In April 2022, colleagues and I went to the desert coastal town of Lüderitz inSouthern Namibia for work. Our group of three having met up in BloemfonteinSouth Africa, had driven west in ourbakkie(pickup truck) to the Northern CapeProvince. From there we continued north across the Orange River, which, follow-ing good rains, was filled to the brim, to arrive in Namibia. One night in Lüderitz,after a day of writing, we drove ourbakkiesouth of town to Radford Bay, nearthe train tracks heading east into the desert. We parked and got out to see the fullmoon illuminate the placid shores where in the daytime you could come acrossflamingos feeding in the shallows. In the evening the bay was calm and the craggyhills going east were covered in a ghostly silver light. Not too far between wherewe stood were the train tracks, built during the era of German colonialism, andnear the rails one could see large sand mounds dotting the area. Many were un-marked graves of workers dating to around 1905, including forced laborers thathad died during the colonial war and the genocide waged by the German coloniz-ers against the Herero and Nama. Yet, even in the present era, the echoes of thatcolonial past reverberated through the daily arrival of diesel freight trains ladenwith ore from manganese mines, reinforcing the enduring importance of this co-lonial infrastructure to the local Namibian economy.It was in this desolate port town that we felt the spirits of the past come to life.Along these very train tracks in 1908, a migrant worker from South Africa, Zacha-rias Lewala, stumbled upon diamonds in the desert.