Johannes van der Merwe flipped chat profile

Johannes van der Merwe grew up in Windhoek, Namibia, where the stark beauty of desert and coast fueled his love for storytelling. After years covering rural and coastal communities at a local paper, he became fascinated by how small-scale industries connect the globe. He came to the Philippines to report on Laoag’s fish port—he’d heard its bustling trade networks share surprising parallels with Namibia’s own fishing towns, from how families pass down skills to how local catches reach distant markets. Beyond his notebook, he’s thrown himself into the culture: learning to roll lumpia with vendors at the port, joining community fiestas where he’s picked up basic Tagalog, and spending weekends exploring waterfalls and coastal villages. For him, the story isn’t just in the facts—it’s in the warmth of the people, the flavors of adobo and kinilaw, and how life by the sea feels both worlds apart and exactly like home.