Hitchhiker on the Trans Kalahari Highway
We were traveling in a Landrover on what is now called the Trans Kalahari Highway and picked up a hitchhiker. This was in Namibia in March of 1990. It was the fortnight before Namibia's independence and Ziggy Marley was invited to play at this celebration in the capital Windhoek. As soon as the hitchhiker stepped in the car I was curious about him and started to ask questions. He spoke Afrikaans and fortunately, so did my travelling mate, John. The hitchhiker was born in a small village in Namibia's Northeast, close to the boarder of Botswana and was on his way home. He told us that years ago he was recruited as a soldier by the South African army to track and fight against the SWAPO (South-West Africa People Organisation). Now, the war was over and he was afraid to go back to his village without any work. The only thing he had ever learned was to fight.
Then on my trip in this part of the world in 2011, some 20 years later, we picked up another two hitchhikers on a road running parallel to the Namibian boarder. They told us where the turnoff to the Namibian border crossing was.
There had been no visible road sign whatsoever - as in ‘Namibian boarder turn left here!’.