News Blog

Ondangwa - As flood waters in northern Namibia subside after nearly four months, residents are slowly repairing their homesteads, harvesting the few remaining crops and sending children back to school."At first it was nice not having to go to school, because the floods prevented classes," 12-year-old Tangeni Shivute told AFP. "But I missed my teachers and being with the other children."He lives in a small village tucked behind newly woven grass walls and in the shade of tall palm trees characteristic of the flat, white-sanded plains around Ondangwa, just 45 miles from the Angola border.Schools are supposed to be on holiday now, but after floods forced closures across the region, thousands of students now sit in class to catch up during the break.



These shallow pans have no real river beds. As unusually heavy seasonal rains hit Namibia and neighbouring Angola earlier this year, the waters silently filled the oshanas.Once they were full, even more rain connected the oshanas to form vast shallow lakes stretching for kilometres and taking months to dry up.At least 102 people have died since January in the worst flooding since 1972, which has affected 600,000 people across northern Namibia.

Creative Writing Blog

Namibia is one of the world’s last true wilderness areas. It is the fifth largest country in Africa, encompassing 826,680 square kilometres (larger than France and Great Britain combined) yet it supports a meagre population of around 1.8 million people. Consequently, it is famed for its vast landscapes that are devoid of people, limitless horizons, wonderful game parks, interesting fauna and flora, sunny weather and tranquil starry nights. Its staggering geology boasts the world’s highest sand dunes, one of the world’s oldest deserts, and the second largest canyon. Last but not least Namibia offers the adventurer a wide range of activities such as hiking, parachuting, micro-lighting, hot-air ballooning, dune skiing, wild river rafting, lake diving, horse riding, and abseiling to name a few.

Etosha’s silvery pan and surrounding plains in the north of the country teem with game, making EtoshaNational Park one of the world's greatest wildlife viewing venues. Damaraland’s desert-adapted elephant and endangered black rhino roam freely and can be tracked on foot and in open 4WDs. Flying along the Skeleton Coast you will find roaring dunes, hundred-thousand-strong seal colonies, mysterious shipwrecks, intriguing desert-adapted plants and animals, and flocks of pelicans and flamingos; whilst the enormous and empty Namib Desert and the giant sand dunes of Sossusvlei dominate the landscape to the south. Climbing a dune at Sossusvlei to watch the sunrise it’s easy to see why Namibia is a photographer’s dream. The dunes are enchanting, totally unspoilt, and best of all, you have them to yourself.

The Animals of Namibia

The "Big Cat"

Diet - The diet mainly consists of rodents, but they also eat birds, hares, reptiles, frogs and insects.

Colouring - The colouring is very similar to the domestic cat. The back of the ears, however, are orange-pink in colour.

Breeding - The female has a gestation period of 2 months and will then give birth to a litter of between 2 and 5 (mostly 3) kittens.

Size - The African Wild Cat can reach a shoulder height of 35 cm and can weight between 2.5 and 6 kg

The Black-Backed Jackal

Diet - insects, birds, rodents and occasionally small antelope.

Colouring - Light reddish brown. The 'saddle' on its back is black with white speckles. The tail is moderately bushy, fairly long, and sandy, marked with darker hairs, and usually with a dark tip.

Breeding - 1 - 6 (rarely 9) young are born from July - October after a gestation period of about 2 months.

Size - Shoulder height: 30 - 50cm and around 1m long (including a 30cm tail). Black backed jackals weigh up to 12kg

The Damara Dik Dik

Habitat - Dense woodland with thick shrub.

Diet - Because the dik-dik is so small, it needs to eat the most nutritious part of a plant which can include leaves, pods, flowers and occasionally sprouting grass.

Colouring - The back is grey-brown while the neck, shoulders and sides are browner. The chest and underparts are light compared to the rest of the body.

Breeding - The mother gives birth to one young a year after a gestation period of six months.

Size - The shoulder height is an average of 38 cm, wih a weight of 5kg.

Physical Features of Namibia

The Namib, the most ancient desert in the world, acts as a barrier between the central highlands and the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Namibia’s long coastline is set against a backdrop of vast sand dunes, gravel deserts, wild seascapes and shipwrecks. The gravel dunes and sand flats once submerged below sea level are rich picking grounds for multinational diamond miners. Salt flats and even freshwater lagoons at various places along the coast are home to thousands of flamingos, pelicans and other waders and water birds. 

The magnificent Fish River Canyon and the eastern edge of the Namib Desert stretch north from the Orange River in the south and represent an area of stark beauty. The canyon is next in size to The Grand Canyon in North America, which makes it the worlds second largest. This southern and central interior region is a vast open expanse of grasslands and desert vegetation interspersed by stark mountains and isolated oasis where the presence of mainly subterranean water allows for cultivation of various crops. Moving further west towards the Botswana border the landscape changes into the vast sea of red sand and thorn trees of the Kalahari Desert that reaches far east across the entire land of Botswana. Here is another superb wilderness area of solitude and vast open wetlands teaming with wildlife and sparse human populations.

Current History

Namibia’s history has passed through several stages from being colonized in the late 19th century to Namibia’s independence on March 21^st 1990. Ever since 1884, Namibia has been a German colony. At the end of WW 1, the League of Nations mandated South Africa to administer territory. When WW 2 had begun, the League of Nations was dissolved in April 1946 and its successor, the US, instituted a trusteeship system to bring all of the former German colonies in Africa under the guidance of UN control. South Africa didn’t like this and that a majority of the territory's people were content with South African rule.

 

Legal argument ensued over the course of the next twenty years until, in October 1966, the UN General Assembly decided to end the mandate, declaring that South Africa had no other right to administer the territory and that henceforth South-West Africa was to come under the direct responsibility of the UN (Resolution 2145 XXI of 27 October 1966).