Little has changed in over a century in the way people live in Namibia’s remote northwest. So nothing was staged during a visit to a village in the rugged Kaokoveld featuring dramatic landscapes that encompass the arid Namib Desert plains and the Ovahimba mountain range that runs parallel to the Atlantic coast.
The semi-nomadic pastoral life still exists, captivates, and offers food for thought. It was hard not to be moved by a Himba man, Henry Tjambiru, helping to secure a traditional bracelet on which I discovered that “okuhepa”, “thank you” in the Ovahimba language, also means “welcome”. And any scepticism I had disappeared when I witnessed how the community fetches water from a deep man-made pit for themselves and their goats.
Inevitably one change is the cellphone. Those who have them can charge them at the local school, which has coverage thanks to a tower. My travel companion, the renowned anthropologist and environmentalist Margaret Jacobsohn, says the opposite of traditional is not modern; you can be both at the same time.
During a five-day visit, I was encouraged to learn more about Tjambiru and his people — many of whom still travel by donkey — as well as how their story connects to Conservancy Safaris Namibia (CSN) and Etaambura Lodge, the overnight stay.
Tjambiru is the lodge’s deputy manager. He travelled with me to meet his mother and sister, who live a traditional life at a nearby village, one of several places his semi-nomadic family lived while he was growing up. This is one of the reasons the Etaambura experience feels genuine: you are welcomed as a guest and treated as an equal.
The people I met co-own the company and the lodge. CSN is a business as well as a social initiative that emphasises community conservation and tourism. The lodge contributes the highest bed-night levy in Namibia, with about 20% going to the Orupembe Conservancy in the Kaokoveld, where the lodge is located. “This lodge and the tourists visiting here are the Orupembe Conservancy’s primary source of income,” says Tjambiru. CSN also provides mobile safaris.
Many Ovahimba people call the company “Okamutenge”, which refers to the bag attached to the end of a stick carried over a shoulder when trekking. Tjambiru says this means the company helps his people further along the road of life.
Jacobsohn has been part of a team that pioneered an African approach to wildlife conservation in this area and the rest of the country for the past 40 years. Her business partner is an international entrepreneur who is passionate about conservation but remains anonymous. Over a decade, he has invested millions in CSN and Etaambura. He shares a dream with Tjambiru’s community: conserving their wildlife that will bring financial and other benefits. When such benefits first materialised, it was mainly outsiders who reaped the rewards. CSN aims to change ownership to the community.
“Why do I continue to support CSN? For one, the local people are worth it. It has been proven that the Namibian conservancy model is an effective way to manage wildlife,” Jacobsohn’s business partner says. “Income is generated but not at its full potential.” During our journey, Jacobsohn tells me how she helps run CSN. “I hold the company in a trust for the five most northwesterly communal Ovahimba conservancies,” she says.
As we approach the lodge, a sea breeze from the Atlantic, about 60km to the west, brushes my face as Jacobsohn talks about the sacred red Onjuva plains. She points to a historic Himba battlefield alongside the road, which might seem like a plain landscape to those unfamiliar with its significance. We soon find ourselves at Onjuva, a few hours south of the Kunene River, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Etaambura Lodge, built to blend into the landscape, opened in 2012. After our 700km drive from Swakopmund, manager Kukuu Musaso and her team welcome us.
Before I check in to one of five en-suite chalets perched atop a mountain, I take my first picture: clouds on the horizon promising rain. Aptly, Etaambura means “you can see the rain from here”. Water, its presence or its absence, is the dominating theme.
“There is no shortage of water, though it might appear that way to a Westerner. Goats are very well adapted to this environment; the cattle less so. The point is during a drought animals die of starvation, not of thirst,” Jacobsohn says. Community liaison officer and safari guide Boas Hambo tells me the Ovahimba people know where to find underground water. “They learn the telltale signs from their elders and sometimes from the elephants.”
Unlike at many luxury lodges in Namibia, the community is not ‘edited out’ to create a curated African wildlife experience. This is the real deal, with all its flaws and small victories
Says Jacobsohn: “We are just out of a seven-year drought; the people lost 95% of their cattle and about 50% of their wildlife. With the rains last season, and hopefully this one just starting, we are seeing a baby boom, and the wildlife is recovering quite quickly.” As the days pass, I become increasingly aware that my experience of this arid Eden is the result of the early community conservation work by Jacobsohn and her life partner, the late Garth Owen-Smith.
Owen-Smith, who died in 2020 aged 76, is the father of Namibian community-based conservation. Together they founded and co-directed the Integrated Rural Development & Nature Conservation (IRDNC), an NGO that pioneered community-based natural resource management. Jacobsohn says the lodge levy, which goes to the conservancy, pays the game guards’ salaries. CSN provides equipment, transport and field food for remote patrols. The local school also benefits from the CSN food programme.
On my last evening at the lodge, I sit down to a stew of goat meat prepared over an open fire in the unpretentious dining area, managed by a small team. I go to bed aware that the spanking clean linen is still hand-washed and that the lodge has only had a regular water supply for the past year. I realise I’m not missing Wi-Fi. I see the faint glow of distant lights on the horizon and the fires of Himba families. Unlike at many luxury lodges in Namibia, the community is not “edited out” to create a curated African wildlife experience. This is the real deal, with all its flaws and small victories.
I think of the wealthy entrepreneur who refuses to leave this community to its own devices. He admits that CSN is a textbook example of how difficult it is to establish a viable problem-solving remote local tourism operation. He believes in the resilience this small lodge and its people hold.
One memory, among many, stands out: wading knee-deep through a flooding river ahead of our 4x4 to check for sudden changes in depth. Ah, rain in the Namib. I think of our chance encounter with a group of Israeli soldiers on rented motorbikes on a short break after two years of war, passing cigarettes to each other as if their lives depended on it during their pit stop. One of them told us they were here to find “some real peace for a while somewhere”. Jacobsohn describes this encounter as “surprisingly meaningful”.
Ah, the peace in Namibia. I think about the photos I took of the traditional Himba community; the hikes down the hill with our driver, Oshivambo-born Jekonia Hauwanga, in tow; the cold beer bought at a bargain price from the local shebeen; eating Tennis biscuits on a rickety bench in a sliver of shadow in the middle of nowhere. I think of Tjambiru in safari clothes proudly introducing me to his mother in traditional dress, translating that she is saying I am “forever welcome” here.
