It might help if you asked yourself what you are doing and why.  Why does your friend need exchange commodities?  Food?  Rent?  Real estate?  To pay his/her employees?  Who does he need to procure whatever it is from?  Apparently he wanted the coins so you sent them to him.  What's the problem?   How could we possibly help you with the information you have given us?   

As some of you guessed I didn't really send £1000 worth of bitcoin to Namibia but what I wanted to do was discuss and highlight the difficulties of using the currency in places where it would be most beneficial.
I am married into a Namibian family. My wife likes to send funds to her parents in Namibia every couple of months. She has been doing this for the last 9 years.

Currently they use one of her bankcards and she has given them her PIN. She uses a UK bank account specifically for the purpose.
So, when she decides she wants to send money she transfers money from regular account to the account her parents have a card for and just does a regular bank transfer. This works fine however she probably shouldn't have given her card and PIN to someone else.

Most people are not in a position to do this.

Prior to doing it this way or if their are some issues with the account she would use Western Union.

I showed her how simple is is to send btc if you have Mycelium installed on your phone. But we were discussing what you would do with it.

At this point LocalBitcoins is proberbly out of the question, The nearest big town is a two hour drive away. Travel to Cape Town involves a flight.
PayPal.. I don't know. I had a bad experience with it related to bitcoin previously.

I guess bitcoin just isn't ready for these communities yet.