May 6. After breakfast, we set out to visit a Zemba village. The Zembas are closely related to the Himba and Herero people we have seen, but their dress and hair styles differ somewhat, and the women do not use ochre on their ski, and retire rather early..
As the bus pulls up, Tarry and our local guide, Festus, are clearly having a serious discussion with the chief. Part of the deal is that our guides bring materials and food stuffs to the village in turn for their cooperation. While we brought maize, tea and a few other things, apparently we failed to bring the snuff that the chief had requested. The matter is resolved when Tarry promises to get the snuff to the chief later. At this point, we are free to get off the bus and photograph, which we do for a couple hours.
While each village and the people we see are different, there is getting to be a certain repetitive aspect to it, and I’m not as gung-ho about photographing as I was in the earlier villages. Fortunately, the timing is good, since we will visit only one more village, before going to Etosha National Park tomorrow to view game.
En route back to our lodge, we visit a place called Scents of Namibia. While its a relatively small place, here the oils used for Namibian soap, perfume and lotions are processed from resins brought from the Northwest part of Namibia. The processed oils are then transported to Windhoek, where they are made ready for shipment, both within Namibia and internationally, where they are utilized by many well-known perfume and lotion makers. A plaque acknowledges that the plant was constructed with funds provided through Millenium Grants by the U.S. We watch an interesting 6-minute video, get a tour of the plant and some members of the group make purchases.
We stop at an ATM and grocery store on the way back to the lodge, then talk for a long time, as it takes inordinately long to get our lunch. We have an hour and a half to rest before setting out at 3:30 for another Zemba village. This one is more remote and covers a larger area. We have some difficulty finding it, but when we do, we have another interesting experience photographing in the village.
We return to the lodge, clean up a bit and then have dinner together.l
Pics are amazing! Hope to read everything soon!