The Namibian adventure

A few days ago I just returned from my trip for my big project Vanishing cultures. This time I was travelling for 3 weeks in Namibia and Botswana.

 

 

 

 

 

Just the journey alone was more adventure-like than most times, since we travelled to parts where you rarely see any tourists or visitors at all. The adventure this time was a huge one and both of our RV-s, with which we mostly travel in these parts of the world, had to be dug out of the sand and mud quite a few times, not to mention the numerous changing of tires, because we took a road which I would best describe as a real holy grail of off-road adrenalin junkies, through the Van Zyl’s Pass and on godforsaken roads, which had to be travelled by to even get to where we wanted to go. The really far-off distant grassy region of Marienfluss, by the River Kunene on the Angolan border, which was our end destination, did not disappoint us at all, because there live the rare Himba people, which are still fairly left untouched of our known civilization.

 

 

 

 

And of course, we set up our mobile studio every part of the way, took some photos and even came into close contact with thirsty elephants, which were just a few meters away from out camping site, where we wanted to rest for the night. In these parts, where showers are not a common sight, and in the midst of eating your dinner at night time, when you are all alone, you can only be interrupted by a wild elephant family, like we were, about 3 meters away. In that kind of situation you almost have to immediately find or make a new road yourself, so you can overcome the hurdles to be able to travel on; this and quite some other stories that happened during the journey made us into real adventurers along the way. Our team, which consisted of Mare, Ksenija Lakovič, Katja Bidovec and I, definitely became true adventurers in every meaning of the word! Hats of my friends…

 

 

 

 

 

 

The project Vanishing cultures, which is currently exhibited in the Ljubljana castle in Slovenia, thus got a continuing chapter and we visited 3 new cultures to show to the world. The Bushman, as one of them, which I could hardly consider even a vanishing culture, because their culture truly vanished a few decades ago and only the tourist promotions of their ancient wisdom remains: they are not really doing any good to anybody like that. And also the Himba tribe, which live in the far-out reaches of Namibia, and lastly the less well-known Hakaone people or Zemba people, which mostly live near Angola, and in some parts of Namibia. And thus the project goes on…

 

Well, all of my experiences and photography’s are a bit too broad for such a short story, so I rather posted some photos, where the sheer feeling you get whilst reading about our adventures, really shine: when and where you will read all of them, I will tell some other time, because I don’t even know myself for now…

 

 

 

 

The Himba tribe
Tribe or ethnical group: Himba
Location: North Namibia and South Angola
Estimated population: app. 50.000
Language: OtjiHimba (a variety of Herero)
Religion: they worship the God Mukuru, as well as their ancestors (monotheism)

 

 

 

 

 

The Bushman or San tribe
Tribe or ethnical group: Bushman
Location: Namibia, Botswana, South Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Lesotho
Estimated population: app. 90.000
Language: Khoe, Kx'a and Tuu
Religion: San (Shamanism)

 

 

 

 

The Hakaone (Zemba) tribe
Tribe or ethnical group: Hakaone (Zemba)
Location: North Namibia, South Angola
Estimated population: app. 18.000
Language: Zemba (a variety of Bantu)
Religion: animism

 

 

 

(Photographies:  Arne Hodalič, portraits of tribe members: Katja Bidovec and  Arne Hodalič)