Day 22-23 Hakusembe
Okavango
Traveling north from Swakop and Hentie’s Bay up to Etosha
and further toward the border with Angola, you leave behind the towns with
names like Wlotzkasbaken, Grootspitzkop, and Jakkalsputz and the map begins to trade
the Germanic for the African with softer, more vowel-laden towns like Otijwarongo, Kamupupu,
and my favorite on the map, Uukwiyuushona.
Pronouncing this, you’re on your own.
As we were planning the drive from Naumatoni to Rundu (I
couldn’t get “A do-run-run-run, a do run run” out of my head), Google Maps
suggested we take a D Road for 355 km.
Dragging the little dot to the bottom of the triangle to Grootfontein
and then back up made the trip 8 km longer…but ALL of it on paved (tarred)
roads. We decided against Google’s
recommendation. (Here’s a thought…If the
highway department, (yeah, right) comes back and tars the tarred road again, is
it now called a “retarred road?”)
Anyhow, we naturally took the B Roads and headed off on our 5-hour
drive.
Mimi wanted a shot at driving, so I took shotgun. The landscape remains bone-dry, but slowly
you start to see a few more large trees and now and then actual greenery. There are some large cattle ranches.
And then you cross a line on the map that has something to
do with animal control. There is a
check-point, we got the wave-through.
The ranches stop and the subsistence-style, clan-centered kraal (a
vertical stick enclosure with 3-10 thatch huts and some communal bomas (thatch
ramadas) housing an extended family, maybe some corrugated tin for roofs and
walls, usually in the shade of a large tree or two, chickens, goats, and a few
cattle wander in and out at will (often onto the “highway”), smoke curls up
from a cooking fire inside, residents sitting in a circle in the shade (it was
mid-afternoon and the temp was 100 F, 39 C.) The thatch-work is true craftsmanship, though
it needs to be replaced every three years or so. Often, there is a neatly stacked tower of
wood at the edge of the road, on sale for those without the access, I
guess. Women carry 5-gallon pails of
water on their heads from a communal well (borehole) somewhere, though at times
it seems that there is no sign of life or water in either direction for miles (kilometers).
The population of Namibia is actually heavily weighted
toward the north, where the rivers flow.
In the deserts of the south, I think it took German ingenuity to carve
out an existence, or the ancient hunter-gatherer knowledge of the San
Bushmen. If you saw “The Gods Must Be
Crazy,” a cute movie made years ago, these are the San people. Small, all cheekbones and wiry, tawny-colored. They have lived here, so
the books tell me, 250,000 years. But I
digress.
Now we see more and more little villages, and each seems to
have two things in addition to the several kraals clustered around: a Christian
church and a makeshift shebeen (pub) (bar) (cocktail lounge). What does Jimmy Buffet say, “It’s a long way
from Saturday night to Sunday morning.”
As the passenger, I tried to photograph some of these truly African
shebeens on the move, with doubtful success.
Maybe we’ll slow down on the way back.
Like all of the lodges so far, we left the main road, checked
in at an impressive gate, and bumped down a dirt road for enough kilometers to
feel like you’re in the bush, and voila!, there is the cool, green,
indigenously landscaped grounds (except for the lush grass and flowers
beds). The gate guard radios ahead of
your arrival, so there is always a smiling face to welcome you.
Ice tea, heavily sugared, is offered as you (Mimi) fill out
the registration forms. A briefing about
the lodge is then conducted: meal times, activities on offer, do’s and don’ts, wifi
password (even if the damn thing never gets above half a bar!), and the guys
grab your luggage and you are show to your cottage, or chalet, as they refer to
them. Each one has been spectacular,
really. Spacious, contemporary Safari
Modern décor, local flowers sprinkled in a cute arrangement on the bedspread,
thatched roofs, major decks for morning coffee and evening sundowners and views
to die for.
 |
| Mimi surveying the placid Okavango River |
At Hakusembe River Lodge, (in the native tongue, Hakusmebe
means “Would you care for the wooded or the un-wooded Chardonnay with your
Springbok carpaccio, sir?”) we were given a second row chalet. It has happened a couple times that the very
primo-est chalets were NOT allotted to the Wixted Party of Two. We rolled with it. This time, we (Mimi) insisted, and Nico, the
manager, graciously caved in and we moved from #10 to #6, directly on the
Okavango River with a view across 200 meters to the sandy Angolan bank.
Kids were playing on a sandbar, splashing and frolicking in
the shallow river, men and women were fishing by stringing nets about 15 feet
(5 meters) long, walking forward, and then closing it up and scooping the
unwitting fish into their plastic buckets.
We signed up for the Sundowner Pontoon-Boat Cruise and
joined some young Dutch couples and putt-putted away from shore at about 4:15.
“Captain, are there any hippos or crocs in the river?”
“No, just people and beds.”
Beds? I’m thinking.
I finally figured out that he was saying BIRDS in that
distinctive African-English dialect.
“What’s that?!” exclaimed our fellow passenger, a
dread-locked Black Dutchman.
“That is a small croc.”
“Oh.”
“I thought there were no crocs in this water?”
“They are just small ones.”
“And those kids are playing just upriver a couple hundred
meters!?”
“It is not a problem.”
“Oh.”
We (Mimi) did spot all kinds of cool riverine beds…er, I
mean birds! And a good-sized monitor lizard, and, the
Dutchman spotted yet another croc on the Angolan side! The river is very shallow, as in a meter or
so, hence the pontoons.
 |
| "A small croc, not a problem" |
 |
| Brad and Angelina finding it impossible to escape the paparazzi |
The sun began to near the horizon behind us back up river as
we came about (is it only sailboats that “come about,” or any sea craft?),
anyhow, turned around. Our Mr. Sun gorgeous in
pink. The skipper kills the
outboard. Tranquility. Wavelets lapping at the stern, or front, or
whatever. Champagne is served. I’d already had two on-board beers, but what
the hell. The sun touches the horizon. A snowy egret flaps and sails across the
darkening expanse of the Okavango. Mr.
Hemingway, you’re wanted in make-up, Mr. Hemingway! Nice.
Signs for The Living Museum alternate with the Hakusembe signs
all the way along the dirt road. Nico
explains, though not very enthusiastically, that it is, “You know, some
singing, some dancing, some drums. That
sort of thing.” Nico wears a polo shirt
and khakis, and I think his dancing and drumming days are far behind him. But, for us, it sounded like a pleasant
activity. “How far is it, Nico?” “ I don’t know, maybe three kilometers.” Both the lodge and the Museum have been
there, side by side, over ten years; Nico doesn’t visit the Living Museum too
often, I gather. But, for us, it is a good
leg-stretcher after all that driving and sitting and sounds edifying.
About a mile on the dusty road and we arrive. The placard explains that the Mbunza Living
Museum is part of a group of six other such projects and has several goals: to
bring cultures closer together, to educate the young about their disappearing
culture, to employ locals in a worthwhile activity. We liked it.
 |
| Our guide takes us into the kraal |
Signing-in to the Guest book, Mimi notices that we are the
first visitors in over a week.
Ouch. What are we getting
into? Maybe Nico wasn’t wrong. But, immediately we are brought inside the
pole fence that surrounds the kraal and we are immersed. Our guide, Samso (or something like that)
(inside joke for Aramcons) is very fluent in English and begins his tour and
explanations.
Ladies are grinding nuts.
Young men are making clay figurines.
And forging spears with an ingenious bellows system. And playing a spirited Mankala-type game with
nuts only far more complex using divots scooped into the dirt. And the ladies are weaving baskets. And the guys are playing a harp-like instrument
that makes both percussion and melody.
And the ladies are kneading the goatskins, like the ones they are
wearing, to soften them.
And, the finale, everyone dances while three of the guys play the
drums. Three songs, with explanations of
how they are really oral history to teach kids how to behave, so not too much
dancing, just right. After giving the performers our standing ovation, we couldn’t resist
and stepped into the “gift shop” hut to have a look. Such a worthy cause, we rationalize, and pick
up four baskets (Yes, made by the ladies here) and a clay giraffe figurine (Yes,
made by the young men here.).
We walked back past a herd of those longhorn cattle (Hook
‘em Horns) and kicked back by the pool for the heat of the afternoon. Tomorrow it is eastward into the Caprivi
Strip.
 |
| Happy trails, from the Okavango |
