Between Grootfontein and Rundu in northern Namibia, there's an exact spot where everything changes. You stop at a checkpoint, cross over a game gate, and you're in a different world - people said that's where the real Africa begins, and we see what they mean. South of there it's still very different than Canada, but there are towns, then open country with desert, scrub, a few farms. North of the line, there are suddenly people everywhere, and village after village, simple homes of mud and wattle, thatched roofs, stick or reed fences surrounding family (?) compounds called kraals. The vegetation gets greener, and there are real trees, even forests. Water was an issue throughout Namibia, but here it became the prime preoccupation, women and children balancing buckets on their heads, carrying water from communal wells along the road to their homes. I can't pretend to know much about the social structure, but it appears like women are doing most of the work, a lot of men chatting under trees and drinking in the numerous shabeens (tiny shack bars), although the herding of cattle and goats is a male domain, and some men will be employed, maybe far from home.
Rundu is a bustling town on the Okavango river, looking across to Angola in the north. It may seem obvious, but it's almost completely black, as opposed to other Nam towns where there was always a white presence, and sometimes a partly European feel. Had a great chat with a couple of girls working at our lodge - they need to speak several languages in addition to their own Kavanga just to get a job, and were very bright and easy to talk to about their lives. One was born on the exact day and year as our Emma, in vastly different circumstances, but like her, thriving.
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