From the Skies to the Sands

Reflecting on Namibia’s Natural Wonders and Unwavering Spirit

I am sitting in my happy place, or shall I call it my lekke place? It is the captain’s seat of V5 -ROB a Cessna Caravan and I am about to start my descent into Kanaan Desert Retreat from 10 500 feet. Nicklai my youngest son is sitting co-pilot and he is configuring the radio. It is early morning, and the Namib is the perfect colour pallet, red dunes, yellow grass plains and the brown, khaki, and chocolate stripes of the Tiras mountains. As I gaze at the breathtaking landscape, I reflect on what to write for the Michelangelo Guest note about this country that “God made in anger.”

I think back to the first cheetahs we released on Namibrand in 2008 as I descend over Aandstêr, I remember how excited oom Albi Brückner, the founder of Namibrand was. We released them at Gorrasis after a farmer in the Windhoek area caught them in a box trap and wanted them off his property for obvious reasons. We tracked them on foot with VHS telemetry for 3 years to make sure they don’t come in conflict with humans again. I remember how the release of these cheetahs impacted Marlice’s life; growing up at Harnas she has always cared for animals and always wants to protect them, but this time she had to care in another way by giving them their freedom, and she did. It was the beginning of our research work on how we can solve or mitigate the never- ending conflict between man and wild animals. As a young boy on our family farm Loraine in the Nina district I never thought that I would ever try and help conserve the “ongediertes” like my father used to call them.

My thoughts divert to Lightning the female leopard that we released at Little Kulala in 2009 and how she eventually led me to Neuras after Nad Brain taught me how to track animals from the air with a Cessna 182. Wine in the desert, who could have thought that one day we would be making wine in the Namib desert? I remember Allan Walken Davies the previous owner of Neuras telling me how founding President Nujoma took some Neuras wine to Havanna as a gift to the late Fidel Castro and how the Havanna cigars that he got as a reciprocal gift ended up at Neuras and the farmworkers said it’s the worst cigarettes they ever smoked. Our country has beauti l authentic people, I love our country.

I once sent some Neuras wine to President Pohamba after he won the Ibrahim prize, and he wrote me the most beautil letter which I enlarged and which still hangs in Neuras’ reception area today. I can’t help thinking of late President Geingob; I was privileged to be his doctor for 16 years. I remember I was sitting in the captain’s seat of the Cessna 182 in late 2014, flying at 9500 feet when Johan Ndjaronguru phoned me and told me that comrade PM as we used to call him, is now president elect, I was so happy for him. What a country we live in, a true democracy with 3 great leaders a shining star in Africa, the Namibian house as President Geingob used to say, friend of everyone and enemy of none.

As I start my descend, I hear V5-MFZ a Cessna210 call in from the Sossusvlei dune corridor; MFZ was my father in law’s 210 I think to myself, he sold it when he was still alive. He was the man who urged me to start the Lifeline Clinic for the Ju/’Hoansi (San) people in Epukiro; he said you are a doctor, you have the ability to help these people and after the terrible death of a baby that suffered from malnutrition in August 2003 we started a clinic. People thought we were crazy and that it would never be sustainable giving medicines for free but we did it with the help of good people and I sometimes can’t believe that for 20 years we are still going to Epukiro. I realize there is a Higher Hand looking after us, the very meaning of N/a’an ku sê.

I turn final approach to runway 09 at Kanaan and think to myself how much I love this beautiful country. I have travelled extensively with sports and with the late President—54 countries to be precise—perhaps this guest note is one of the simplest: I am like a cheetah with a strong homing instinct, always wanting to return to Namibia, the land of the brave.

Dr. Rudie van Vuuren

Managing Director: N/a'an ku sê

President: Cricket Namibia