September 9, 2007

Friday night, a big group of us went out to a concert showcasing local music at the University of Namibia. It felt like a school sponsored event. There were more people hanging out in the parking lot than inside the stadium, and showing up in the first hour was clearly socially unacceptable. We purchased our tickets from two guys through a little hole in the fence and then walked down a couple of feet from there to the gate where tickets were collected and wrists were stamped. We squinted at the stamps on our hands, these neon orange smiley faces and thought 'what kind of color for a stamp is this?' And then there was the pause, the embarrassed realization. On black skin this is a better color. Noticing our whiteness, yet again, and feeling pretty ignorant in the process.

That was the general theme of the night- just how much we stood out. One student walked up to us, asked us where we were from, and then proceeded to say, "Why aren't you guys standing over there by the German beer stand? That's the closest you're going to get to home." We just looked at him blankly, shrugged.

We left before the big name act, a local kwaito star that goes by 'the Dog,' came out on stage, but we still heard some good music. A very tall man in a shiny sweat suit who had some pretty smooth dance moves that he liked to show off while walking alone through the crowd also provided some serious entertainment.