Oh shucks - it's Untag - Part 1

         Erna van Wyk de Vries 

(with apologies to Leon Schuster)

Meintjeskop Courier, May 1992, Volume 3

A tiny, magical village, soaking up the sun, miles from nowhere, right on the Angolan border - called Rundu! I'm convinced that only people who've actually been there, will know what I mean. There's something in that air, laden with the heavy, intoxicating fragrances of tropical flowers, that does strange and wonderful things to you ...

What was I doing there? My husband as regional representative for the Department of Governmental Affairs in the North-East and I was his second in command. There we were, placidly minding our own business, adapting to the atmosphere of the African bush, right on the banks of the Okavango River. We looked onto the dense green bushes of Angola on the other side, feeling quite safe because that part of Angola was occupied by Savimbi's men, and UNITA was quite well-disposed towards the transition government. Often they would wave at us from the other side with their rifles.

Then, one fine day during April 1989, the Finnish battalion arrived. Young guys, right out of the Nordic winter, all very blonde and very, very pink. They swarmed all over the tiny little town, changing their. fat wads of Finnish marks for even fatter wads of Rand at the only bank, going on shopping sprees for souvenirs and getting sunburnt. We only looked. And waited.

That Friday I went for the weekly shopping trip, at the (not "a" "the") supermarket. Only to find
that Finns had bought up every single toilet roll in the shop (as well as every single broom, but I
wasn't in need of a broom). For crying out loud, what did they think the rest of the occupants of Rundu were supposed to do? A delicate and tricky situation, because the closest  town is a three
hour drive away - Grootfontein.

Funny-looking amphibian vehicles, painted white, arrived from Finland as well. They'd probably heard about the Okavango swamps not realising that the Okavango River only turns into a swamp well into Botswana territory!. Namibians of all colours sniggered at them.

Next to arrive were the Sudanese. Beautiful people. Very black but with fine Arabic features. A
strange, fascinating combination. They were quick to file their first complaint. Required to share the
ablution blocks with the Finns in the army base, they complained that the Finns had put up a sign
"Whites only". Confronted with this, the Finns complained that the Sudanese were not exactly clean in their habits. The Finns were asked, nevertheless, to remove the sign immediately which they did.
They were later seen purchasing a huge roll of barbed wire at the hardware shop, which they promptly put up between "their" showers and toilets and those of the Sudanese.

Before the Sudanese could file a complaint about this, there was an unexpected coup d' etat in Sudan and the whole bunch of Sudanese left for their country right away. Problem solved! One thing though, the Sudanese were quite active during their short sojourn, and I would not be surprised if, today, there are more than a few cute Kavango toddlers with those unmistakably lovely Arabic features ...

More next time - there is so much to tell!