Before we’ve said any word we’re welcomed heartily with the German expression “Guten Tag”
Can you recognize just by looking at us, that we’re Germans? I don’t know. But indeed the woman at the cash point speaks a kind of German you can only hear in Lower Saxony.
Later she tells us, that her family lives in Swakopmund in the fifth generation. Is she from Germany? “No I’m English”, does the woman declare. “In Swakopmund pupils have to learn three languages: English, German and Africaans”.

The museum exists since 1951 and fascinates people with its variety of privately- donated things and insignia of the time of Colonialism. Beside a collection of decorations you can find all kinds of currency once valid in South Africa.
However, the scientific collection in the upper floor is more important, which presents the difference between Namib and the sea, as well as the collection of minerals.

Personally it’s the reconstruction of life in a colony we like most. There’s not only a whole pharmacy and a dentist’s practice we can also look directly into living-rooms and kitchens of that time - and we can learn something about the Shell-furniture, because not every single colonist had been very rich when arriving in Africa. Most of them had to furnish their homes with modest means.
Many colonists used old cans to build drawers and cupboards.

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