It took us only a few days to learn, what the multiple bolts and locks on the door should have told us immediately. There was a reason that all the windows had heavy, about three quarter inch, iron bars. They were not there to keep someone in, but rather to keep everyone out. It is rather a shock when we awoke early in the morning before curtains could be hung, to see a black face peering through the glass only about three feet away. Our bed was directly under the window. We had a tin of kerosene for the stove, and foolishly left it outside so Kathy could not mess with it. It did not survive the first night until it was stolen as our canvas water bag had been stolen from the car the first night it was left outside the hotel. Strangely enough in those days, no one touched the car itself the whole time we were at Windhoek, and it was parked under a tree on the corner of our upper garden, and immediately by the street. The fence was missing there as the builder had taken it down. He also left a great pile of rubble, the home of many scorpions.
Not long after we moved in and started to use the shop as a chapel, there was a knock at the door and when I opened it, an African man was standing there. He let it be known that he was there to buy liquor. I am confident that he had been sent by the police to see if we were using the building as an illegal liquor store. It was illegal to sell liquor to the Africans at that time, but that did not stop nearly all the nearby shopkeepers from selling it, usually through an open window at the back of their shop, perhaps a kitchen. I remember watching in shock as a pickup truck was used in a raid on the butcher shop across the street. It was filled with bottles when the police left afterwards. To involve us, unaware at that stage as to what was going on, a police lookout had hidden behind our toilet to spy on and report that shop. That occasion did not make for friendly relationships. The manager of the shop next door to us made it a point to turn his back on us any time we went outside. Two shopkeepers, sisters, whose shop was directly across from where I parked our car, and who did not live on the premises, were the only neighbors to treat us with any form of friendship at all. I don't think they sold liquor, but they did sell bread, milk, sugar, flour and other necessities and we often bought those small items from them. It was from them that we learned a few German words and expressions. We did our weekly grocery and meat shopping from shops down town. At the butcher shop we mainly had to point at what we wanted as they had different names for so many things. We wanted hamburger meat, and it took a while to discover that it is called "minced meat" In those days most of the meat was cut from a carcass that was hanging on a hook in the open shop. A cleaver, and a knife were used to hack off the piece you wanted. The grocer had a small shop with counters and all the food was displayed on shelves behind them. The Jewish grocer soon made us welcome and suggested that we come behind the counters and select what we wanted and just set it on the counter.He would take over from there. He suggeste that after we wanted a can of creamed corn, which he knew as a tin of "mealies", never mind that it said "creamed corn" on the label. Fruit and vegetables came from the "green grocer's" shop or from open air markets. In some of the other stores we got a "cold shoulder." The attendant simply turned and walked away as soon as he heard our accent. Our first Sunday in Windhoek, while we were still living in the hotel, we went to the Methodist church services, the only English service we could find and the church was just around the corner from the hotel. We soon learned that even though the words were nearly the same, the tune was often quite different. Even if the people did speak English, they ignored us completely. After that, even in the hotel, we had our own communion service and Prayer and Bible reading. I was reminded of Paul when he first came to Philippi. He went out to the riverside where he found a group of women who gathered there for prayer. Lydia and her staff believed and were baptized. We had no riverside and found no one.
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