Or at least benign because they've just send me a Christmas message from an old German friend who still lives in the world's oldest desert, the Namib Desert, where we met some fifty-five years ago, working for the same company.
He had come out from Germany to South Africa the same way and at about the same time as I had come out from Germany to Australia: as a migrant intent on turning forever his back on the old "Fatherland".
In a roundabout way he had come from working down in the mines in Johannesburg to the sleepy and windswept town of Lüderitz on the Atlantic coast. I had been working for a bank in Australia for two years before thinking that perhaps I should give the old "Fatherland" a second chance. I arrived in winter, stayed for one whole summer, and escaped a second winter by accepting a job offer in what was then South-West Africa which became a six-month stop-over on my way back to Australia.
Karl-Heinz (and you can't get a more German name than that!) and I not only shared the same company flat but also home-cooked meals, weekly visits to the local 'bioskop', and many after-work drinks at Kapps Hotel.
I spent Christmas 1968 in Lüderitz, alone, even though Karl-Heinz had invited me to tag along on a trip to the Etoscha Pan, a huge wildlife reserve in the north of the country bordering on Angola. I declined as I was saving up the fare back to Australia. Another opportunity missed!
He had been a most generous friend and we stayed in touch for some time after I had arrived back in Australia and then gone to New Guinea. I never forget the day a fat envelope arrived which, like an hour-glass, leaked a slow trickle of sand from a damaged corner, a "souvenir" from the Namib Desert. "In case you're missing all that sand", he'd written.
as I embarked in Cape Town, not Southhampton
I didn't stay in Australia either but kept moving, but Karl-Heinz stayed on in what would become Namibia after independence from South Africa in 1990, got married, had kids, and still lives there in retirement now.
It was so good to hear from him again, and I look forward to catching up with him and all that's been happening in his life. Watching - again! - "The Gods Must Be Crazy", filmed in the neighbouring Kalari Desert, should put me in the mood for it. Hoe gaan dit met jou, Karl-Heinz?
