Namibia is a country in Africa to which Nizhny Novgorod residents deliver humanitarian aid.

The climate is arid; almost the entire territory is desert, including the lengthy Atlantic coast known, in its Namibian section, as the "Skeleton Coast."

Before World War I it was a German colony ("German South West Africa"), with the exception of the port of Windhoek, which belonged to Britain. Under the Treaty of Versailles it was transferred to the British Dominion of South Africa. Namibia gained independence in 1990.

Approximately 20 % of Namibia's GDP comes from the extractive industry. The country primarily mines uranium and diamonds, though Namibia's subsoil also contains deposits of copper, gold, lead, zinc, tin, silver, tungsten, and natural gas. Particularly well known are the diamond deposits near Lüderitz (and the ghost town of Kolmanskop).

Near Swakopmund lies the largest uranium mine in the world.

Namibia has a population of approximately 2.1 million people.


« I flew back from Namibia yesterday… It was brutal…

We were delivering humanitarian aid there, from a private care organization modeled on the Red Cross — "Gumi."

It was my first time in a country like that. I had never seen anything so horrifying. We stayed in a hotel separated from the outside world by a three-meter wall with barbed wire. The hotel itself was decent; all the staff were Black and worked there for next to nothing, but they consider it an elite place to work.

They carried out every task flawlessly and with maximum precision.

I get the feeling that if I had told them to drop to their knees and kiss my feet, they would have done it on the spot. Before our first trip out to another town — Oteme — the locals asked us to buy some loose candy and bring it along. Nobody explained why, but once we set off, it became clear: an enormous crowd of children of all ages came running after our Ural truck, shoving each other with hands and feet, grabbing the candy we threw to them. That was the local entertainment. It looked revolting.

We weren't allowed into the city proper — I imagine even more terrible things go on there. By the way, we were offered cheap prostitutes — three dollars an hour — but we were afraid of AIDS, which runs through this destitute country like the common cold.
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