Lydia Lungameni, Student from Namibia
Africa is a land of great contrasts. Even in a small country like Namibia, which has 824, 268 square Km, there are mountains, deserts and a long coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. One may see big game like elephants, lions, rhinos, buffaloes, cheetahs, antelopes, and giraffes in nature reserves. Like its neighbor to the Southeast, it mines diamonds. Botswana with its large Kalahari Desert is East of Namibia and Angola is directly North.
Lydia Lungameni, a freshman student at Heidelberg College, comes from the region of Ohangwena in north Namibia. She has lived most of her life in her village about 700 Km from the capital city, Windhoek.
She has been teaching English in the elementary school in a village near her home for fifteen years, and she came to Heidelberg to improve her English and learn better methods of teaching. She hopes to teach in a high school when she returns to Namibia. She studied in the National College of Education part time for four years while she continued teaching and received her diploma.
She comes from a large family. Her mother and father had nine children and she was the fourth one. Her parents had been married for 40 years when her father died suddenly last year. It was difficult for him to breathe for only one day.
Lydia’s parents arranged her marriage. Her husband-to-be had to pay
one cow, 12 hoes and buy clothes for the men in the wedding party. Her
uncle and her father had to kill seven or eight cows for the wedding feast.
Everyone in the village celebrated for two days. She was 25 when she married,
and her husband, Markus Hamata, was 26. They had two children, Mike Thyson,
and Lydia Sirka. Her husband worked for the municipal government.
Then in 1996 tragedy struck her family. Her husband accidentally shot himself and died. Her children were only six and four years old. She continued to teach near her mother and father and her aunts and uncles. Mike went to south Namibia, two days bus ride away from her village to go to boarding school. Her uncle worked for the NAMDEB diamond mining company, and the company provided schooling in English to its employees’ children. Later her daughter, Lydia, attended school there, too. Lydia had to pay tuition for her children to attend.
I asked Lydia what foods most people eat in her village. The main crop is mahangu, a kind of grain like millet. They grind the grain into flour and boil it with water to make a porridge. It can also be made into cakes. They like a dried fruit made from the marulla tree that can be pressed to make a delicious oil. In their home gardens, people grow cabbage, tomatoes, beans and chili peppers. In addition to oranges, mangos and guava, they have a yellow fruit, omive, another yellow fruit, eenyandi and a brown fruit called omukwiyu. Coffee, rice and tea are imported from other countries. They have rain in Dec., Jan, Feb, and March. The rest of the year is dry and they harvest most crops in May or June.
Namibia is a secular, parliamentary democracy. The Germans colonized Namibia and ruled it until 1915. The people are 90% Christian. Lydia goes to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Namibia. It was founded by Finnish missionaries. Catholics and Anglicans also have churches there.
Tourism is the fastest growing sector of Namibia’s economy. Air Nambia flies from Frankfort, Germany to the capital, Windhoek. From there tourists can fly to Walvis Bay and Oranjemund and Cape Town, South Africa on the coast or inland to Pretoria or Victoria Falls. Rail lines connect cities in the north to the South African border.
Lydia lives in the scenic Ohangwena region in the north. There are many guest houses and lodges. Minibuses bring visitors from the capital. There is a tradition that anyone can eat the fruit of certain native fruit trees free of charge. An annual trade and agricultural fair is held from August 26 – September 6. Over 35,000 visitors and international exhibitors from Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania and Botswana come to the fair.
Northern Namibia has several beautiful waterfalls. The Ruacana Falls on the Kunene river is most lovely in April because a dam in Angola controls the flow of the water. Most of Namibia’s electricity is generated here. Another waterfall, Epupa Falls, on the Kunene River drops 60 meters and cascades over several channels.
About 40 km from the coast lies a Petrified Forest. Giant tree trunks, some up to 30 meters long are found there. These fossilized trunks are estimated to be 200 million years old. Nearby is the largest collection of rock engravings in Africa. More than 2,000 rock engravings and paintings show the legacy of the Stone Age.
Several large game reserves are in Namibia and in neighboring Botswana for those tourists who would like to go on safari.
Some of the facts for this article came from Air Namibia magazine and from talking to Lydia. She is proud to share information about her country. Percy and I are her host family while she is at Heidelberg and we are looking forward to showing her interesting places in northwest Ohio.
– Mary