in the Baster dancing style and the Victorian dresses of the Herero in the clip below, which is edited from a YouTube post by Michael Paskevicius.


Windhoek is a modern, clean, orderly city, which unlike so many African capitals has wide, well-maintained spacious streets that easily accommodate the traffic.The clip below is from posting on YouTube by extrpesidente.

While the excellent physical infrastructure is a positive legacy of South African colonial rule, the downside is that the society was affected by apartheid. This can be seen in the area of Katatura township on the outskirts of Windhoek where non-whites had to live prior to the Namibia's independence. The longer original video can be seen at mynamibiatourism and journeys.


From 1884 to 1915 the German Empire ruled Namibia, and one can see this legacy most spectacularly in the coastal city of Swakopmund. The original video is a production of MediaOnscreen.