Diaz 88

Restoration was the word of the day at the official Diaz Mural celebration on Saturday the 8th November, to restoration of history and town pride.

Attended by several key benefactors of the Lüderitzbucht Foundation, including people from Windhoek, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Portugal, the celebration of the newly restored Diaz mural, depicting the landing of Bartolemeu Dias in the Lüderitz Bay over 500 years ago, was a sterling success. The event was organised by the remaining members of the Lüderitzbucht Foundation, an organisation that has paid a key part in the recent history of Lüderitz. First started in 1980 by business people living in Lüderitz, Windhoek, Jo’burg and George, the Foundation was designed to prevent Lüderitz from going the same way as Kolmanskop by promoting the town both to tourists and to outside businesses. In addition to group tried to restore a sense of pride in Lüderitz amongst local people by doing simple things, such as encouraging people to paint their houses, and organising two 10 day festivals, putting the once fading town firmly back on the map.

The Foundation campaigned tirelessly for 10 years before the towns prospects finally began to improve after Independence came to Namibia; fisheries and diamond mining operations arrived in the Lüderitz area and a proper tarmac road and harbour were developed giving the towns flagging industry a boost. By the mid 1990’s the majority of the Luderitzbucht Foundations’ dreams had been realised making the group largely redundant. Although reduced to merely four members by 2008 there was still enough determination, and enough money, to begin one more task- the restoration of the Diaz Mural, which had been badly vandalised.

The mural, an integral part of Lüderitz town’s cultural wealth, was created 20 years ago by a Portuguese artist and was donated to the town by Manuel Coelho, the president of the Academia do Bacalhau as the representative of the Portuguese people of Namibia, in order to commemorate a centuries old link between Namibia and Portugal. When the mural’s casing was damaged earlier this year the Lüderitzbucht Foundation immediately set about raising funds to have it restored, and just was well that they did as the hand-painted artwork now sits comfortably behind 17.5mm of strengthened glass.

Thanks go to the Academia do Bacalhau, Diaz Coffee Shop, First National Bank, Grillenbergers Bottle Store, Lüderitz Nest Hotel, The Seaflower Group, Skorpion Zinc, Standard Bank Namibia, the Kessler Family, the Looser Family and the Metzger Family for their financial support. Special thanks go to Tischlerei Paul Schroeter for his excellent work.

And the next project? Restoring the bridge at Diaz Point; no mean feat given the rather dangerous state of it, but if any group has the patience and determination to carry out such a task it is the Lüderitzbucht Foundation.