Kapana

(This picture was taken outside my house last Wednesday. It has nothing to do with kapana, I just wanted it show it to you. We get some fantastic sunsets here, but this one topped them all. It looked like the sky was on fire. And in case you’re wondering, that is an empty pool in the bottom of the photo. It was built for the miners and their families back when Rôssing Uranium ran the town and took care of their miners. Water was free and plentiful back then because uranium prices were high. Water now is too expensive to keep it filled, so it’s become a half forgotten relic, and reminder of better times.)

Every place has street food, fair that you’d find in markets, tiny shops, and street corners anywhere in the world. The best street food is often in places most tourists don’t venture. In Mexico it’s burritos, tamales and  tacos. In Thailand it’s khao pad. In Namibia it’s kapana.

During our first two months in Namibia the Peace Corps restricts our movements. Volunteers aren’t allowed to travel and explore, and for good reason. Those two months are spent orienting us to the environment and culture to better prepare us for the inevitable culture shock every volunteer experiences. During that time we have chaperoned excursions into Windhoek and other places, controlled exposure to the sights and sounds in which we’ll be immerse in for the following 24 months.

On one of those outings chaperons took us to the Open Market in Windhoek. If you’ve watched any movie or TV show where intrepid adventurers casually stroll through third world markets intaking the smells, sights, sounds and tastes of their surroundings, then you have an idea of what the Open Market we visited was like.

I’m familiar with these types of markets. I grew up in Baltimore and in several places in the city there are markets like this where vendors occupy cramped stalls and sell everything from furniture to food that would make you wanna smack someone, it’s so good. 

On one of my chaperoned visits I was introduced to kapana, which is any variety of seasoned grilled meat cooked while you’re standing there and served with a powdered spice mixture, a salsa of tomatoes and onions, and sometimes pap, a thick maize or mahagu (a local wheat-like grain) porridge you eat with your hands. 

The meat can be beef, pork, mutton, goat, chicken, and in some places, donkey. It is marinated, cut into filets and grilled. When you’re ready to buy you point out the cut of pre-grilled meat you want and the vendor will cut it into bite-size pieces, grill it some more, then serve it to you either on a plate and you can stand at the stall and eat, or you can get yours to take-away (to go) and they’ll wrap the heated meat in whatever they have available, often old newspaper. (So it’s best to bring something a bit more sanitary if you want your lunch to go.)

Last Thursday, while heading to Rehoboth (a town about 100km south of Windhoek) my supervisor decided to stop at the open market to get lunch. We had been nibbling on a bag of potato chips just before, so we used that bag for our take-away order. We didn’t get salsa or pap, just the meat. He ordered mutton, and beef liver.  

It was raining when we arrived, but it was lunch time and the stalls were humming with business. While waiting for our food to cook I shot a short video to give you an idea of what it’s like. What you’ll see is a small section of what must be 15-20 kapana vendors, all selling similar foods. When you walk up they offer you samples. We tried several and settled on the guy in front of us in the video.

That’s my supervisor with the potato chip bag in the foreground. He’s adding some of that powered spice to our lunch.

Yes, it doesn’t look very clean, and on hot days the flies are horrible to deal with, but, man! Kapana is my favorite. And kapana in the Open Market in Windhoek is the best place to get it.

Stay tuned.

Vern