Back home from Africa……

My wife asked for some brown bread at lunch in a restaurant in Namibia, a country ruled by South Africa until 1990. Our guide explained to her that until 1990 no white person would ever ask for brown bread, which had grit in it and damaged teeth.  They ate only white bread of much better quality.  Black servants doing the shopping for their employers at a bakery needed written authorisation to buy white bread for the household. Brown was only for coloureds, white for whites.

Such was the crass futilty and unfairness of apartheid.  In Namibia brown bread is now of excellent quality, as good or better than in Washington and London, but it seemed significant that the waitress never did bring my wife her brown bread.  Maybe she forgot; maybe old habits die hard.

Epicurus, who welcomed women, slaves and, very likely, other picked-upon people, would have been very indignant at the divisive and totally unnecessary indignity of the breads.

Meanwhile, I am happy to report that we found Namibia, with only 2 million people, to be very well organised, very friendly, the tourist guides experts at their jobs, and the country complete with every modern amenity – probably not what the Boer masters would have expected when they gave up control.