Windhoek, the capital of Namibia, has two bookstores. Both of them mainly sell holiday cards, maps, envelopes, travel guides, and a few novels in both German and English. The quality of these novels is slightly better than you might expect for a bookstore in Windhoek; actually, it is surprising that this city has two bookstores. Most of the time, there are more employees than customers.
But if you expect to find Flaubert, let’s say, you might be disappointed.
So I was surprised to find, next to some inviting guides on Victoria Falls, the latest Tariq Ali.
My guess is that a visitor left the book on the bookshelf. It was either by mistake or out of sheer frustration.
I decided to buy it. An intelligent Marxist deserves some modest support these days, and how many people can claim to have bought Tariq Ali in Windhoek? With Tariq and my ladyfriend, who also happened to be the driver of the jeep, I traveled through the desert.
Some writers need to be hermits in order to write. Others like to travel. I love to be a hermit and travel at the same time.
After three days, we reached the Sinclair Guest Farm, owned by Hannelore and Gunther Hoffmann.
The Hoffmanns were forced to rent rooms to tourists because of severe drought.
The rooms and the farms itself reminded me of Germany in the 50s, although I have never been to Germany during that period.
Dinner was served in the presence of Hannelore and Klaus, a regular visitor from Johannesburg.
German was spoken.
The food was rather heavy.
But because of the presence of Hannelore, I finished my plate.
My copy of Tariq Ali--I like to do some reading after dinner--was well-hidden under the table.
Intimacy is a beautiful thing, but keeping distance is so much better.
The next time I’ll be visiting a guest farm will be in 2017.