Camping in Hell ... get a room with a heaven view!
Trip Start
Dec 17, 2007
1
13
26
Trip End
Jan 19, 2008
Kunane,
Namibia
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Camp Hell
Keywords - Finally some hills, Himba village, 4 wives, 1 obvoius head, married at 13, Africrap, bracelets and trinkets, Oryx steaks for dinner, Snakes
We drive north the following day to the town of Kunane ... as we do the landscape changes and finally we get into some hills and what hills they are too ... stunning rolling hills with Mopani and Acacia trees all over them and yellow/red sand everywhere ... as we pull into the supermarket it is apparent this is the poorest part of Namibia ... children await us with Africrap in hand trying to make a few bob .. the supermarket itself is the most basic we've encountered in Africa thus far. It is here that I see my first Himba tribespeople ... their attire is less than modest with the women reddening their skin and hair with a mixture of Ochre and cow fat (which you can smell on everything they touch), wearing animal skin mini skirts with a bustle at the back and bare breasted. Their hair is done in a kind of red dread and what can only be described as a sculptured top. They wear plenty of hand made jewelley and around their neck is what looks like a shell symbolising marriage ... the men dress in simple leather lions with a material covering like a toga and a big stick (hopefully not to beat the women) ... apparently when the missionaries in their arrogance came to spread their poison and guilt to this region of the world, the Himba just stuck two fingers in the air and said ... F**k off it is bloody hot here were not covering up for you or your god ... fair play to them I say... as a private gesture of solidarity I listen to Christy Moore's "For all of our languages we can't communicate" on the iRiver ... google the lyrics and you'll understand why ...
We head to the edge of town through a government "project" of little houses for settling the Himba ... who are a semi Nomadic people ... I can't help but feel this camp looks remarkably like the kind of halting site we keep for our travellers ... quite strange really.
It is boiling hot as we set off to meet the Himba at their Kraal. The Kraal is a wooden village surrounded on all sides by stakes ... as we step off the truck the children come to greet us and we are taken to a circle pow wow (for the want of a better expression) with the tribal woman ... they are fully (or rather skimpily) adorned in Himba gear. The men are missing apparently out working or hunting ... though I spy a few lazing around behind one of their huts ... It is a bit of a contrived situation and the women seem a little uncomfortable to me... imagine how you would feel if people came to your house every day looking to take photos of your private life ... but after a while everyone relaxes and we are allowed to ask questions. There are four wives for the chief in this Kraal ... he has a busy life it seems ... one if very obviously the head. She has been married since the age of 13. As we talk babies are sucking milk from the breasts of some of our hosts ... the children sit with us also laughing and giggling at us. It is a surreal situation. After a while the talking is done and the Himba ladies go into Africrap mode and start laying out stuff to sell us ... to be fair it is not the usual mass produced wooden giraffes etc but locally produced dolls, bracelets and other jewellery. I find it quite ironic to think that the locals are selling us beads ... many years ago the missionaries traded worthless beads with the locals ... it is somehow fitting that they now do the same to us.
After the the trading is done they ask us for water. We have filled the trucks water tanks and saved our water containers especially for this occasion ... there is a large crowd now at the truck as we break out the Jerry cans and fill all sorts of different containers for the Himba. They drink as we fill, they are obviously thirsty. This is a dry place and water has a great value. It is many miles to the town where there is piped water and they don't have a 4*4 to carry it to and fro. We take this for granted where in my home ... not here they don't!
The campsite itself is probably one of the most basic we find but it is a nice setting... there is a bar but it is closed ... so I quickly choose it to sleep in since it is cool and the large windows will allow me to star gaze from the pillow ... but then so do many of my travelling companions .. it is unbelievably Hot here ... but thankfully the place clear when someone sights a poisionous snake ... once Wil and I deal with it (by removing it to the outside) ... Jaques and I have it all to ourselves ... everyone else is cowering in their tents worried about snakes...
That evening we dine on Oryx steaks ... very tender and tasty ... much more gamey than Kudu ...
