Dignitaries
on Sally in Namibia (Namibia), 06/Aug/2009 14:25, 34 days ago
It is easy to tell if a senior figure is in town. First you will hear sirens and then see the start of a cavalcade of police and unmarked cars. Minutes later there will be more sirens and cars and somewhere in the midst there will be a car even posher than the others which carries the dignitary. This is not unlike the security I saw at home when the Queen and Prince Philip drove by except they had about 4 police escorts instead of 40. I guess the risk of assassination or terrorism is higher in Namibia...Another sign is that the cell phone network goes down. Suddenly the network is 'busy' and no messages can be sent or calls made. Bear in mind that most people only have access to a cell phone for both business and personal use. (the combined phonebook and yellow pages for the whole of Namibia is about an inch and a half thick– the equivalent of the Hitchin/Stevenage phone book at home). Therefore this has a disabling affect on daily life and business. It does make me wonder what these travelling personages think about cell phone reception as presumably everywhere they go they will find the network busy!I should be careful what I say though, as Sam Nujoma, the 'Founding Father' of the nation said in a recent speech in a nearby town that if foreigners complained about Namibia they should either leave or be shot in the head.http://www.namibian.com.na/news-articles/national/full-story/archive/2009/may/article/founding-president-threatens-foreigners-except-angolans/. Must be election time.