Better City, Better Life….blah blah blah blah

What do about a million touch screens, movies, short films, miles of text and long lines translate into? Well, showing the world how we can make a “Better city, Better life” of course! And I've got to admit, the pavilions I have been to have done incredible jobs of illustrating just this. Germany’s pavilion especially was impressive, with its models of whole communities that exist on solely solar power and their overwhelming urban garden culture. Germany had all the bells and whistles, the expensive technology, the radiant swinging tech ball of our future, a huge staff, snazzy uniforms. Everywhere I looked I was hit with a wave of information about how just on top of it Germany really is when it comes to all the latest power and world saving technology, they are the greenest of the green, truly reaching for that “Better city, Better Life.”
But yesterday I decided to go over and see my Namibian friends at their pavilion. Honestly, it’s not even really a pavilion; it’s just a booth in one big building called the African-Joint Pavilion. Through various random chance meetings on the bus and at the Expo, our friendship started and was helped along by their last Friday invitation to a cookout (with free organic Namibian steak!). They are some of the sweetest, most hospitable people I have ever met in my life. At their pavilion, my friend and I were led on a detailed tour by our Namibian friend about the different ethnicities and lifestyles that make up Namibia. I had done a bit of research before I came, and couldn’t help feel a little (ok, a lot) guilty to see that the country that had given me so much free steak and wine a couple nights before, was one of the poorest country’s in the world, with a 15% aids rate and approximately half of the population living underneath the international poverty line of $1.25 a day. Yet, this only made it…about 100 times more inspiring when Solly showed me their “Better City, Better life” efforts. Solly carefully explained to me that in Namibia they have many deserts and very little rainfall, and so sometimes trees are very hard to come by. So, to counter this, Namibians have started building houses literally out of sand: they make a wooden frame and fill it in with sand bags, then cover that with concrete, which gives the house great ventilation and insulation, and cuts down on timber use.
But what does this all mean? It means for the first time in their lives, people that have never had a home before… have a home. Wow. That was amazing to me. Just hearing Solly explaining in that soft, lilting voice that they all seem to have, “See? We have so much sand, we decided we had to find a way to use it, and so we created this kind of project. We haven’t been doing it for long, a few months, but it has been going so well, what do you thi…..?” Really, Germany’s pavilion is impressive, ok, Germany, you win. You’re the best at what you do, but the most inspiring? The one that left me with this warm feeling of, well yes, I think I might believe in this “better city, better life” junk after all. Sorry, that by far, goes to Namibia. Namibia, I love you.