Could have been CANNIBALS !! (Societal Impact of the Internet)

Member Name: Otjiwarotji

Product:	Societal Impact of the Internet
Date:	19/10/01 (165 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A great way to meet people, a lifeline for housebound people, fun, inexpensive

Disadvantages: can be time consuming, everyone might not be so lucky

The internet is a wonderful way to make new friends, well it has been for me!
It can break down international barriers at the stroke of the keyboard. It can be a lifesaver for anyone who is housebound for any reason, it can widen your horizons, give you new interests and enrich your life, yes I admit it I'm hooked.

This is in fact to introduce everyone to one VERY special person whom I would never have met if it wasn't for the world wide web, my friend Heila who lives in Namibia, an amazing country in Southern Africa, who gave us the holiday of a lifetime and a friendship which transcends cultural differences and distance.

I have always had penpals, some have stayed the distance and some have drifted away, but it wasn't until the advent of e-mail, when I was dragged kicking and screaming into the age of technology that I thought of e-palling, it opened a new dimension to my world. Whereas once, exchanging letters was fun, but time consuming, after all, writing a letter by hand can take days then it can be 6 weeks or more to send it half way around the world then the same wait for a reply, with e-mail your news is shared as it happens, if one of you needs an ear, the other is there and you can even have instant live time chat, and it all costs less than the cost of an overseas stamp

THE JOURNEY May 2001

Travelling from Teesside Airport via Heathrow and Johannesberg to arrive in tiny Windhoek International Airport, was an adventure in itself, especially interesting when we found that Richard Branson was flying with us on the Virgin Atlantic flight to Johannesberg. When I spotted the paparazzi at Heathrow, I thought for a fleeting moment they were there for us! Then realised that this was only a momentous occasion for me and my partner Brian and it wasn't likely the whole world would want to read about it .... or would they??

I have to admit I considered myself, at 44, a fairly seasoned traveller, having
done the usual package deals .... Spain, Cyprus, Portugal, in fact most of Europe at one time or another and, well, I was used to long hauls too ... after all I had been on a beach/safari trip to Kenya a few years earlier!

But this was something else, I felt very intrepid and daring, yes and nervous too, after all it isn't every day one decides to travel half way around the world to meet and stay with ... someone you have never met before. Although it didn't feel as though my e-pal Heila and her business partner Gundi were strangers at all, we had been regularly exchanging lengthy e-mails almost every day now for over a year, gaining in frequency and length once the invitation was issued and accepted for Brian and I to fly to Namibia and be their house guests for 3 weeks.

FINDING FRIENDSHIP ON THE WEB

To be honest I had always wanted to go to Namibia, this fascinating country had featured on many of my favourite wildlife and nature documentaries and struck a chord in me that no other destination quite compared to, and when I saw an ad on a pen pal website from a woman in Namibia it seemed quite natural to begin a correspondence, a chance to find out more about the country I had such a longing for, especially as I had begun to realise that a trip to Namibia was probably out of the question, financially, for me, an ordinary Civil Servant and her Painter and Decorator partner, but here was a chance to learn more about the place which fascinated me so much and yet very few people I spoke to had even heard of, let alone been to.

Now it must have been fate which led me to that advert, out of all the millions of internet users around the world I came across it quite by chance, and fate certainly played a part in throwing together two like minded people with a similar sense of humour and interests, and when I rapidly recieved a reply to my first e-mail to this complete stranger I was delighted, we began to write, tentatively at f
irst then with increasing length and detail about our respective daily lives, and it became apparent that we had many things in common, we had the same crazy sense of humour, we shared a love of wildlife and nature and often we shared very similar views, the friendship grew stronger as the weeks and months passed, but hearing daily about every day life in Namibia, from reading about Heila and Gundi battling against a huge poisonous snake which had tried to invade their house, to reading about the parrots, Louries and weaver birds visiting their bird table, to listening to accounts of Gundi's childhood on a remote farm, being chased up a tree by a leopard and charged by a bull elephant, just made life in dull old Teesside seem even more mundane ... then the idea of the trip was born.

It began as an embryo of an idea born of Brian (curious that the three women hadn't conceived the idea, or maybe he was the only one with the courage to suggest what we had all been thinking of )and like Topsy it grew and grew! I think we quite cheekily, invited ourselves to land in the laps of these wonderful people, who to our delight and surprise responded so positively that I am sure it was meant to be ..... from us tentatively suggesting that, if we were ever to manage that once in a lifetime trip to Namibia we dreamt of it would be nice to meet them, it suddenly became a flurry of ideas, a generous invitation for us to spend our leave time in their home, lengthy phone calls to get the cheapest possible tickets, packing lists and plans, plans and more plans..... Oh it was such fun planning that trip some days we would send half a dozen e-mails or more. We even celebrated New Year together, by phone this time and it was just great to hear each others voices, even with a couple of hours time difference and our accents sounding strange to each others ears it was so great to speak.

ARRIVAL

And now here we were in a small plane circling above the bush
and vast tracts of uninhabited land of Namibia ready to land at Windhoek and actually meet these two people who had become part of our daily lives in such a short time and wondering if we were slightly insane! Oh yes, we had our doubts ... what ifs and worries .... suppose we didn't get on? What if they hated us on sight?

Many people we had told about our impending trip thought we were crazy to go such a very long way to visit people we had never met, you hear such horror stories about being careful who you meet on the internet as they may not be what they seem, perhaps we had thrown our lot in with a weird cult or cannibals ... we had thrown caution to the wind and invested most of our hard earned savings on two discount flights to this far away place to stay in the homes of strangers ......
...and suddenly we were on the tarmac and my stomach was doing somersaults, my heart pounding as we passed through baggage control in this small airport, and there they were! Just as they had said, waiting beside the barrier, beaming a huge welcome and we all hugged like we were long lost relatives, I felt as if I had found the sisters I never had, the smiles on all our faces were enough to light up a dark room ... and I KNEW without a doubt that this was just the start of many adventures and a lot of wonderful fun ....

It was obvious that Heila and Gundi were equally as nervous about recieving their overseas guests as we had been, after all they were the ones opening their home and lives to us, so we all went to the small cafe at the airport, where we had our first taste of Tafel beer, the local brew and we all chain smoked for 20 minutes, Brian and I as we had just got off a no smoking flight and them .... Well, because they're chain smokers anyway I guess!

Having calmed down, told them about our surprisingly straightforward trip, they led us out to their car, for the 1 hour drive into Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia, where the
y lived in the suburbs. "You've had a long journey" we were told " So just sit back and have a rest" FAT CHANCE .... We were in Namibia at last and I didn't want to waste a second.

A FIRST TASTE OF NAMIBIA

The sights began as we were leaving the airport, surrounded by masses of African bush, where quite matter of factly Heila pointed out to us the enormous weaver birds nests hanging from the telegraph poles at the side of the road, and the vivid yellow black and orange feathered birds flew in and out of their homes glowing in the intense golden Namibian sunshine against the backdrop of dense blue African sky and unfamilar trees and plants.

A quick glimpse of vivid blue and violet had me frantically scrabbling through my baggage for my binoculars to see the Lilac breasted roller and had our hosts laughing telling us these were common birds and nothing compared to what they would show us later ....
At that we were were told "look, on the left .... vultures" and sure enough by the side of the road a group of about 10 huge vultures was feeding on the sad remains or a roadside kill of a small mammal. Not much later a quick glimpse of baboons playing in a field beside the highway had allayed my fears that we might travel all this way and not see any wildlife. So much to see and feast our eyes on and this was just the drive from the airport!!

WINDHOEK

As we approached Windhoek I was pleasantly surprised to see how compact, clean and stylish it is, in fact very sophisticated and elegant for what is in reality a 3rd world country, and as we arrived at Tauben Glen the suburb where our new friends live, we saw how well spread out the houses are and surrounded by pockets of natural greenery and no matter what direction you look beautiful mountains rising up against this incredibly blue sky.

Heila had already prepared us for the fact that her home was what she called modest, and clas
sed as poorer whites there would be no luxuries like swimming pools and airconditioning. But it was delightful, comfortable and the welcome we were given by her lovely huge dogs and cat no less enthusiastic than the human welcome. We felt at home!

The first day we sat around the lovely garden, under the bougainvilla and chatted and they told us the plans they had made to show us the best of Namibia during our stay. Sitting around the braai (barbecue) - see we were learning the Afrikaans lingo already, they told us that the following day we were to set off with them, on a 4+ hour drive west to Swakopmund, at the coast, where we would all be staying with her brother and his family and we would be taken to see the many sights and places within easy reach of Swakopmund, before returning to Windhoek to experience more of the places they wanted to share and things to see and do, so, tired but content we went off to sleep and dream of what sights we might see, little realising we were about to see so much, go to so many places that until now were just a dream and a picture on a tv screen.

We weren't to be disappointed, she might have been a cannibal, but she turned out to be a fantastic friend and if you're prepared to take a calculated risk your life might just be enriched by the experience. Every second of our stay with these wonderful people in their astounding country was a delight, giving us all memories which will last for ever and if I can once more harness the unique power of the internet, to share just one precious moment with someone else who will get pleasure from reading it I will be happy and the internet will again have done it's work.

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