Kavango From A Car - Pt. 2

More passing images, taken from a Car, on a recent trip to the Kavango region in Northern Namibia:


A young Man drives his Water-sleigh home.


'Welcome Shack Dweller" - I'm not sure what this means ...


Mom and Dad transporting Reeds and Kid a Bucket of Something.


This Building looks like it's collapsing from the middle, inwards.


An old Man walks along a path.


DRC Gearbox Doctor - a business along the Road.


A street scene in Rundu - the biggest town on the Okavango river, bordering Angola


Herding Cattle - Namibia suffered a drought this year and many farmers and crop-dependent people are receiving Aid.


Now this is what I call 'Pink' - Shocking against the dull winter colours.


Water Carriers - even the Kids pull their weight with this chore, except of course, those who are still strapped to Mama's back.


A Village scene.


Need I say more?

Kavango From A Car - Pt. 1

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Kavango From A Car - Pt. 1

As a passenger on a recent trip to the Kavango Region, north of my Home, I was able to spend the journey taking pics of the passing scene.

I don't have stabilizers on my lens and, travelling at 100 to 120 kph, it's not easy to capture sharp images - I took a few thousand photos and managed to salvage these, I hope you find them interesting:


Most Dwellings in this area are made of wood and mud, with thatched roofs.


A young boy transports water in a Drum on a cattle-driven sled.

Transporting water is a major hassle and chore for most people in the region, the exercise can take a whole day - water is collected from communal water points, mostly very far from people's homes - lucky are those who live close to the boreholes and wells.


An example of the Nguni cattle breed found in the area. Nguni cattle are known for their fertility and resistance to diseases.


A young Cattle-herder atop his Donkey.


"Best Gloomy House" - one of the numerous Shebeens along the road.

I've got hundreds of pics of the sometimes comically-named Shebeens which are also known as 'Cuca Shops' - enough for a whole separate Post sometime ...


Kids using a net to catch fish in a pond.


Our destination was the Ngepi Campsite on the Okavango River, close to Divundu.

It was great to be amongst old, big Trees again - most people use wood to meet their basic energy needs and  the smell of Woodsmoke is always in the air; sometimes just a faint whiff and at other times overwhelming but, - ever present.

I've never been anywhere outside Southern Africa and I imagine that if I was on another continent, the one thing that would make me totally homesick is the smell of African Woodsmoke ...


Dozens of Thatch-sellers were camped along a length of the road.

Thatch is mostly used for the roofing of rural homes and also for creating Features (Lapas) in wealthier homes, hotels and game lodges.


Three young women stride along the road carrying sheaves to one of the Thatch Dealers.

The harvesting of thatch Grass is a seasonal and often the only source of income for many people.


Mbeyo Baptist Church - the walls are built with a stick frame which is filled with mud.


A young Hunter stalks a bird, catapult at the ready.


Transporting water on a Donkey.

... to be continued ...

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Road-trip To Cape Town

Hello Friends

I'm well and back at Home - my Internet 'Device' is installed, it works but not much of an improvement over my old setup - needs some fine tuning ...

Anyway, it's not good enough to make me enthusiastic about surfing the web but at least I'm connected.

I've just come back from a camping visit to the Etosha Pans and, together with my Cape Town pics, have thousands of images to edit.

Here are a few from the road-trip to Cape Town:

Crossing the bridge over the Orange River at Noordoewer.

A travelling couple stop at a Roadside rest place in the northern Cape.

A lone tree on a curve going up a hill.

A woman hitching a ride - she's holding a ten Rand note in her hand to indicate that she's prepared to pay for the ride - many Truckers make money on the side from hikers ...

A colourful Truck dominates the view.

A ring-knuckled driver concentrates as he negotiates a sharp bend in the road, his passenger with a far-away look - in the back a dude sleeps and in the front, a young girl blows a bubble into space ...

I liked the cars curving over the hill and the telephone poles curving under.

"Skattebol" is a cuddly Afrikaans term of endearment - out of place when applied to these hefty Truckers.

Bathed in Yellow - a traffic controller at road works in the mountains.

Out of the mountains and onto the flat wheat-lands a few hundred kilos from Cape Town.

Well, here goes, my first post from Home ...

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Southeast Namibia: Gabis

The following are images from the my exploration of southeast Namibia last year.

After leaving Karasburg we headed South again and after about 20km came upon the Catholic Mission at Gabis - there is no 'town' here, only the Mission buildings and a few dozen homes scattered around the area.


This remote Mission is situated on the usually dry Hom River.

I couldn't find much info on Gabis on-line but according to The Oblate Sisters of St Francis de Sales it appears that it was once a farm and the Mission itself was established in 1907, a year after the Nama - German war ended.


In 1904 the Herero and Nama people went to war against German Colonial occupation - this war resulted in the first Genocide of the 20th century, when the Herero and Nama people were virtually exterminated.

Another source states that "On June, 21th 1906, Gabis, west of Warmbad, is attacked by !Gami-#nun Leader Johannes Christian"

Close to the Mission, besides a long-dead tree, are the graves of two German soldiers who fell during this attack.

Born in the same year, they died on the same day, far from home.

A 'shrine' to the Virgin Mary - a distinctly Roman Catholic symbol - outside the old Farmhouse which, it appears, has now been converted into a Guest-house.

A grave marker in the small cemetery close to the Mission.

Another grave in the cemetery, the marker cut out of sheet-metal shaped like a map of Namibia and painted in the colours of the Namibian Flag.

At the Mission a group of kids came running up to the car and started fooling around for the camera - unfortunately all these pics were under-exposed.

The kids said that they were part of the soccer team, hence the matching t-shirts.

We drove about 16 km along the gravel track running parallel to the Hom river.

There were a number of homesteads along the river and what struck me most was the absence of litter.

The occupants are obviously dirt-poor but take pride in their homes - a stark contrast to the rubbish which surrounds many settlements in Namibia.

Home Sweet Home.

A rickety shelter in the middle of nowhere - what I couldn't understand is why the owner built it out in the open, under the blazing sun, when there were ample large shady trees around, closer to the river.

It's scenes like this that cause me to question my perceptions of reality - two kids, also in the middle of nowhere, happily driving their home-made cars.

Would these kids be Happier lolling in front of a computer, surfing the Net? - my guess is that they aren't even aware of the existence of the WWW.

I understand that information is access to knowledge and personal liberation but, on the other hand, to take this lifestyle away from these kids and immerse them in technology seems somehow obscene.

Does Knowledge bring happiness?

It also makes me think that wealth does not equal happiness and poverty does not equal misery.

Gabis.

Related Posts:
Southeast Namibia: Warmbad Pt 1
Southeast Namibia: Warmbad Pt 2
Southeast Namibia: Karasburg & More Poverty

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Kolmanskop - Diamonds Aren't Forever

Kolmannskuppe is a Ghost Town in southern Namibia, a few kilometres inland from the port of Lüderitz.

It was a small mining village and is now a popular tourist destination run by the diamond-mining company NAMDEB.


The town was named after a transport driver named Johnny Coleman who, during a sand storm, abandoned his ox wagon on a small incline opposite the settlement - Kolmannskuppe in German and, the generally used name, Kolmanskop, in Afrikaans.


The town developed after the discovery of diamonds in the area in 1908 - which led to a "Diamond Rush".

The rush lead to the establishment of a busy little German-style village, served by a general dealer, butchery, bakery, furniture factory, soda-water and lemonade plant, daily ice and milk deliveries, 4 skittle alleys, a public playground and swimming pool, a grand community centre complex complete with a theatre and an orchestra that played at tea dances, until well after the sun had set.


The discovery of diamonds saw the amazing sight of lines of men, crawling through the desert by the light of a full moon, sifting the sand beneath them for diamonds.

Subsequently, the German authorities declared the land 'forbidden territory' or Sperrgebiet, awarding the Deutsche Diamanten Gesellschaft (DDG) the sole prospecting rights.

The town declined after World War I when the diamond-field slowly exhausted and was ultimately abandoned in 1954.


The geological forces of the desert mean that tourists now walk through houses knee-deep in sand.

Kolmanskop is popular with photographers for images of the desert sands reclaiming this once-thriving town - it has also been used as a set for movies and TV series.


The Bookkeeper's house - a most important job when Kolmanskop was producing millions of Deutchmarks worth of diamonds.

The top officials lived in grand style and, it seems, life was pretty good for all, except probably the labourers.


An old Bathtub makes an escape on a sea of sand in front of The Teacher's house.


There's no stopping the sand, slowly but surely it prevails.


One of the crumbling houses with a view over the Desert.


A garage close to the Mine Manager's house - I wonder what grand old Auto it once housed - now it shelters only sand.


Exposed bricks where the abrasive wind has worn away the plaster.


The Mine Manager's house.

In 1980, a number of buildings were restored and more followed with the advent of Namibia as a premier tourist destination.

More pics in my Picasa Album

Related Post: Colonial Architecture Of Lüderitz

References:
Wikipedia
Namibian.org

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