Well, Toto...

Definitely not in Kansas anymore. Our recent trip to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, was a huge eye-opener for me. 

On the one hand, the mall and the memorials that we visited felt very western and very similar to comparable places in the US. Downtown Windhoek is definitely really nice, there are areas with lots of $$, nice places to shop, and the whole city is really clean! (I was surprised. One of our trainers says it's ranked as one of the cleanest cities in Africa.) 

But, on the other hand... there is an insane difference between downtown Windhoek and the outskirts. There are a lot of locations around Windhoek, "locations" being the local term for any sort of poor suburb-y neighborhood, ranging from clusters of small houses to true shantytowns (one-room shacks made out of corrugated metal, no bathrooms, etc.). I live in one of the locations of Okahandja, but there are tons of these locations just outside of Windhoek, each of which has its own history.  It seems like nearly every part of Windhoek/Namibia has its own black vs. white historical drama, whereas all of the different tribes who live in Namibia seemed to manage to live together more peacefully (maybe by necessity, but still). Major events involving locations include the 1959 massacre, where a whole community of blacks were forcibly removed from a neighborhood sitting on land that some whites wanted, and the occasional bulldozing of really poor, illegal locations by the Windhoek police. These settlements are illegal, feature lots of shebeens (small local bars), and are presumably breeding grounds for disease, alcoholism, and other unfavorable traits; but what scale do you use to weigh these negative qualities against the fact that these locations are the only homes that thousands of people have/can afford? 

We also went to a pretty big market somewhere in Windhoek, which was a new experience for most of us. I hate American tourists who go to "cultural" places to gawk at things they don't understand and make a big deal out of everything. But this weekend, I was totally that person. Notable experiences in the market included eating a mopane (?) worm, walking past a row of very recognizable cow heads for sale, and trying a sip of some sort of fermented milk beverage. These things were interesting to try and I'm glad we did, but it also makes me cringe to think about the faces that some of us made in the process, and the way that our actions could have come off to others watching us. (There were definitely lots of people watching the large group of white people walking around the marketplace looking confused.) I think that it's important that we are learning about the local culture, which does include markets like this. But it's a new feeling, for me and I think for many of the PCTs, to know we're being seen as little more than privileged white tourists. And, I guess, to know that at this point that's basically still what we are.