The experiences of three Namibian vendors making a living from the influx of tourists at Namibia’s largest commercial port offer a window into how the cruise ship industry is providing a boost to local artisans – and the country’s informal economy.
By Adolf Kaure
Born in the coastal town of Lüderitz in southern Namibia, Antonius van Nooten, 57, can’t wait to see the next cruise ship dock at Walvis Bay ‘
Tourists from the cruise ships usually spend a few days ashore, travelling to the coastal town of Swakopmund in western Namibia, where van Nooten lives, and exploring the nearby desert.
A father of three children, Van Nooten has been a street vendor since arriving in Swakopmund. Initially, he crafted souvenirs for tourists from Makalani (a type of palm tree) plants, before he started selling semi-precious stones.
Van Nooten said that the arrival of cruise liners brought opportunities that enabled him to sustain his family.
“It helps with the school. I use that money for my six-year-old daughter’s school uniforms, school books, and food. It helps a lot by uplifting and supporting us,” he said.
Van Nooten grew up in Lüderitz until he was 15 years old. He then moved to Khorixas, a small town in northwest Namibia, with his grandfather, to start school.
Several years later, he moved again, this time to a small mining town in the western part of Namibia known as Arandis, which is 65km away from the coastal town of Swakopmund.
After choosing to work at sea in the 1990s, he returned to Arandis before settling again in Swakopmund, where he has resided since 2001.
He narrated how tourists who visit Namibia on cruise liners bring with them stronger foreign currencies improving his quality of life.
“I feel happy because I used to rent a house in the township areas of Swakopmund, then I decided that there are problems at home – and I am a man of my years now and I must make a living. I needed to build my shelter for myself in the DRC (Democratic Residential Community) informal settlement of Swakopmund. The money of the tourists is more than the ones the locals give and it helped me a lot to build my shelter and move from the house where I was renting. Now I don’t have to pay rent. I am now using that money to cater for other needs,” Van Nooten said.
In addition to tourists, Van Nooten now sells semi-precious stones to several local buyers.
“One of them is a jeweller, who wants the best quality. Then I have a collector who also wants good quality, then I also have customers who buy to support my business. Then I also have the fourth kind of client, who uses it for medicinal purposes,” he said.
His most expensive stones cost around 400 Namibian dollars (about US$21.14), though tough bargaining sometimes brings those prices down, he said. The cheapest semi-precious stones he sells, which are usually smaller in size, cost around 100 Namibian dollars (US$5.29) each.
“When the South Africans are here and when the cruise liners come, that is when my business is booming,” he disclosed.
His peak season is between October and April while his off season is between May and August.
In the off-season, Van Nooten said he could go a whole week without selling a single stone but during peak season he sells up to three stones per day. His top-selling stones include fluorite stones, amethysts, and black tourmaline.
According to cruisedig.com, the peak season for cruise liners at Walvis Bay is between November and March. Cruisedig.com’s statistics also indicate that over 6,000 passengers are expected to visit the port between November and December 2023, arriving on four cruise liners.
Another craft vendor, Albert Josef, 44, grew up in a village near the northeastern Namibian town of Rundu. In 2002, he moved to Walvis Bay to find greener pastures.
While COVID-19 hit the vendors hard, “we are still surviving,” Josef said. The vendor is a father to seven children. He said the money he receives from tourists, including those docking from cruise liners, has helped sustain the family, with some tourists paying him in foreign currencies like US dollars, euros, or British pounds.
“It helped me to pay for my renting room. Five of the seven children are staying with me. The other two are staying with my girlfriend in Swakopmund. My girlfriend is currently unemployed, so the money that I get here helps to pay the children’s school fees, to buy stationery for them, food and clothes as well,” he disclosed.
Before moving to Walvis Bay, Josef worked as a farmer, plowing and selling groundnuts. He said that being a vendor was more sustainable.
“This business is better because the harvesting business was for a season. When there was rain, you could harvest and when there was no rain, you could not harvest,” said Josef.
Josef moved to Walvis Bay because of the tourists who flock to the coastal town. He taught himself how to carve wooden crafts which he sells at the Walvis Bay Waterfront.
Josef said that he adds value to his art by using different kinds of wood with different textures to create a variety of crafts like elephant and giraffe sculptures of different sizes, which the tourists buy as souvenirs. The craftsman gets the wood from Rundu – a northern Namibian town known for its intricate wood carvings – from trees that grow there.
Another vendor from Walvis Bay, Peace Gabriel, 60, has six children, whom she sustains through the sale of her crafts.
Gabriel was born and raised in Walvis Bay. She started making wooden crafts because despite completing high school, she was unable to find regular work.
“When you are suffering, you have to try each and everything. The tourists from the passenger ships help me to pay for the shack that I am renting, to pay school fees for my children and buy food,” she said.
Her children are between the ages of 11 and 19. The father of her children is unemployed and she has to take care of herself as well as five school-going children.
“If there was no tourism, we would have suffered,” Gabriel said.
While she appreciates that tourists are often willing to spend more money than the cash they have available on their visits, she said that digital cash facilities would make a huge difference to her income.
“They want to use swiping cards, but we don’t have swiping machines,” Gabriel said.
Josef also described another challenge – being bypassed by tour guides in charge of the tour groups.
“The challenge that we receive when the passenger ships come is that the tour guides don’t give them (the) chance to come here. Sometimes our friends from Okahandja, who operate from the shacks in Walvis Bay live better than us because the guides take them there. For us they come to take for boat cruises on yachts, and from there, they go to tour Dune 7 and after that, they are dropped off at the shacks to do sightseeing,” he disclosed.
“If there was no tourism, me and my family would suffer. As for me who grew up in the village, I did not complete my school, so I have no school-going certificate. It was difficult and that is why I entered into this industry to make crafts,” he added.
Van Nooten also urged tour guides to see vendors as an essential part of the local economy.
“We all want money but we need each other. They are working for their households and I am working for my household,” he said.
The Zuiderdam vessel, which docks on 29 November is expected to bring over 2,000 passengers, while another four vessels – the Azamara Pursuit, Seven Seas Voyager (three separate docking), and Silver Spirit – are expected to dock in Walvis Bay in December.
Distributed by bird story agency