We don’t have to set the alarm, the sun burns us out of the tent anyway. The ladder of the tent sits in the loose sand and the fire still smokes a little bit. Slightly neurotic I scan the ground around our car for fresh tracks. I don’t see any. Satisfied I pull the salami out of the fridge for breakfast.
We put the coordinates for a waterhole in our navigation. Waterholes are often meeting places for different types of animals. A dry riverbed leads us to it. This riverbed is particularly sandy and the cars have to work hard to get through. It helps to be with two cars where one can follow the tracks from the first.
From behind a large tree and a curtain of leaves we get looked at by a large male elephant. He turns himself towards the cars the moment we pass him. He see him move rather nervously and his large ears move front to back. We leave him be and drive on slowly. We don’t have to wait much longer before we’re in luck again: a group of giraffes are gorging on the green trees on the side of the riverbed. The cars don’t really seem to bother them.
We leave the riverbed, drive for hours through the rocky desert and end up at another riverbed, but this time it has water. Recent car tracks prove that it is possible to drive through it. A narrow gap in the rock gives us enough cover to set up camp. We make a large fire to keep the animals and flies at a distance. We also cook on the fire and go to bed early while the fire still burns a little bit.
A low rumble gets me out of my sleep, it is 12 o’clock. I can hear it’s close. I squeeze Helga’s arm and she wakes up quickly. I stare out of our roof top tent into the darkness. Helga also turns her gaze outside, but we both see nothing, it is pitch black. Slowly our eyes adjust to the dark. We can feel the ground underneath the car tremble when the large thing moves: An enormous elephant, less than 4 meters away from the car. Silently we stare outside. We can hear it munching on the trees next to us. My heart is in my throat. My eyes are now even better adjusted to the dark and I can see a dark shadow. A deep rumble, next to our tent, we can almost smell its breath. We can feel the wind when it turns around and elegantly, without touching anything, it walks past the car in the direction of the water. We look at each other and take a breath. It takes a little while before we fall asleep again.
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The sun rises and the rays of light find their way through the tiny little holes in the mosquito net. I turn around on my stomach and look out over the riverbed where we camped. The footprints from our nightly visit are clearly visible from the tent.
They lead to the water where they disappear. I get myself out of my warm sleeping bag and get dressed in the same clothes as the days before. My shirt is starting to get stiff from dust and sweat. My legs look tanned, but are actually covered in dust. I get down the ladder backwards and walk towards the tracks. My foot fits in it 5 times. I follow the steps towards the small stream, and can see they continue through the river away from our camp. I walk back to the tent, when Helga just comes out of it. I take the dusty towel which hangs on the ladder, look for the soap en walk back to the river. Time for a little wash.
When I walk back, all washed, the coffee is ready and the map is spread out over the breakfast table. While I am leaning over the map and are tracing the riverbed north, Helga grabs my elbow:” Look, they are back!”. I look up and see a small herd of elephants slowly walking our way. They also see us and are clearly hesitating to come any closer. They decide to change their course and stay at a distance. We pack up our tents quickly, finish our breakfast and are on our way. Via the riverbed, partly through the river itself, we drive north. We haven’t traveled far before we see another amazing sight: a large mother elephant with a newly born calf.
We leave the river behind and start on a deserted piece of desert. The ground looks covered with small black strips and is seemingly endless. It reminds me a bit of my trip through the Gobi desert in Mongolia. Except for the view in the distance, it is very similar. Luckily we are now traveling with two well equipped cars instead of riding my motorcycle solo. The desert slowly turns in to the familiar Savannah and it’s not long before we see the first animals. It starts with springbokken, widly spread out over the vast area, and later on a herd of gemsbokken. We stop for a little while when we see an enormous giraffe.
That night we find our camp spot in a dried out river. We start to make a fire and make a fire pit out of stones lying around. As the fire gets hotter the stones we so carefully selected out of the riverbed, start to explode. Pieces shoot away from the burning fire and force us to sit at a safe distance. Luckily our cars are away far enough and safely in our rooftop tent the exploding stones keep us awake for some time.
I start to get down the ladder from our bedroom, my feet are on the narrow aluminum steps and when I leave the last one, my feet are in the soft sand. It feels nice and smooth between my toes. The sun is already up and warms up everything around me. The trees in the riverbed hang very low and almost give off a sad look. It has probably been a while since it last rained here, I think to myself. Our mornings consist of the same ritual: breakfast, coffee, packing. We try to do that last thing quickly, since it saves us valuable time if everything is done in an efficient way. Even though we do this every day, we have to pay attention. If we forget to tighten something, if something is loose or lies somewhere where it can break, than it will definitely happen. The road and terrain are unforgiving here. Everything has its own spot, which helps a lot when you need to find something quickly, but it also prevents us from leaving something behind.
Today, we are lucky, we’re driving away and while we do this we hear a strange sound like something drops down from the roof. We don’t stop, but we are both mentally checking lists to see if we can figure out what is was. While I’m concentrating on the soft sandy road I can hear Helga’s brain work as hard as the motor of the car. Don’t get the impression that driving a technical route is a quiet affair. Sometimes it sounds like we’re driving in a can full of stones or nails and are rolling down the mountain. Everything squeaks and groans. I even think that riding a motorcycle might even be quieter sometimes. The thick helmet and possible earplugs keep the ears from all the noise while the chassis of a half filled car sounds like a resonance box.Suddenly I can see her face go white when she realizes what just made the sound of something dropping: “my phone!” she yells. She jumps out of the still moving car and starts to run back through the soft sand looking for her phone that fell of the roof. First, I wait patiently, then I start to follow her. I try to follow her footsteps, but the distance between them is so large, I’m having trouble doing so. The moment I reach the top of the hill I see her coming my way with a large smile on her face. Her purple shirt has some dark patches and the drops of sweat trickle down her cheeks like tears. But, most importantly, she is holding her phone in her hand like a trophy. A needle in a haystack. Around midday we meet a group of people from the UK. They shipped their own vehicles for a 6 week round trip through South Africa and Namibia. We exchange stories while the more technically inclined men of the party fix a problem on one of the Landrovers. We drive in the same direction as they do and in a parade of cars we navigate the narrow track until we part ways.
At the end of the day we find a hidden campspot, but we also are clearly back in civilization. The last 50km before the campsite we drive through small villages. Small huts made out of branches with clay roofs. We see a lot of people in traditional clothes, or rather, lacking clothes, walking towards the road to see where the noise comes from. I once read that humans are the loudest creatures on earth. It is hard to imagine when you hear an elephant at night tearing down a tree next to your tent. But this night we hear people all around our campsite: adults, children, music. Familiar on one side, but we also feel intruders from another planet since our cultures are so far apart.
We are glad we stopped early the day before when we see the road ahead of us…we are shaking all over the place while I attempt to climb up a rockslide in first gear. We can see there have been cars before us, by the rubber prints on the rocks in front of us. I sit very straight while I manage the pedals. The car is able to do this, we know this, it is the driver who chooses the location for the tyres. I can feel one of our front wheels driving over a large rock, our rear wheel follows, the weight of the car dislodges the rock and our rear wheel slips off while the rock ends up underneath the car. I can feel the car come up slightly at the back. I wait for the moment that we land again, but that doesn’t come. I push the gas pedal, but other than the engine making loud noises, nothing happens. Even though the car is on a steep hill, I don’t need the handbrake. I get out of the car to have a look at the situation. The front wheels are stuck in a ditch, but not too bad. Momentum will get them out. The rock that changed position is now underneath the leaf springs and one of my rear wheels is off the ground. A very good position to change tyres, I observe, but that won’t do me any good now.A jack will do, but as soon as you lift the car at the back to remove the rock, there is a lot energy that wants to go down…Eventually we decide to build a ramp underneath the suspended back wheel. This way we use gravity to get the car lifted and we will be able to remove the rock. I put the gearbox in the lowest gear backwards and with a lot of effort the car drives upwards on the ramp we build. Now we can move the rock and the road to the top is free! The road takes us through a small Himba village. We stop to see if it is possible to get some water. It doesn’t take long before we are surrounded by curious people. We are welcomed, as curious and hesitant , as we are approaching them. Stefan and I hand out noodles and soap. Surrounded by Himba women we try to explain how to use these items. Insecure about whether we succeeded we leave the small settlement.
It takes us another hour to drive to the Omuhonga primary school where we are invited to visit.
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A long, narrow sandy track leads us through low bushes. Around us we can see small huts, built from thin branches put together tightly and fixed in the ground. The roof is made of a combination of dried grass and clay. Next to the huts we see women who almost have the same colour as the brown huts and disappear in their surroundings. They put a combination of mud, animal grease and plants on their skin to prevent themselves from getting burned by the scorching sun.
We are on our way to the Omuhonga Primary school, a local school where children can go to school when their parents allow it. A small road leads us there and we can distinguish a few buildings. The sun is about to set and luckily it starts to cool down. People are moving around and move from the shadow into places to catch the last sun. We drive onto the school premises and park our cars in front of the main building. It is a stone building in a U-shape, painted white, with red window frames and a motivating text on one of the walls.School hours are over, but most of the teachers are still there. Most of them grew up in the area and belong to one of the tribes represented in the area. The only difference is that they now wear western clothes instead of the traditional garb. Minutes after our arrival the children start gathering at the middle of a field, as if they were being called by a bell. In the middle of this field is a giant pot cooking on a fire. It is filled with white porridge and we can see the bubbles on the surface. An elderly woman with a long apron stands next to the pot and tries to stir the heavy mass with a long wooden ladle. The children start to form long rows. The children who haven’t yet queued up are still looking around for plates, which are scattered around the schoolyard as if they are Easter eggs. Not everyone seems successful. When the plates are all taken, the less fortunate have to make do with cups, containers or lids. Finally, when everyone is in line, the scooping up of the porridge begins. The older children help with doing this. With a plate the porridge is scooped out of the steel pot and handed out in even portions. The whole process is very smooth and without talking dinner is being served. We are watching this on the sidelines with our strange cars in the background, but except for some curious glances no really pays attention. One of the teachers stands next to us and explains that this is the meal the children get every day. Most of these kids stay in the hostel that belongs to the school, because they live too far away to walk there every day. One meal in the morning (11am) is paid for by the government, a second meal (6pm) is paid for by an international organization that supports education in third world countries. You cannot study on an empty stomach! What they are getting is the same everyday: corn porridge. The students all spread out over the school’s property to eat and the only thing left behind is a dust cloud and some older boys fighting over who gets the last out of the pot. The teacher tells us that the last of the porridge is always burned and it is the most popular among the kids. We walk away from the school and we see several small groups of kids sitting on the ground. With their fingers they scoop up the porridge. We get a spot assigned to camp behind the school and set up our tents.
It is 5am when we wake up from all the noise around our tent. I don’t really want to, but I open my eyes and look through the fly screen to see what is going on. The sun has just come up and it is still pretty cool while everything has an orange glow. The most beautiful time of the day! A little distance away from our camp a few children stop shortly in their tracks to have a look at these odd cars in the middle of the school’s property. They hurry on after this and walk to the water trough at the other end of the property. This waterpump and trough are donated by an Icelandic organization. It was built to get water for the Himba people and their cattle who used to be a nomadic tribe so that they could be sure of water.Throughout the years the Himba’s established villages and stayed more in one place and with that there also cam a school. The entire population and kettle around this water point are now dependend on this source, for as long as there is no water elsewhere. They built a 12.000 liter watertank on a steel frame and the pump is running due to 4 solarpanels. The tank doesn’t get any chance to fill up during the day, and as soon as the sun comes up, the first people are already waiting for the water. The school is now trying to get the funds for a second watertank, because the amount of people has outgrown the capacity of just one tank.
When the students want to participate in the school’s program it is expected of them that they are clean. When you want to wash yourself with the first fresh water of the day, you have to be an early bird. This is the reason we heard the commotion around our tent this morning. At 6.40am lessons start and this is announced by a loud bell summoning all the children. At the moment we hear this bell we are all already wide awake and not all of us voluntarily. It quiets down quickly after the lessons start and we have our breakfast. During this we talk about the food the children get here and how it is always the same. We decide to see what we have with us that we can give and maybe give a little bit of variation to the diet. We come up with pasta, sugar, potatoes, flour and rice. I am on my way to the principal to donate the food and I can see the students look at me from behind their desks through the open windows.The principal is very happy with the food we bring him. He tells us that a lot of his staff are not qualified teachers and as soon as he hears that Helga and I are he asks if the four of us would be so kind to think of something to do that afternoon, entertaining 200 kids. He says that the children learn more from a few hours with us than they do during their normal school lessons. The amount of children scares us a bit, but we agree to do it and start planning right away. We decide to do four different activities in which groups of kids rotate until they’ve all done them. We are going to be doing bottle-soccer (without bottles, but with a pile of stones), dancing, slacklining & Boule and drawing. Communicating is sometimes difficult, but the the aid of the teachers we manage to make our activities work.
At the end of the day, we are all exhausted. The school organizes some singing and dancing for us by the students as a thank you and we enjoy this very much. After the activities the children are now less shy and curiosity has definitely won. We are surrounded by curious kids until well after sunset and when they go, we are glad for the peace and quiet.
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