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Few Namibian clubs are old enough to have celebrated 100 years of existence, but The Windhoek Club was fortunate enough to do so on October 6th, 2018. A Centenary Dinner was held for business members and guests involved in the Namibian economy on the Maerua Roof Top, affording a spectacular view of Windhoek. 

Especially in drought years, many species of birds still find food in towns and settlements. The green oases provide shelter, food and water. Countless feeding stations, set up by bird lovers in the cities, offer a constant supply of food. Seed-eaters and fruit-eaters can survive in the gardens of the cities. Some birds remain in the man-made habitats, others return to the wild as soon as conditions improve there.

The last five years have been harsh for the wild horses of the Namib, with severe drought and predation by a pack of spotted hyenas, which moved into the area in 2013. Numbers have plummeted dramatically from around 300 to a mere 80 horses. The lives of the remaining horses are still in immediate danger.

The Basters, a group who evolved from relationships between Khoisan women and Trek-Boers, had established settlements south of the Orange River in the early parts of the 19th century. Constant attacks by local Khoisan tribes, and the search for better grazing and water, were a threat to their livelihoods. They decided to leave the Cape colony and moved northwards, reaching the Orange River on 16 November 1868. Two years later the first Baster families arrived at their new home: Rehoboth.

Peter Kasweka (40) and Petrus Kahilu (42) need about four days to carve a sini, a traditional maize and pearl millet mortar weighing several kilograms, from a chunk of African rosewood (Guibourtia coleospermma). They have been carving mortars, pounders and cooking spoons from the wood of trees in their surroundings for 23 years.

At an altitude of nearly 1700 metres where high-rise buildings shape the skyline, the Namibian capital Windhoek with nearly 500 000 inhabitants is a modern and busy city. One can hardly believe that in 1890, just 127 years ago, there was only the African bush and a derelict ruin of an abandoned mission station in what is today’s Klein Windhoek

It is more than 500 kilometres for the round-trip from the Chobe floodplains in Namibia to Nxai Pan in the Nxai Pan National Park in Botswana. Thanks to satellite tracking devices this migration route of Burchell's zebra, popularly called plains zebra, has been known for several years now. Previously, researchers and conservationists always wondered where the zebra population of up to 3000 animals migrated to in the rainy season, when only a few Burchell's zebra remain on the shallow banks of the Chobe.

The grey ribbon of the tar road carries an endless array of enormous trucks, crowded minibuses, pick-ups packed to capacity, donkey carts, bakkies, fancy limousines and four-wheel drive rental cars from west to east and back again. Nearly 500 kilometres of road are stretched out monotonously in front of the driver. The former Caprivi Strip, now much more appropriately called the Zambezi Region, is home to a wilderness and isolation not found anywhere else in the country.

Mark Boorman from Swakopmund and I ringed a total of 530 Carmine Bee-eaters of the breeding colony between Zambezi Mubala Camp (previously Island View Lodge) and Zambezi Mubala Lodge (former Kalizo Lodge) in September this year. Jim Kairu, a wildlife management lecturer at the campus of the University of Namibia (UNAM) in Katima Mulilo in the Zambezi Region, was also taking part.