Hippos, crocs and a Kovango village

With the  hippos grunting and snorting in the river beside us, the wind rocking and blowing the trees overhead and large fat seed pods raining down on us through the night we had little sleep but are rewarded with a leisurely morning.  We are being taken for a ride on the river in mokoro, traditional African dug out canoes, this morning. 



 

  



While we are waiting for our guides we see cape buffalo on the opposite bank.  Cause for great celebration...we have now seen "The Big Five".  The big five are the five animals considered to be the most dangerous and difficult to hunt; elephant, rhinoceros, cape buffalo, lion and leopard. The cape buffalo is considered to be the most dangerous of the big five, killing more hunters than any of the others. It is a goal for anyone on safari in Africa  to see the big five and not everyone does,  so we feel very fortunate.  It is usually the elusive leopard  people miss seeing and we have already seen two. We climb in our mokoro, two to a boat, with a local oarsman.  The boat is small and wobbly and it is a bit nerve wracking with hippos surfacing all about and the river also home to large numbers of crocodies. I decide to place all my faith in the oarsman, he doesn't want to die any more than I do!  We go close to the buffalo, magnificent animals with fine, curving horns, and drift amongst some beautiful water lilies, spotting several species of birds including a massive kingfisher. We travel a long way down river and pull up on a sandy beach where the hippos rest at night.  I am very pleased they are all out in the river for the day. Lucas, our guide, takes us for a walk and gives us an informative talk on the medicinal and other uses of the various trees.  One tree, colloquially the sausage tree, is used for the treatment of skin cancer.  He tells us it is most effective and international drug companies have shown interest in it.  We spot our first crocodile basking on a sand bank...fortunately he is some distance away. The journey back up the river is hard work for the oarsmen paddling against the current.  Lucas keeps us entertained  with riddles and jokes.  I find the trip back very soporific and have to fight to stay awake, my fears of hippos and crocs forgotten for the moment. 

Jonas has been busy while we were away and has whipped up potato pancakes and golden syrup for lunch, delish! A few of us spend some time writing our diaries in the open sided, restaurant overhanging the river.  The camp dog is dozing quietly beside me when he suddenly starts barking at something  below us in the river.  I rush to have a look and spot a young crocodile right below the deck. Later in the afternoon we board a flat bottomed boat to travel up river to visit a village.  Our guide, Christopher, is a tall, slender, elegant Namibian with a head of dangling plaits. He is an enthusiastic bird watcher and, like all the African guides we have met, an ardent conservationist. It is a leisurely one hour cruise to the village, once again dodging hippo along the way. We pass local fishermen,children playing on the river banks and washing strewn along the bushes to dry.



 To reach the village we walk across a dusty paddock littered with bits of broken glass, rusty tins, wire, plastic, cardboard, and small children running around barefoot playing amongst it all.  This is certainly not your usual "tourist" village prettified for commercial purposes. We walk into a compound where two young women are threading beads to sell at the market.  Several small children are running about and a naked baby about a year old grabs the beads and stuffs them in his mouth.  I am worried he will choke but his mother manages to extricate them. One of the young women has a very thick cataract over one eye and I feel  sad that the simple surgery to rectify it has not been available to her. We go to the village child care centre where three young women are minding a number of the village children.  One deliciously chubby and wide eyed baby boy is only 4 weeks old.  A toddler, around 18 months old , seems most distressed grizzling and whining the whole time. One of the women is cooking maize meal porridge for the children over an open fire.  Chickens are hopping around and pecking at the food and amongst and over the children, there seems to be so much potential for illness and injury.

 

 

                                               

 Everyone we speak to is friendly  modest, polite and most welcoming.  The third compound we visit is large and immaculately clean.  Two women are dancing to music on the radio.  This is not for our benefit, they stop as soon as they see us.  One of the women is very tall and tells us that her husband is in the Namibian army and away from home most of the time.  His job has made them wealthy, comparatively speaking, in the village.  Their house is built from concrete block and at least three times the size of the other houses  She is very proud of her new front door, so proud that it has been installed with the plastic wrapping still in place. She tells us that years ago she had worked for an English doctor and writes his name in the sand in the hope that we may know him.   Her friend is a tiny smiley, neat woman, from what is known as the bush men tribe.  She  also proudly shows us  her home. 

 

The whole time we are in the village we see only one man and he appears to be drunk.  All the other men are either away working or tending livestock or fishing.   The people are desperately poor and many of the children have infections and scabies.  We see one little girl aged about four lying in her brother's arms.  She appears to be very ill.  Her brother is only about six himself but is so tender towards her. 

 



 We pick our way back across the paddock  to the boat passing a dog which is in a ghastly condition, possibly with cancer.  It is a horrible sight.  We cruise back down the river as the sun sets and turns the water pink,  hippos surfacing all around.  It is a serene and magical journey back to camp but our minds are full of what we have seen in the village. The visit has been sobering and humbling. It is worth noting here that life expectancy in Namibia is only 51 for women and 49 for men.  With a population of only two and a quarter million there are 200,000 infected with AIDS, the highest rate of infection in Africa.  17% of children have lost at least one parent to AIDS. The government is working very hard to educate the population and turn the AIDS statistics around but it will take some time before real progress is made. We  are pleased, at least,  that our visit to the village was not only educational for us but financially beneficial to the villagers.  After dinner Hils, Gary and I go up to the bar but don't feel like drinking so just sit chatting and soaking up the ambiance.  The gardens are tropical and softly lit lanterns are placed here and there amongst small groups chatting, their conversation punctuated by the grunts of hippos.






 



















Photos: Our group ready for the mokoro trip, (2) I look a bit uncertain.  Well there are hippos and crocs in the river!, (3) My oarsman, (4) Goats in the litter strewn paddock next to the village, (5) The village day care centre.  The baby is only 4 weeks old, (6) Adorable Kovango baby, (7) Tall village woman, around 5 foot.  Note the plastic wrapping still on her door, (8) Her tiny friend about 4foot 6, from the bush man tribe, (9) The women prepare meat to dry as biltong.  The little boy on the right is nursing his sick sister,
(10) Village children, (11) Off to collect water from the river, (12) Kovango Village