Home on the Range

Although there are drawbacks of living in a fairly isolated part of Africa, one great aspect is that we really do feel that we are IN Africa and can learn so much about a different way of life to what we have been used.
I have posted a number of photos on our blog here, and on the children’s blog (see link on the right), to try and give you an insight into a traditional Owambo homestead.
A homestead is a ‘maze’ of corridors, with walls made of sticks. These corridors open out into different area.
You will see Caris on David’s shoulder’s, entering a ‘living room’; an open space with logs on which to sit. There is often a display of cattle skulls. Traditionally, whenever an ox is slaughtered, the skull is kept as a sign of prosperity (the more skulls on display, the more affluent the family).
There is also a cooking area, and a photo of dried spinach (looks like a cow pat) is shown in a photo on a traditional plate that people weave from the leaves of the local Makalani palm (see the trees alongside the [lovely!] tarred road and the sunset shot).

There is a photo of Caris looking into a woven silo where grain is stored. The main crop is mahangu (millet). Pounded, it can be made into flour or be brewed as an alchoholic or non-alcoholic drink. You will see me drinking some non-alcoholic oshikundu (it can be bought by the – communual -cupful at open markets and often takes the place of a meal) and a woman holding a plate of the flour. It is cooked to make bread or oshimbobo, something similar to polenta. However, be warned of chewing with teeth too closely together, as there is a lot of sand in it. This is explained by the fact that it is pounded in holes in the ground. You can see Caris having a go.
I gave Étienne the camera and he managed to get (rare) photos of me! I am with two ladies as they farewell us from their homestead, where we had just eaten. They were singing a song that translates as ‘I thank you, God’. (The ladies at Engela sang it to me when I had finished the workshop for them.) They were also ululating – I am not very good at that but had a go! How many times have YOUR hosts farewelled you with singing!?

The traditional drink is always served in a handmade pottery bowl that is usually surrounded by wet sand to keep it cool(ish), and dispensed with a hollowed gourd. Even when we visit people in town (in standard houses), the men are served omulodi (the alcoholic version) in traditional wooden cups from the bowl via the gourd.
Rural transport is ‘Shank’s pony’ (on foot) or donkey/ox carts. I also took photos of a lady fishing in the traditional way. It is a cone of twigs that is thrust into the water. There is a hand-hole to feel if there is a fish trapped. Beware the fish with painful barbs, though!

The children enjoyed spending time on the banks of an oshana. Oshanas are natural depressions that hold water when the rains come. Fish eggs (and hibernating fish) hatch from the mud and offer a change in diet. The oshanas provide water for washing (clothes to be dried on nearby bushes), drinking, bathing, livestock, etc. Until they dry up.
You can see how flat and sandy the landscape is. Very hard to coax crops from it. Especially with precious wood having been cut down for homestead walls and firewood so the topsoil is lost.

On the children’s blog you will see them demonstrating a plough (Caris is playing the role of donkey or ox). There was also an underground pigsty!
I walked around the homestead with some of the older children and they asked about Australia. Do we have cows and goats and chickens? What languages do people speak? When I tried to explain to these subsistence farmers about the size of paddocks in rural NSW, one girl, now studying agriculture at tertiary level by correspondence, asked if it meant they farmed commercially – everyone here just grows for family needs.
Aune lived in such a homestead for her primary school years and said she spent the evenings studying by candlelight as there is now electricity. Another girl we met when we first came had only completed grade 7 as a goat then ate her school books and her family could not afford to replace them.
At the moment there is an outcry against the fact that some rural schools only have one text book per 3 students.

A bit about the workshop. Onaanda is west of Oshakati and is deep Kwambi. Most speak zero English and David has, more than one, had to teach in Kwanyama and have someone translate into Kwambi! This time, however, we took Aune with us and it is her home language. So, she was a great blessing during the course of the workshop.

David left home very early last Sunday to attend a local church, where he had been invited to preach. I think the service had been going for about 2 hours before he was called up to speak. And, even though the service still had an hour or so to run afterwards (!), he had to then leave to go on to Onaanda for the workshop. We, as a family, had been invited to a homestead for lunch after the workshop. It was a six hour round trip, but I enjoyed seeing David ‘in action’.