217: Namibia’s New Diamonds

Uranium takes over: Namibia currently produces 10% of the world’s uranium – more than any other country in Africa except Niger. Soon, however, Namibia’s production will grow tenfold, with the effect of positioning this country as a major player in the global energy and political playing fields.

The irony is that three years ago, Namibia’s major uranium producer – Rössing Mines – practically shut its doors due to the falling market. But that was before the prices shot up in a year’s time from $16 per kilogram of yellow-cake (uranium that is partially refined) to $140, thanks to the world’s voracious appetite for alternative energy sources, nuclear included.

Who is buying most of this stuff? China, as you might guess, followed by Japan, India, and Europe. Soon uranium will likely outstrip diamonds as this country’s biggest income-producer and will create at least 10,000 new jobs (no minor consideration in a country with a 35% unemployment rate). But it will also irrevocably change Namibia’s pristine coastal and desert landscapes.

Uranium concentrates in the Namib desert (the oldest desert in the world), between 20 and 40 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. Extraction requires open-pit mining, in some cases very deep (with less damage to the environment), or else broad surface-mining over land that has never before been disturbed in history. For example, the next site to be opened, about an hour’s drive from our beloved town of Swakopmund, will span 80 square miles, to say nothing of the multiple roads and support structures to be built. It will also have its own desalination plant – Africa’s first – to supply the 12 million gallons of water that it needs per day to spray down the radioactive dust and clean the uranium before it is shipped overseas.

I got excited about the desalination plant when I first heard about it, because Namibia’s coastal towns are already using more water than comes in every year through underground rivers to refill the coastal aquifers. But at a lecture we heard earlier this week, it turns out that this desalination plant will be constructed to serve the mine first, and only the “left-over water” – if there is any – will be available for people. (This, despite the fact that Swakopmund may well double in size due to these new mines.) Moreover, the desalination process will likely absorb and then spit-out so much chlorine that much of the ocean wildlife (seals, dolphins and fish) could be negatively affected.

The impact of these mines on the coast’s human residents is an even bigger unknown, especially when Namibia’s famous East-Winds churn up huge quantities of desert sand towards the ocean, layering everything with a fine carpet of dust-particles (our lungs, included). To prove our concerns, we heard that a state-of-the art private hospital will be built soon, entirely focusing on radiation issues, largely funded by the mine-workers’ health-insurance.

What do we conclude? It seems that Namibia’s government woke up too late in terms of the secondary and tertiary impacts these mines will have. Initially, they saw only the benefits of jobs and taxes and consequently, issued ten additional mining licenses to overseas investors before engaging an environmental impact study. (From what we can gather, corruption has not been a major factor, but rather the innocence of government planners who felt pressured to act quickly.) But by the time the environmental impact study will be completed in about two years’ time, much of the damage may already be done.

Namibians tend not to hold mass rallies or demonstrations against the government; they prefer quite negotiation in the style of an old-time Elders’ Council. Moreover, given the fact that the average lifespan in this country has already dropped from 61 (when we arrived 11 years ago) to 42 (mostly due to HIV & AIDS), long-term public health concerns take a backseat to poverty alleviation and other, more immediate issues. Realistically, you can’t blame the Namibian government for grabbing the opportunity for massive foreign investment and jobs; yet one can’t help but wish that the planning had been better or, more to the point, that there had been any planning at all.

Diamonds in the Rough: One immediate benefit is that two of the orphaned students we help sponsor at the University of Namibia will benefit enormously. Both are studying geology and the older one has already got three job-offers by the mines, with a brighter future than he could have ever imagined.

Both students are part of the Saving Remnant Program, which is an initiative I started in 2001 as National Coordinator of Catholic AIDS Action (www.caa.org.na). The concept is Biblical and draws from an analogy with a large piece of patterned cloth. The idea is that, if you can’t save an entire society then at least you must save a large enough remnant from which the pattern – that is, the structures, culture and leadership -- of the society can be rebuilt, even better and stronger, in the future.

At Catholic AIDS Action, we first provided secondary school scholarships for the best-and-brightest students we could identify among the 18,000 orphans and vulnerable children that we supported every year. The cost per child averages US$350, and often includes hostel-living (for children in rural areas who can’t commute to high school), in addition to the requisite books, school fees, uniform, and exam fees that the government doesn’t pay. But soon a new challenge arose: what to do with those Saving Remnant high school graduates who beat the odds and meet the entrance requirements for the University of Namibia or the Polytechnic? Now the cost shoots up to between US$1800 and US$5000 per year, depending on the course of study and whether the student can get a government loan (which requires their putting up collateral -- something that, by definition, most of our students can’t do).

So by hook and by crook the Saving Remnant extended its reach to 10 tertiary-level students, for whom Bernd and I serve as volunteer “Uncle and Auntie.” To that end, we personally assist some of the students financially, while the others benefit from the generous donation of friends and three local businesses. More to the point, these students have become part of our family. We learned the hard way through a first-year student who failed that most need a lot of personal guidance and emotional support to successfully pass their courses. So, four years ago we started inviting these students to a monthly dinner at our home; then we added special study-sessions, assistance with computer-access, and periodic support in-between. We encourage peer-mentoring: student to student. When Sergio moved out of the house almost two years ago, we invited one of the students to move in.

This student is Lucas Mahoni, who is now a third year Mechanical Engineering student at the Polytechnic of Namibia, where Bernd also works. Lucas hails from Namibia’s rural north-eastern region. His father died when he was six and his mother when he was nine; then he was forced out of school for one year by an uncle who wanted him to become a goat-herder. When he insisted on returning to school, an aunt let him stay with her but without any financial support. So, while still in primary school, Lucas attended school in the morning and begged for food and school fees in the afternoon at a local petrol station (where he also washed cars and helped the gas-attendants). Finally, his maternal grandmother in another province heard about his plight and invited him to stay with her, but she lived 60 kilometers from the closest school that Lucas could attend. That meant that room-and-board also had to be paid-for. That’s when Lucas heard about Catholic AIDS Action’s Saving Remnant Program, and he graduated top-of-his class.

Lucas believes that God has a special purpose for his life. How else can he explain his difficult childhood and terrible stutter (which is the worst we have ever heard – despite a year of speech therapy that we arranged in Windhoek)? When Lucas’ grandmother died last year he felt he had no one left anymore, but slowly he has drawn closer to us – as we have to him. Now he has a girlfriend (a lovely young woman), and some weeks ago he made the decision to start talking up in class no matter how much the other students laughed at his speech impediment. In telling us this, he repeated the phrase we often use with him, that what he says is worth the extra time it takes to say it. He is also feeling positive about his academics: By contrast to the majority of the students who failed or dropped out during their first two years of the Engineering program, he is a survivor.

Lucas gives us great inspiration. So does Helvi, our latest addition, who studies Economics and spends every vacation in the north helping her grandmother farm their meager fields. Or Mirjam, who grew up with two cousins in what became a child-headed household when Mirjam turned 17. Amazingly, all three youngsters made it to University: Mirjam is getting top-honors as an accounting student and will graduate later this year (also with several job-offers in hand); her cousin Simon is studying social work, and the youngest of the three – Jason – got into Stellenbosch University in South Africa to study medicine (this being the Africa’s top medical school!). But where does the money come from for all that? In Jason’s case, a physician-couple we know from Baltimore are single-handedly paying for all his expenses, with the single condition that Jason stays in Africa and doesn’t join the brain-drain to the West. (No worries: Jason loves Namibia tremendously.) And then there is Kenneth, who became vice president of Namibia’s Young Accountants’ Society, and Lydia who graduated last year in Communications and gets married in December (we’ll be part of the wedding, as it turns out), plus several others. We’re so proud of these youngsters, and so full of admiration for what they have accomplished already, despite incredible challenges. These are Namibia’s true diamonds of the future, more precious than any mineral or any stone will ever be.

PS #1: Unfortunately, Keitometsi Abu Basuto, our “second daughter,” is moving back to Zimbabwe next week. Her visa runs out and she doesn’t want to risk staying in Namibia illegally. We’ll miss her and wish her all the best, and hope for her return one day.

PS #2: On a brighter note, we reveling in the visit from our dear friends Karen and Aron Primack, with whom we often stay when visiting the Washington area. Aron says that Namibia is so beautiful that you can’t even absorb it all. We’re delighted they are enjoying it so much and hope they will encourage others to visit, as well. (Here we are on a boat with Spotty the seal.)