Thank you for your comment and insight about the story.

I am full aware that my story is an anecdote and does not reflect the justice system in all of Namibia or the entire continent of Africa. I lived there for two years and traveled to many other countries including Botswana, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Tanzania, so I understand well that Africa is a diverse and rich continent and there are differences in how cases are treated and I know that not all outcomes are the same as mine. But thank you for making that point again.

As far as writing for the public domain, I think you are confusing some elements of my story as generalizations when they are actually evaluation, which is my interpretation of events through my own filter. I think you misunderstand this article as a news report or analysis that may be possibly damning to your country, but the Matador audience knows that it is a personal account and therefore limited only to my case.

I have very good memories of my time in Namibia. My larger point for this story was that the whole experience with police, court, public awareness of the case was culturally different than my own country and yes the fact that it happened in Namibia, makes it an “African experience” in my mind. When you visit the US or other countries, you will also find experiences that are bewildering and confusing to you. We are all each products of our own cultures and it is normal to interpret events through our own backgrounds.

Be as it may, I am patriotic Namibian from the far northern east region. I take a particular stance on some of the words you used in your story “my story” which now has become everybody story I quote here below.

“That day we experienced an eye-opening brush with an African legal system. In that moment, we learned our first lesson about the Namibian sense of fairness. A goat wandered through the yard. It can be tricky being a foreigner living in Africa. After months of waiting for our court day and then three more hours for the legal parties to arrive, we finally brought Eiseb to justice, African style. … even to this day, my “American” sense of justice doesn’t completely understand the ruling. A short time after, I met a wood carver at a tourist spot outside of our village. As is common in Africa, where locals know everyone’s business, he also knew our case”.

Your words above brought me to my intellectual knees. Your story from Khorixas does not warrant this kind of generalisations. Khorixas is too small town to be called Namibia. Of course, I do not doubt your story. It happened in Namibia, but does that mean an African style. One lone court case and you call that the Namibian sense of fairness or African Justice. My dear sister why do you judge us by your standard. “As is common in Africa, where locals know everyone’s business, he also knew our case”. What did you mean here because I cannot follow you. This is purely a mechanistic worldview of Africa.

I challenge you that I live in Windhoek (capital city) of Namibia and this not true or go to Ghana or Egypt. Next time you write a piece of writing that goes for public consumption in the public domain, you should really be careful how you open your mouth. I felt indignated because I have received numerous e-mails and other form of correspondence from my friends in and outside Africa that my country is lawless. The police did their work, the magistrate, state prosecutor applied their minds, and we trust our judiciary. I worked with many people in Khorixas including an American volunteers since 1992 but your story is a single case in point.

My comment was not a generalization because I referred to it as “in my case” – a specific instance, not a general statement like: “African justice.”

Africa is a continent of 54 nations, many made up of multiple cultures. Namibia alone has 9 distinct cultures. To state that what happens in one small corner of Namibia can somehow be representative of a continent bigger than North America is a gross generalization and should be challenged.

Re-read the article, but change Namibia to (say…) Estonia and “African justice” to “European justice.” Would you still think that the author wasn’t making an unfair generalization? Do you believe that the justice systems in Estonia, Turkey, Spain and England (to pick 4 distinct European cultures with differing legal traditions and 3 different alphabets – Cryllic, Aramaic and Roman) are all exactly the same and should thus be generalized? I know I’m being rhetorical, but I’m sure you see the point.

By sharing my experience, I was hoping to show that even within Namibia, different people have had different experiences, thus showing that such a generalization wasn’t accurate even on that scale.

Stephen you even describe YOUR very own experience– how are you not generalizing, but she was? To me its hypocritical of you to think that she did a “disservice to a culturally rich and diverse country,” and you didn’t?

It makes me happy to hear that you had a good outcome in your case.

In my case, a toaster, fan and 3 magazines disappeared from my house one day (things that to us would be relatively inconsequential). The magazines were particularly identifiable as neither Rolling Stone nor Wired are sold in Namibia.

I never reported it to authorities, but I told fellow teachers.

In about 2 months, the police returned (what looked like) my toaster, fan and two of the 3 magazines. I still have no idea who took them.

In regards to my housemate’s stolen items, the situation was very different from yours. He lost four, maybe five, business shirts, nothing else; there were no witnesses; it was outside on our clothing line (no breaking and entering); the thief was never caught (although we think it may have been someone we did not recognize who was begging at the gas station and followed my roommate home). We lived in “town,” where properties were not so close to see everything and where people were not often hanging outside. He filed a report, but serious fighting for the recovery of five shirts, not worth it. From that point on, we simply kept post while allowing our clothes to dry outside. Annoying, but a symbol of forced adaptation. Nothing went missing again.

In response to my level of “effort” and personal investigation, I am not doing much more than having a new topic for conversations with people I already speak with on a regular basis. In my case, at least one of the people is a magistrate, who I’ve gotten close with over the past year. Your case seems like crazy corruption and also what I seem to think is a form of exploitation of volunteer trust. It should make for interesting discussion.

In regards to Khorixas or Africa being “worthy of defending,” I find it hard to justify a response. I am sensitive to certain things, especially portrayals of those traditionally classified as Blacks, of Africans, and of historically misrepresented and oppressed minorities, and I respond accordingly. I also often get into long discussions with locals about “America” and “Americans” in attempts to help them understand how big and diverse the nation truly is. And just today, I raised a bunch of red-flags with my colleague who classifies himself as “Coloured” when he was trying to break down certain “Oshivambo” and “Nama” values to me, asking to him to support his assertions. No attacks in our exchange. I’ll be hanging out with him and his family socializing tomorrow.

In the end, we all have our opinions and forums such as this (with “Leave a Comment” boxes) allow us to share and accept them. I’m not expecting much more.

Enjoy your weekend.