A Beefy Diet

Namibians love meat. They love beef. They love their cows so much, in fact, that by law, it is worse to steal someone’s cow than it is to murder another man. People eat a lot of beef here. Fatness is an indication of wealth, a mark of how much beef is in a person’s diet. So it is supposedly a compliment when someone calls you fat (I’m rather happy that nobody has called me that yet, but I’m sure the day will come soon).

The other day a man came into my office from a neighboring village, Otjinene. He told me that I need to move to Otjinene and work at the Youth Office there because Gobabis has too many vegetables and Otjinene has more beef. I imagine he was looking out for my best interests but I have never in my life decided where I ought to live on the basis of how much beef is available there. Furthermore, (although I dared not tell the man this as he would think me foolish) I don’t eat much red meat. Many of the Herero women here sport full-on beards, mustaches, and chest hair; although I cannot confirm this with scientific evidence, a few PCVs presume that the growth of facial hair is due to the vast quantities of red meat consumed in this country. Thus, the moral of the story is, I don’t plan on eating too much beef here as I’m rather fond of maintaining a beardless face.