The Deep Sand of Damaraland

By T. Mullen

The Deep Sand of Damaraland tells of drilling for water in a stunning land, and the irony of trying to battle drought in a desert. This is where the Wild West meets Africa – where trackers hunt criminals, farmers feud neighbors, rogue elephants pull apart water tanks, and one contractor rides horseback to the bush to lasso giraffes. In a paradoxical land where African and European lifestyles coexist and clash, and where intuition eclipses logic – the key to sanity and success pivots on getting to know the local people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T. Mullen
• Release date: Aug 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9780984956593

T. Mullen

T. Mullen was born in sunny St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and then moved to the suburbs north of Chicago, where he lived until he was seven. His family then moved to Ireland, which became home base for the next eighteen years. He studied architectural and civil engineering as well as business administration and spent fifteen years working outside the U.S. as a consultant regarding water resource and environmental projects in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Spending half his life in the U.S. and half outside influenced the topics Mullen writes about - including travel, history, and cultural clashes. He has written several magazine articles related to environmental issues and has also written a few books, including Wine and Work - People Loving Life, as well as Rivers of Change - Trailing the Waterways of Lewis and Clark. For more about T.Mullen and his books, check out www.RoundwoodPress.com.

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THE DEEP SAND OF DAMARALAND

A Journal of Namibia

T. Mullen

Roundwood Press Logo

Published by Roundwood Press

Copyright © T. Mullen, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-9849565-9-3

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means (electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author. No liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained within. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Although every precaution has been taken, the author assumes no liability for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. Names and personal characteristics of some individuals, as well as the chronology of certain events, have in some cases been changed. Some individuals are invented and any resulting resemblance of these individuals to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

Map of Namibia

Contents

Section One — Khorikas

Water

Challenge

Delegates

Mike

Damaraland

Jurgen

Flood

Fist

Contractors

Hotel

Cowboys

Taxi

Uis

Samuel

Phone

Creature

Drought

Rudi

Seals

Leon

Mercedes

Map

Departure

Section Two — Opuwa

California

Meanwhile

Himba

Garret

Rainfall

Spitzkoppe

Jerry

Imbroglio

Encyclopedia

Tracker

Alice

Plumber

Compass

Cornucopia

Rig

Bullbar

Circle

Section One — Khorikas

Water

Drunken Willem slammed his glass on the counter. Bloated on rum and Coke, he waddled out of the closing bar, crossed the campground and pulled open the door flap of a tent. It was two in the morning.

Up kaffirs! he shouted at the rig boys. Time to drill.

Terrified, the four boys shook awake. They sprang from cots and rummaged for their boots and hard hats in darkness. They scurried under starlight toward the Land Cruiser, ducking when Willem swatted his fat pink hand at their ears. They knew their boss was angry again.

The desert air stayed warm and quiet; the sky had no clouds. Sweating, Willem pulled himself into the truck and pushed his fat buttocks into the leather seat. Silence exploded as he revved the engine. Clouds of diesel exhaust pumped into night. Like a hydraulic caterpillar, the drill rig clanked through the campground gate. Behind, the Land Cruiser carrying the rig boys followed.

Willem aimed the massive machine down an empty starlit road. Fluttering bats reeled across the rural sky. As captain of the quarter million dollar drill rig and compressor, he whooped aloud and rammed the stick shift hard, like a prize fighter slamming a jaw. Pistons chugged. The engine groaned. Sweet Jesus, thought Willem, there was no stopping him now! He was one dozen kilometers from his rendezvous with power. As master of the mechanical whale that bobbed beneath his thighs, Willem was ready to demonstrate how a big man mastered a big machine: it was time to drill a well in the deep desert soil.

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Typical empty orange road in rural Namibia

Twenty minutes later Willem braked on the orange soil of Renosterkop — the ‘place of the rhino.’ In the Namibian desert night he clambered down from the truck cab and showered orders and insults at the rig boys.

Faster! he screamed as he waved a fist. In eerie quietness, the teenage boys scampered to his drunken commands. They heaved metal drill rods into a pile before their drunken foreman, and organized equipment.

Willem spat on the earth. He twisted a silver dial at the compressor panel and yanked a lever. A drill bit whirred alive. Blasting out dust, it plunged straight into the earth and carved out a clean vertical shaft no wider than a basketball. The drill thumped up and down like a jack hammer while spinning in synchronized circles. It moved through six, twelve, twenty-four, then thirty-six meters of desert soil before the motor chugged. The sound indicated a change in the type of material below, hinting at what they sought. Willem licked his lips and fumbled ten pudgy digits over the dials again. The drill groaned to a stop. Pressurized air blew down the shaft and a spittle of liquid flared out of the earth.

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Water flares out from a deep well — a borehole

Water!

Goats, cattle and barefoot farmers — awakened by the noise — sniffed the moisture. They hunkered in close to watch. One of the rig boys filled his hardhat with the spewing moisture and then sipped this clean juice. He passed the hat on to his workmates who gulped down their sweet reward.

As the sun rose, bird calls swirled through pink light. Willem hiccupped and laughed. Moisture stained the ground, as though leaked from an incontinent earth. It was a grand moment in an arid land. The hole – the tubular column that rammed through forty meters of schist, mica and a million of years of tectonic history – fingered deep into the waterlogged strata below.

Willem yawned. He switched off the compressor and hauled his dust-painted body into the truck cab. He was groggy, though satisfied. The chances of finding water in this desert land were slim. In a country with sparse rainfall and dried up riverbeds, in a land where only a few well-adapted mammals can survive the midday sun, water is a precious rarity. Willem likely imagined that his performance was gripping. While toying at the control knobs, he likely dreamed that a pack of local white farmers cheered him on, while the black boys tending to the drill rig bowed before his green leather boots.

Faster! he yelled at the boys through the open window. Hurry up, you stupid kaffirs.

The four boys decoupled a black pressure hose and unscrewed the yellow drill rods. They packed away wrenches and bits. Finally, they collapsed into the Land Cruiser, exhausted.

Willem started the truck engine. Bleary-eyed, he tipped his head forward and drove toward the town of Khorikas. He had finished drilling another damn well. If the boss complained about his booze-ups or drilling at odd hours, he didn’t care. Besides, the new boss bothered him. It was about time, Willem reminded himself, to put that young runt in his place.

Willem smiled and clenched his fist.

Challenge

London weather was miserable. Rain and snow and blowing cold thrashed against my jacket. A truck wheel sprayed mud on my calves. Puddle water seeped through both shoes as I sniffled and ran down a subway staircase.

When I arrived back at the flat belonging to my girlfriend Dominique in Oxford, I opened a map of Namibia and spread it across the bed. There, northwest of the capital city of Windhoek, lay the town of Khorikas (KOR-ee-kas) surrounded by a pale peach color that indicated desert. I looked at massive stretches of this telltale hue. In two days this would be home. Far away. South West Africa. Desert. The attractions near Khorikas had been numbered and indexed on the map: Petrified Forest, Burnt Mountain and Rock Finger. Each image hinted of sand and rock and scorching heat.

Namibia, said Dominique. So far away.

Outside, the rain howled as night closed in. I began to pack.

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Rippled sand in Damaraland

I had accepted the job over the telephone: to manage a drought relief effort in an arid land. A team of us would drill through desert soils to find potable water for rural farmers and nomadic tribes. My previous work experience included three years of supervising pipe laying in villages throughout Malawi, Central Africa. But the land of Namibia looked different. In pictures, the terrain appeared harsh and dry. Huge tracts appeared empty. It was a land of biting imagery: of roadsides coated in bulbous crickets who feasted on their own dead; of scavenging lions that once roamed the Skeleton Coast before an angry farmer’s bullets blasted the last cat away.

Namibia, formerly South West Africa, is twice as big as Texas. At that time, the country’s population of 1.3 million people was smaller than that of the city of Houston. The capital of Windhoek (VIND-hook) formed a locus of past German and South African colonial governments before the country won its independence in 1990. The nation comprised an eclectic meld of diverse cultures and remarkable geography.

Two days after staring at the map, I flew to Windhoek. Impeccably laid out streets criss-crossed the clean and compact city. Computer monitors, imported magazines and bright running shoes filled store windows on Independence Avenue. At my hotel, a waiter dished out Bavarian wurst while Austrian waltz music wafted in the background. Outside, the names of city streets puzzled me. Dozens of black Africans filed past the intersections of Plato and Socrates streets. Elsewhere, I saw Einstein Strasse intersect with Edison Strasse, while Gutenberg and Pasteur streets touched corners. This incongruity triggered delusion: was the country European or African?

The morning after I stepped off the plane, the boss met me at the office. The stocky Nebraskan waved a telescopic silver pointer at a wall chart and told me of Namibia’s drought. I sat slurping ice water before a humming fan and listened to how Namibia’s president had declared the recent drought an emergency, then pleaded for foreign assistance to help solve the crisis. Weeks later, international disaster relief teams came twinkling throughout the nation. New Japanese pickup trucks ferried expatriates from the United States, Britain and Holland across the countryside. Our company had joined these aid organizations, ostensibly committed to combating drought.

The boss looked at me from across his massive desk.

We need you to coordinate a program up north, he explained. Drilling wells and installing pumps. It’s up here, he said, waving his beloved pointer. In the Damaraland region.

He explained how the company’s team worked. Based on field studies, a geologist selected where to drill for water. A drill foreman and his crew then sunk wells at these sites. If the well gushed with water a contractor was called in to bolt down some sort of pump to cap each hole — powered either by a windmill, diesel engine, solar panels, or hand pump. Finally, a local educator speaking the Damara language dropped by these new pumps to lecture local villagers and tribes about how to improve hygiene and conserve their water.

The project had started four months earlier. Twenty holes had already been drilled. Sixteen now provided drinking water.

Our last manager left before his contract ended, the boss added. His voice turned terse. This hinted that there might be a good story behind what happened. Yet he chose not to elaborate.

You’ll move into the same house where he lived in Khorikas. That’s a four hour drive to the north.

He shook my hand and thrust out a folder. I have to go, he said. To another project in Angola. I’ll be back next Monday.

Oh, he added. Something else. Next week a woman from Washington DC will fly to Khorikas with a small delegation. They want to inspect this water project. Since they provide our funding, we have to please them. Anyway, I’ll be back in time to plan out an itinerary. But in case there’s a delay, talk to Bob. He’s second in charge here. He’ll be back from vacation tomorrow.

Sure, I said. No problem.

Don’t worry, he added. We’ve been working here for months. These folks from Washington DC have read our reports and seen the statistics. They love this project!

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Buckled mountains along the road to Khorikas

The next day, Bob phoned me from Malaysia. He said he was enjoying vacation. I heard a female giggling in the background and asked no more.

I’m going to stay another week, he added.

Minutes after the call, the boss phoned me from the country of Angola to the north.

Sorry, he said. I’m staying here longer than I thought. I won’t be back until the morning that the delegation flies to Khorikas. I’ll join them. You can plan out the itinerary. Ask Mike for help.

I told him we’d take care of it.

That afternoon I met Mike. He was a casual, stocky young Namibian of British descent. He had worked as the assistant manager for the project since it began months earlier. Together, we got into a four-wheel drive pickup truck and he drove us north, out of clean little Windhoek city along a straight and smooth asphalt road toward Khorikas. As our journey passed over low hills and dry scrub, we drank canteens of water. Aridity prickled my skin. I stared out at tin shacks and thin farmers scattered by the roadside. Four and a half hours later we pulled into Khorikas town, a vapid spread of brick houses and bottle stores on a plain before a set of low hills. Crumpled beer cans lay in road potholes and I watched plastic bags blow through a dusty subdivision. Mike drove us to the house that was to be our home and office — a spacious bungalow with two bedrooms and a refrigerator. Outside grew a thorny garden of euphorb plants. Naked tree branches dangled over the driveway and a family of chickens strutted past the front door.

What happened to the last project manager? I asked Mike as we unpacked.

He was laid off.

Why?

He drank too much. He guzzled cognac at the local bar and then sent the bills to the company accountant. Besides, he was loony.

Loony?

I’ll show you.

For the next two days, Mike drove us across the desiccated soils of Damaraland. We veered past donkey drawn carts and skinny goats. We pulled farm gates open and hunted for roads where only thin tracks blazed ahead. I stared at arching anthills twice my height and pointed at cawing hornbill birds. An occasional stiff horse or strand of barb wire interrupted the massive emptiness of this Martian landscape. Laughing children pranced before their tin shack homes and waved at us. We waved back. The effect startled me: these poor people subsisted on marginal desert soils that had been walloped by drought. Their cattle, grouped in gaunt and miserable herds of less than a dozen, looked as disfigured as cartoons. We drove to sixteen rural settlements and inspected the wells and pumps that our company had installed.

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Local Damara transport

When we left the last site, I formulated my letter of resignation. I would drop it on the boss’s desk in Windhoek and fly home. The situation looked bleak. Of the sixteen supposedly successfully installed wells that our company report bragged of, only three had pumps. Only two of these worked. According to the locals we spoke with, these pumps operated erratically. Touted as a ‘model’ drought relief effort, this project was a failure that sprouted a tangle of loose ends.

Bit of a shambles, aye? asked Mike. When the last supervisor said these sites were all ready, I knew he was loony. Don’t mean to pry, but why did you take this job? Couldn’t find work back in America?

I had no answer. Why had I come to this bleak desert land, to a remote and ugly town swollen with unbearable heat? I missed my girlfriend and family. Painfully, I recalled that I had turned down a comfortable desk job in Seattle in order to take this work.

It’s all a bit of a mess, Mike added, stating the obvious.

In a few days the delegation from Washington DC would fly to Damaraland to inspect our work. They would see how United States tax dollars had been spent to clobber a foreign drought. The entourage would stay for two days and nights. They apparently wanted to see new pumps supply water to thirsty children, and were raring to watch our ‘education specialist’ teach farmers the rudiments of sanitation. Finally, they planned to witness the power of our expensive new drill belch and roar as it dug through Damaraland soils, searching for water.

This itinerary was ridiculous.

Education specialist? Months earlier, Mike had hired some farmer named Bubu. He had ten children and knew how to switch on a slide projector for local fund raisers for the organization Save the Rhino. After Mike flashed cash, Bubu agreed to tell farmers about conserving water. Yet he explained how his schedule would depend on whether his cattle strayed on the days he was supposed to work.

I mopped dribbles of sweat from my forehead and recalled the job offer I turned down in Seattle: refrigerated juice machines, air conditioning and ice cold water spurting from a hallway drinking fountain. Had I snatched that job, my coworkers and I would form a team, a band of peers who chatted in the company cafeteria about new movies and mountain bike trips and made plans to drink frosty beers on Friday after five.

Drill’s broken, said Mike.

His words punctured my reverie.

What?

Broke down, he repeated. Needs service.

When?

A week ago.

I stared at the hot scrub and thin weeds surrounding us. I stared at him.

Oh, another thing. The fellow who installed the well pumps? Mike continued. He’s gone.

Gone?

Left. Went to South Africa. Pinched a bit of our company’s gear too.

He ran away?

Too right. Tell you what, Mike continued. He was a clever bloke. I’d leave this place for South Africa too, if I had the chance.

I wanted to blurt out, Drive me to the airport! Yet when I opened my mouth, no words came out. I was sweating and lonely and saddled with an undefined job. All I could do to resist from crumbling inside was to act out my role as project manager. I gathered enough courage to ask Mike a rational question.

How long until the drill rig will be repaired?

Spare parts are coming from Johannesburg. Two weeks at least.

He adjusted his wire framed sunglasses and folded both arms.

This project’s in a bit of a state, hey? Still don’t understand why you came. Bad economy back home? You in trouble with taxes? Get a girlie pregnant?

After saying that, he laughed. Mike just looked at me and laughed. I stared at him in rage until, unexpectedly, my anger vanished. He knew what I knew: this project was a joke. A hot, remote joke. And we were in it together. That made me laugh. After all, he was my assistant.

My chuckle disarmed Mike. His look of wonder, in turn, inspired me with strange confidence.

Two weeks until it’s repaired? I repeated.

At least.

The predicament challenged us both. The spare parts for the drill would arrive only after the delegation departed. Yet to take this job seriously, we would need enough noise and drill dust to impress these visitors. Or we would need a decent alternative. And if they wanted to watch our ‘education specialist’ in action, we had four days to transform cattle ranching Bubu into an ‘expert’ on rural teaching techniques. We had less than a hundred hours to make this project sing and dance and smoke cigars before our captive foreign audience. If we failed, our funding could get cut. We could lose our jobs and miss the chance to breathe life into this gasping venture. The prospect was bleak. Yet the thought of failure receded. Mentally, as the deadline lurched toward us, a truth smacked me with certainty. Life had blessed us with a rare opportunity: a situation that could only be improved upon. If we snapped up the challenge, we had nothing to lose.

So we might as well have fun trying.

Delegates

When the delegation flew from Windhoek to Khorikas, the pilot changed his course to skirt around a thunder shower. The action smoked with irony: a plane flying into a drought zone had to change its route because of a rainstorm.

The plane landed on the dirt airstrip at the edge of town. From two pickup trucks, Mike and I inspected the four overheated passengers staring out of the Plexiglas windows. When the propeller stopped spinning, the plane doors popped open. The frazzled delegation — two middle aged women and a pale man — exited. Our boss wobbled out with them, complaining about small planes.

Mike and I lugged their vinyl suitcases to two waiting trucks. There, we opened a cooler.

Like a drink? Mike asked the chatting strangers. While stretching their legs and arms, the visitors peered in the cool box. They looked at an array of drinks steeped in ice: granadilla, guava and orange juices as