Before Namibia’s independence, voters queued outside a polling station in Ondangwa, about 300 metres north of an Australian UNTAG base. People came in their best clothes and many carried umbrellas against 45-degree heat. A United Nations Buffel mine-protected vehicle appears behind the line. The Australian contingent supplied a twenty-person ready reaction force that visited polling places in these vehicles and stood by to deter trouble. Formal clothing, improvised shade and an armoured security vehicle occupied the same voting scene: a civic queue protected during a political transition.