namibia - Himba visit

The Himba people are semi-nomadic herders and arable subsistence farmers living near the Angola border in the NW of Namibia, around the town of Opuwo.
The campsite we stayed in in Opuwo was owned by Western, a Himba who had left the traditional lifestyle . As well as his campsite and guest house he also organises visits to Himba communities.
Our first stop was to the local supermarket to purchase items as a gift to the family we were to visit. This was an eclectic mix comprising sacks of mealie, loaves of sliced bread, cooking oil and sweets for the children.
The family settlement was a few kilometers outside Opuwo along a very sandy track, requiring the speed in the 4WD to be kept up, and then across country.
On arrival at the settlement it appeared deserted, but two teenage girls appeared after a few minutes. The family was out tending crops, except for the head, who had gone to a funeral. The deceased had, apparently, drowned which seemed surprising, given the arid nature of the countryside.
The message had obviously got to the rest of the family that there were guests in the settlement as the girls' mother, with more of her children, including a babe in arms and an older lady, who we assume was the grandmother, arrived.

Lady thirsty for knowledge

We all sat around under an open-sided shelter and we were quizzed by the mother about the usual topics- where are you from, how did you get here, how many children etc. The lady seemed thirsty for knowledge but some of our answers were clearly beyond her comprehension. Water as deep as the distance to the nearby hills (about 5 km), a home that would take months to walk to and living on something that floated on and moved across the water were all ideas that she had difficulty grasping.
When we got to the topic of children and the fact that our three were all born within a period of 4 years, 40 years ago,she was puzzled as to how this could happen – "Did you stop sleeping together?" Explanations seemed too difficult in the short time available and probably would not have been welcomed by her husband.

The settlement

The settlement is arranged around the "holy fire" where the ancestors can be consulted. Each wife has her own hut, and the teenage girls share. The door of the number 1 wife's hut is aligned with the holy fire and it is not allowed to cross the line between them.

Trying on the headgear

We visited the hut shared by the teenagers, who demonstrated perfuming themselves with the smoke from smoldering fragrant bark and showed us their animal-skin headgear – which Susan tried on, to much amusement. Apparently some entrepreneur is marketing a perfume based on the bark.

Happy children

Gifts handed over

After a couple of hours in the settlement it was time to hand over the gifts and leave.
Western told us that a Japanese TV company had attempted to make a documentary in which a group of Japanese girls were introduced into a Himba settlement to live, dress and work with them. The girls apparently lasted 2 days. One can only imagine a small Japanese girl, stripped to the waist, attempting to carry a 20 litre water container from the well on her head!
In the event of some future catastrophe in which the trappings of modern western society are swept away, our money would be on the Himba to be amongst those best placed to survive!