Cocoa shells as growth medium?

[Discus]

Dolomite gravel would probably be too alkaline for most orchids.

Hygrolon looks awesome, and a hygrolon epiweb/ecoweb combo mount has interesting possibilities too.

I've often wanted to try some seramis for smaller, more delicate plants (it's a small leca-type material), but not found any yet.

I can buy perlite in my local garden centre (small size); I'm not sure if people on bid or buy will ship to namibia, but I've seen it there too from time to time.

If you're willing to stump up the packing costs (and presumably import duty) repotme.com (and firstrays) have happily shipped things to me here - I ordered fairly light stuff though, like pots and sphagnum moss (and MSU ferts and ecoweb).

Incidentally, knowing the Namibians like a good braai, it's possible you'll find lava rocks being sold for gas braais.

re: the moss, ideally, make it sphagnum rather that "sheet" moss. I've had live sphagnum moss "come to life" out of peat moss before that was kept damp for months and months (enclosed in a ziplock bag). I keep meaning to figure out a way of making it grow faster; I suspect a 2l coke bottle will make a good container, with LECA at the bottom, some dead sphagnum at the top and the live stuff on top of that with pure water at the bottom somewhere moderately well lit. If you buy "dead" moss, again, make sure it's sphagnum and not "sheet".