Impressions of Namibia and Botswana
Namibia and Botswana, two neighbouring countries in Southern Africa. Politically they may have come about as independent nations in a different way as they were part of distinct colonial systems, but they have plenty of things in common: their deserts are respectively called the Namib Desert and the Kalahari Desert, but they are actually one, their population density is of the lowest in the world with hardly 3 or 4 persons per square kilometre, their economic development has for a great deal depended on diamond mining, Botswana actually even being the second producer in the world.
With my family I lived in Southern Africa between 1983 and 1987 and we would have been foolish not to go and discover those remarkable places. So, we did. And what you see on this page is the reflection of those visits. Of course things have seriously changed since, politically and otherwise. At the time, Namibia was even still commonly referred to as ‘the South West’, under control of Pretoria, until 1990. To compare, Botswana had acquired its independence from the British much earlier, in 1966.
Yes, of course, things have changed. One would also hope so! But what has remained is nature, the seals on the rocks of the Namib Skeleton Coast, the dunes of Walvis Bay, the marshes of Botswana’s Okavango delta. What has also remained is the urban footprint of German brief colonisation in Namibia, the colourful attire of Herero women in both countries, the daily struggle for survival of the Bushmen desert people, and so much more. There is always something timeless to travel, and that is what I find so fascinating in the act of travelling.
* Scanned slides, 1983-1987
Before visiting the place of your choice:
Tsodilo is one of the most important areas where Bushmen communities live. Or shall we say: survive. The San or Bushmen are traditionally hunter-gatherers. They were the earliest inhabitants of Southern Africa, but as Bantu tribes were expanding their habitats, San people have gradually been pushed back into the least inhabitable areas, with hardly any or no water available, drought prevailing for months on end and no means available to sustain large communities of people with any form of agriculture. So, out of necessity, communities are small and very dispersed. Water is collected by the drop from dawn and early morning humidity, in ostrich eggs, on leaves spread out in the evening like bait, ... Today Bushmen number hardly more than 100,000 souls, half of them in Botswana’s North-West, here, the other half mainly spread over the neighbouring areas of Namibia, Caprivi and Angola. Social and genetic disruption, neglect and isolation are their unfortunate part, the initial inhabitants, pushed into semi-oblivion as the losers of a struggle for survival in which they were not the fittest.
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