As a traveler and lover of adventure and uncertainty while traveling, African cultures have always been right at the top of things I love to explore and learn about. I have found that there is great difficulty in visiting various villages to immerse myself in these cultures if you are a budget traveller but I make it happen anyways.
This was my second time visiting Namibia. I am traveling solo using public transport. I have magically forgotten the difficulty of using public transport in this desert country and how brutal the heat can be. But that is the least of my problems, I have known of the Himba people and I had to personally visit a Himba village to learn more about them and their way of life.
The Himba people are found in Northern Namibia and parts of Southern Angola. They are livestock farmers and also grow crops such as maize and millet. The village that I was able to visit is the Katenda Himba village in Kamanjab. I had opted to stay at Toko Lodge as the Lodge is only 100 metres away from the village. The lodge also organizes a guide who will also be your translator.
Walking into the village you will be greeted by young kids playing their indigenous games on this red soil, you face a large village made up of various families. The huts are built in a circle and in the centre, there is a livestock kraal. The kraal entrance is built to be in line with the entrance to the village leaders hut.
Today I thought to share some interesting facts about the Himba people:
- The Himba people will circumcise the boy child before they hit puberty and only after circumcision, the boy is considered to be a man. The girl is not circumcised, and will only be considered a woman when she has had a child.
- The Himba woman does not shower. They use ochre powder which they mix with animal fats to cover their bodies regularly, which gives them their red pigmentation. The ladies use natural herbs and oils that they find in the wild as perfumes especially during their time of the month.
- The Himba huts are built using wood from Mopani trees, cow dung, the soil is specifically the termite mound soil mixed with water and the local grass will be used for the roofing.
- The Himba womans hair is as long as the braiding that you would see on her head. They plait the hair with ash (which they collect from their fireplaces), then some Ochre is mixed with animal fat to create the paste they will put on their hair. The ladies change their hair every 3 - 4months, they put extensions at the bottom of the hair for volume. They used animal fur before they had extensions.
- Young kids will have their hair shaved off, in the front a small piece will be left and that small piece of hair symbolizes that the child's fathers is still alive.
- Himba women wear ankle bracelets, these bracelets carry important information about the woman. The bracelets are worn by any woman who has started her period. Leather straps will be added when the young woman has a child. For women with more than one child, only 2 leather strips will be added. The bracelet will also be cut short if the womans parent dies, she is to keep the bracelet short for exactly a year and then it is extended again to its original length. The left bracelet will be cut short when the woman's mother passes away and the right will be cut short when her father passes away.
The best way to visit the lodge would be contacting Toko Lodge and Safaris to arrange a pick up from Windhoek. Public transport travel will be tricky as the transport is not consistent and in some parts there is no transport so you will be left on the side of the road in the scorching heat to hike to the next small town.
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#TheSoloWanderer