NAMIBIA

 

READ

For Namibia, a country in southern Africa, I read The Purple Violet of Oshaantu, by Neshani Andreas. The title character, Meme Kauna, is a once-beautiful woman who lives with her husband, Tate Shange, and children in the village of Oshaantu. When she first arrived in the village, the townspeople “called her the purple violet of Oshaantu. She was so delicate and she came when these flowers were in bloom.”

The book is narrated by her best friend and neighbor, Mee Ali, a happily married woman with children. The husbands of both women work some distance away, which means they are rarely home and the women do all the farming and other work around the house. Mee Ali’s husband, Tate Michael, is good and kind, treating her as an equal, but Meme Kauna’s husband is a louse who beats her and cheats on her.

Mee Ali hears screaming coming from Meme Kauna’s home and runs over to see what the problem is. She finds Tate Shange dead, and Meme Kauna telling everyone that he had only arrived home half an hour previously and he had not eaten any of her food. She is afraid people will think she has poisoned him.

Throughout the rest of the book, Tate Shange’s relatives arrive and the funeral is planned. Much like in the book I read for Mozambique, Paulina Chiziane’s The First Wife, Tate Shange’s family immediately begins to quarrel over which of his livestock and other possessions they’re going to take. It doesn’t matter that Meme Kauna was the one who took care of the farm and the animals – her husband’s family lays claim to everything that was his.

There is also much gossip among the family and the villagers because Meme Kauna has not shed a single tear over her husband’s death. She even refuses to designate anyone to speak on her behalf at his funeral. Throughout her ordeal, her friend Mee Ali is with her and does her best to help in any way she can.

The Purple Violet of Oshaantu is a sad commentary on the treatment of women, and I can only hope that things have started to change in Namibia since this book was published in 2001. 

COOK

I finished reading this book a couple of weeks ago, but I had a terrible time finding a recipe I wanted to make. I could have veganized a beef and carrot dish or buttered black-eyed peas, but those both sounded mundane. I finally found a recipe for Guava Squares at Namibia (Namibian Recipes) (narod.ru). The recipe looked straightforward enough, but I ended up having to make several adjustments. For starters, I visited three grocery stores, and there was not a guava to be found. Instead, I used guava jelly. I made my usual veganizing substitutions – JUSTEgg and Miyoko’s cultured vegan butter. Many of the measurements were in grams, so I converted those, but I ended up with a crumbly mixture that clearly needed more liquid to hold it altogether. So I poured in more JUSTEgg until I had a batter that stuck together and could be scraped into the baking dish. Fortunately, the final product was pretty good, although I couldn’t even taste the guava flavor.

GIVE

The GlobalGiving website had several climate-related projects to choose from. I decided I wanted to help protect lions. According to the project description: “Wild lion numbers in Namibia are under threat due to factors such as loss of habitat, lack of natural prey and revenge killings from human-wildlife conflict. When there is a lack of available natural prey, the local farmers’ livestock are targeted as they present an easy option – especially when they are not herded and protected at night. Due to frustration from farmers, and a lack of alternative solutions, these lion populations are hunted down in retaliation to prevent further livestock loss.”

This project will help to reduce this conflict by “collaring lions and training locals to become lion guards.” Predator-proof shelters will be built for the livestock, and deterrents will be set up to keep the lions away. It is hoped that these measures will help stabilize the wild lion population.

More information about this project is available at Protect lions in Namibia from retaliatory killings - GlobalGiving.

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