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ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE EQUATOR
Last December I went to Namibia with my family for three months. The trip had been planned for a long time, and in the end it couldn't have hit a better seam. Making my second film was a huge mental squeeze and a complete release seemed like the only right option. Our son packed his school books and skateboard, my husband his wetsuit and I my nerves. And so we flew to the light of Africa.
Namibia is a stunningly beautiful country, but if I were to write a travelogue, it would consist almost entirely of dialogue. When you live in the same guesthouse for three months, you get to know many different people and hear incredible life stories. We have made a lot of new friends and a reminder of what an open discussion atmosphere means.
So that you too can get to the point, I will quote excerpts from a breakfast conversation. Its parties are the South African owner of the place, an architect by profession, as well as a Berlin psychoanalyst, an Angolan teacher, an American diginomad, a Lithuanian policeman and me.
Owner: And so you Europeans make war again. You seem to have forgotten what that means. You no longer know how to value peace, nor freedom. Namibia became independent in 1990. We still remember.
Lithuanian police: Putin started this brutal war.
Owner: But who would stop it? You know, when I was 14 years old, I stood with a rifle on my shoulder in the yard of a school in Johannesburg, and I was told that the blacks must be exterminated. I couldn't do it. I couldn't kill. I fled to Botswana, then to Europe. The war took all my friends. They became unhappy men, haunted by their actions. Only now do I realize that almost everything I've been taught in my life has been a lie.
Psychoanalyst: I know what you mean. At the age of 19, I lay in the fetal position in the trunk of a car and managed to get out of the GDR. I left my mother and sister. I loved the West, I wanted to study. Now the German Green Party, which I trusted like God, is buying tanks. Human memory is so short! Last year I sold my apartment. I'm going to travel until I die. I will never come back to Germany again.
We look at this 71-year-old woman in silence.
Angolan teacher: You Europeans are so incredibly self-centered! What if I say we don't care about your war any more than you care about ours. For example, what do you know about the war in Angola? (Looks at me blankly).
Me: Nothing at all...That you have peace now.
Teacher: There is peace, but there is also a torn nation and an insecure country.
Owner: Hello, American. Why are you so quiet?
Diginomad: I have concerns. I have worked for half a year in a startup company without receiving a single penny of salary. In Los Angeles, I paid $2,000 a month in rent and watched the poor die in the street. There is no sense in this world.
Owner: Capitalism makes no sense. White people don't know how to think communally. If an Ovambu man owns goats, he is solely responsible for them. But if he slaughters a goat, the whole village comes to eat!
During the conversation, a long-haired, Israeli man with a backpack walks past the table. He's off to his own war; To save whales from being slaughtered by Japanese poachers. The front door opens and my 9-year-old son runs in, out of breath.
"Hey, Jesus is leaving now! Come say hi!”
We all went out and sent the young soldier on his way.