Ongula Village Homestead - Harvesting and Processing Mohangu

After our visit to Etosha National Park, we stayed at the Ongula Village Homestead north of Ondangwa. The village featured a traditional Owambo homestead. In northern Namibia, most people are still living from subsistence level agriculture. The stable food is pearl millet called Mohangu. They also rely heavily on Mopane (yes, this is the tree that the worms they eat come from but the tree is primarily used for its fruit and leaves) and Makalani Palm trees, goats, and cattle.

Mohangu Field

Mohangu Grain Head

Mopane Tree

Makalani Palm Trees

Makalani Palm Tree Nuts

Mopane Tree, Malakani Palms, and Mohangu

Mahangu is more drought resistant than maize which is why they grow it in this region. After the mahangu is harvested, it is placed on elevated wooden platforms and thrashed to remove the grain.

Elevated Wood Platforms for Thrashing

Mohangu Thrashings and Chaff

The grain is then stored in big baskets. Once a basket is full, it is capped with a clay plug to keep out moisture and insects. The baskets are then stored under thatched roofs. A basket can store the mohangu for five years or more. This was a good, wet year so the harvest was good. During droughts with poor harvests, these baskets of stored mohangu serve as their food storage. It is literally life sustaining, so they protect and guard their harvest well.

Mohangu Storage Area

Mohangu Basket with Clay Plug

Mohangu Basket Covered with Thatched Roof

When needed for food preparation, the grain is taken out of the baskets and ground by hand with large, heavy poles. Once ground, it is then shifted in shallow baskets to remove the chaff. Karen and Kelda tried their hand at it but they were not very efficient (we would have starved before they would have ground enough for us to have a meal). (This is so not true! I know how to cook millet without it being ground to flour! We had an excellent salad that night with whole, not ground millet. We would be able to live on that)) The villagers also grind the Makalani Palm nuts to extract the oil.

Karen Grinding Mohangu

The Experts Grinding Mohangu

Kelda Grinding Mohangu

Shifting the Mohangu

Grinding Makalani Nuts to Extract Oil

 You will also note that Bruce did not even try to grind it! After the flour is finally prepared, it is mixed with water and oil and cooked in large, hand made earthen pots. Mohangu is part of every meal in some fashion or other. They served us mohangu with our meals and it was pretty good.

Cooking the Mohangu

The Final Prepared Mohangu

Don't want any of our posts to get too long so will described the overall traditional village layout and structure in a future post.

Peet Alberts Rock Engravings

On our last day of our northern Namibia tour, we stayed at the Kaoko Lodge just outside of the town of Kamanjab. As part of our stay in the region, we visited the Peet Alberts Rock Engravings historical site. The site was located about 1.5 km drive from the main road and then about another 1 km hike or so up the side of a bluff. On top are located 1,200 to 1,500 rock engravings made by the San and Khoi people. The engravings are at least 2000 years old and depict both wildlife and geometric shapes. The San drew the wildlife pictures while the geometric designs were from the Khoi. Animals depicted included giraffes, elephants, oryx, zebra, warthog, etc. The site was unguarded and essentially unmarked and we were free to walk all around and over the rock engravings.

The area was also full of interesting rock formations and vegetation.

Elephants oh my!

Many of our friends are  interested in seeing pictures and not so much in reading all my ramblings, so today,  I am posting some of the pictures we were able to take of the elephants. You would think that spotting elephants would be easy and I guess in some ways it is. (You look for big gray rocks sticking out of the grass and wait to see if any part of it moves. The flapping of the ears is what usually gives it away)

This was one of my favorite shots. The herd of elephants was grouped around the younger calves around this tree. 

We captured the elephants tussling with each other a bit. 

It was amazing to see these enormous animals in the wild. It is an experience I will never forget.

Stay tune for the next couple of weeks. I will try to post a new blog on a different animal or part of our trip every few days.

Trip Through Northern Namibia - Post 1

After a 36-hour flight (including layovers) our daughter, Kelda, arrived safely in Namibia on July 19th. We didn't give her much time to rest as we immediately embarked on an 8-day excursion through northern Namibia, returning to Windhoek on July 20th. Including our trips into Etosha National Park, we probably traveled a total of 2,500 km. So, it was a lot of driving but a really fascinating journey. The basic route we took is shown below.

As you travel north and west of Etosha National Park, you enter the more traditional tribal areas including the Nama, Herero, Himba, Oshiwambo and others. The poverty level increased significantly with many of the people still living in traditional villages and housing where most were surviving on subsistence level farming and ranching. People were dressed in their native clothing and the main streets were full of people walking, roadside markets, etc. An entirely different atmosphere than in Windhoek and more like you envision Africa to be from National Geographic.

Traditional Oshiwambo Village

Roadside Market in Ondangwa

Roadside Market - Woman Wearing Traditional Herero Clothes

Market in Opuwo - Women Wearing Traditional Himba Clothing

We passed many herds of goats and cattle and frequently had to stop and wait for livestock to cross the road. The land is stilled farmed and ranched communally within the tribes so there are no fences to keep the livestock off the roads.

The landscape changes to a wide, flat delta flood plain dotted with Makalani Palms and Mopane Trees. There are also lots of small water holes. During the rainy season, the delta is flooded and fish is washed into the water holes where they are fished by the locals using nets. Numerous vendors along the roadside where selling fish.

Delta with Makalani Palms and Mopane Trees

So, we experienced lots of traditional culture. We also visited Etosha National Park and saw lots of wildlife. Unfortunately, we didn't see any predators.

Jostling Elephants

Saddle Billed Stork

It was a very good trip and it is nice to have Kelda here. This is just a brief summary and we will have multiple posts that will cover more specific details from the trip.