Clicking on any of the photos below will take you to a larger
version of the photo.
| We met this young boy at the Kavango River Beach.
We tried talking to him but he responded neither to English or our little
bit (bietjie) of Afrikaans. I was struck by the look in his eyes, and his
otherwise hopeless appearance. Although I know nothing of him, I pray that
God will allow us to train up someone of his language group to reach him.
(Note also that he must also be a fan of our home town basketball team!) |
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Called "kraals," these houses are composed of everything
inside the grass wall. Each grass hut is basically a room, mostly sleeping
rooms. There is no kitchen, as the cooking is done over an open fire, usually
in the center of the kraal. Like American kitchens I suspect this is the
family gathering place. Typically a single family would live in one kraal
and there would be fields nearby for the growing food. While the power
lines appear in the background we did not see a single kraal with wires
attached. |
| The main staple of the people of the Kavango and Caprivi
regions is called mahango. On top of each stalk, which looks similar to
a corn stalk, is what also appears to look like a corn cob. The cob in
this case is covered by little seeds which are used to make flour used
in porridge. These seeds however are little different, if at all different
from the seed found in most bird seed. |
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Heads were made for carrying, feet for walking. It's
still very difficult to relate to the people's life of hard work! You'll
see women and children, and a few men, carrying everything from bundles
of firewood, to five gallon plastic bottles full of water, to 40lb bags
of mielie meal (corn meal) and the day's laundry in a plastic wash tub.
This is life here for these people, just the basics, just the essentials. |
| To the best of our knowledge, the only "permanent"
rivers in Namibia are the ones that form the southern and northern borders.
In other words these are the only rivers that always have water flowing.
We see many other rivers as we drive from town to town, we seldom have seen
water in any of them. Seeing water in the Kavango River was a real treat.
We stopped at the Kavango River Beach and just watched the water run by and
shimmer in the sun.
By the way, that's Angola on the other side. Since the rebel leader
was killed a few months after we arrived in Namibia it is now "safe" after more
than 20 years of civil war. |
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On a trip to the northwestern side we packed our baseball
stuff. There was a sandy soccer field just off the road so we stopped for
a little "dirt" ball. It wasn't long before a few boys started showing
up. We gave them each a chance to bat the ball. We didn't have time for
a real game, maybe next time!
Notice that the kraal in the background includes a brick home
within it's walls. We saw a few built this way. |
| At first we thought it was quite strange that people
would let their donkeys loose to roam next to the road. But when we stopped
to take this picture we noticed that their feet were bound. We still don't
know if this to keep them close to home or train them for work, but we
saw a few trying to walk this way and it didn't look easy nor comfortable.
Donkeys are used to pull donkey carts, typically old pick-up truck boxes
with the wheels still intact, as well as sleds which look much like short
dug out canoes. |
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