Sandwolken

Kathy Thieck:

Theresa Fabian, 21 years, is employed as secretary at the port of Hamburg. Fatherless and motherless - her parents died in a bombing attack during the second world war- she was brought up by her aunt Wanda whom she affectionately calls aunt Wanda. Very jealous of her cousin Hildchen with whom she competes in all things, she sees her engagement as a challenge to take up. That is why Theresa reveals to her aunt a secret that she has been keeping for a long time: her desire to go to Africa to meet the man of her life. Peter Bendix, whom she only knows through an epistolary exchange established by her boss Kurt Ocker, had settled for sometime in South-West Africa.

In the ship taking her to Africa, Theresa gets acquainted with Pix and Marei, two young ladies also going to Africa, and with Philip Thorn, an attractive pilot in whom she falls in love. She marries him at their arrival at Walfischbai, to the great disappointment of her first fiancé. Some months later, Philip dies in an plane accident. Theresa, the young widow, enjoys the compassion of all her friends, including Peter Bendix, who helps her to organize the funeral ceremonies of her husband. She again falls in love with Peter and marries him at the end of the novel.

This autobiographic novel is a view that a German lady casts on the life led by the important white colony resident in South-West Africa, at the dawn of the second world war.
Through the journey of Theresa, the main character of the novel, the author retraces the experience of many Europeans, who leaving behind them a continent fully in reconstruction, dream of a pacific exile land where they could build a second life. This earnest search for an exotic life explains their unconscious appropriation of Africa: "The majority of whites talked about South-West Africa saying "our country" although fewer whites live there than blacks, Theresa notes. Evidently it is to satisfy their egoistic wants that these whites disembark to Africa. Most of them have had integration difficulties in their native countries and they try to build another Europe in Africa which welcomes them. That is why they transpose there their daily living style to seek happiness that they missed at home.

Therefore the lives of the different protagonists from Europe undergo a happy transformation with their arrival in Africa. Nevertheless, their fascination for the unknown is only fulfilled through their encounter with Africa seen as a geographic frame. The relationships with the Africans are those of domination and exploitation. It is only Theresa who from time to time manifest a genuine interest for the local population who work in subordinate employments. In an interview she had with a black employee called Johannes, the latter reveals to her that his brothers of the same race are planning a revolt: "The South-West shall be called Namibia, after the blacks would have fought to have equal rights with the whites." Although this rebellion only appears as of secondary importance in the novel, it can be understood as a reaction to the invasion of which the local people are victims. This novel thus has the merit of presenting, in a crisp and humorous style, the different facets of cohabitation between blacks and whites in South-West Africa. Besides it shows that the latter, on the whole, are not at all dreaming of a beautiful Africa but of another Europe.