Orientation - Wow that's different!

From Saturday last week we have spent time with 10 other rookie missionaries doing our orientation. This time round it was especially geared to Namibia rather than Africa as a whole.During the week we had sessions on cross-cultural ministry, the history of Namibia, security, living out our faith and mentoring. In addition to this we had chance to watch two very moving films: "Cry Freedom" - the story of Steve Beko and "Beat the drum" a fictional but accurate portrayal of the problem of AIDS in sub-saharan Africa. We had an email from Ruth's brother this week where he talked about sermons being available on the internet but then said "...not that I suppose you’ll get a lot of time for listening to sermons when you’re trying to live one!" which I thought summed up what us being here is all about.

On Wednesday we all went to one of the "New Start" clinics and went through the experience of being tested for HIV including the pre-test and post-test counselling. In the film "Beat the drum" there was a scene where the boss was encouraging his workers to be tested telling them that it would make no difference if they tested positive - sadly this isn't the experience of many here in Namibia where a positive test can mean being cut off from family, friends and employment.

The Namibian who took the session on the history of Namibia had actually been part of the student uprising. During a tour of significant sights in Windhoek he showed us the fence he had jumped over when fleeing from the South African army who had arrived to break up a demonstration at the High School. We first went to the "Old Location" from where the non-whites were forcibly evicted, and saw the grave of the first martyrs in the fight for independence. The blacks and coloureds (as they are referred to here in Namibia) were moved to a part of Windhoek called Katatura (the name means We won't stay here) and much of the housing that was provided remains to this day. The area is expanding as more and more people from the villages move to Windhoek to try, largely unsucessfully, to find work - the so called urbanization of Africa. The newer settlements have tin shack type housing, a shared water pipe to collect water from and shared toilets. In one such settlement we visited a church made in a similar style with beer bottle tops used as washers on the nails that held the corrugated steel sheets to the timber framework. Each Sunday a congregation of about 300 gather to worship in a building that couldn't have been much bigger than an area half the size of our home church, LFSBC. One can only imagine what it must be like in the heat of the Namibian summer.

One of the things that is so characteristic of Africa is the huge contrasts between rich and poor and the way that it is side by side - we visited what used to be the "whites only" graveyard and compared it to the blacks/coloureds graveyard only ashort distance away. One in immaculate condition with grass and trees and tarmac roads separating the different parts, the other bleak and dusty with untended graves, many with nothing but a simple stone number to mark them.

Is it any wonder then that the whites are still held in such suspicion by many of the Namibians?