NOTE #11 THE WOMEN´S VILLAGE

John, my Himba translator, has vanished into thin air in the African savannah, so I sit alone in the midst of all the cheerful ochre-coloured women and children on the ochre-coloured ground and try to communicate as best I can with my hands and feet, which have now also turned ochre-coloured. Somehow we manage. I teach them a few words in German, and soon a chorus of ‘thank you’ with a strong Himba accent resounds loudly throughout the village. However, the most universal language on earth works best: laughter. Here too, in the far north of Namibia, among the unique Himba people, one of the last nomadic tribes in Africa.

Many hours of driving in a desolate pickup truck equipped with a huge water tank in over forty degrees of heat separate me from Opuwe, the last outpost of civilisation before you lose yourself in the realm of the Himba. There is no water here. Grass no longer grows either. The sandy soil is so dry and dusty that the women and children here cough constantly. They tell me that it hasn't rained for seven years. Seven years. Strangely, the trees of the African savannah are still green. Somewhere deep beneath the stony ground, within reach of the roots, there must still be groundwater. Nature is patient, surviving for a long time until eventually it can no longer do so. I wonder when that moment will come. Then there will be no more shade for the people here and no more firewood for their fires, on which they stir their daily goat's milk porridge. Then the sacred fire will also go out. A fire that must never be extinguished and with whose help the Himba communicate with their ancestors.
 
The little Himba baby that is proudly placed in my arms squeals happily as I hold it high in the air, pulling me out of my thoughts. Something seems strange here in this small ochre-coloured village. For a long time, I don't know what it is, until I realise. I don't see any men. Not a single one. John later explains to me that most Himba men have moved away due to years of drought to try their luck in the cities. This also explains why the few remaining men have several wives. I count them: two men and over ten women. I give up counting the children at some point. The village is now teeming with toddlers. The older children have been sent to the mountains to herd goats. Only up there is there still some grass growing. Since the rain has stayed away, the children now stay away too.

Later, I hike up to the top of the hill range north of the village with the two Himba men and my translator John. It is a long march in the sweltering heat. From up there, they want to show me the place in the distance where the sacred sites of the Himba are located and where the Namibian government plans to build a dam on the Kunene River against the will of the Himba. The indifferent floodwaters of this dam will swallow everything. The cultural past of the Himba and their future. As if climate change and the resulting century-long drought were not enough to wipe out an ancient people.

The small Himba village down there, however, surrounded by the lush, deceptive green of its savannah, seems untouched by all this. Here, life goes on as it always has. Not much has changed there for thousands of years. Only the men and children are gone.