Some Things Remain Unchanged

These images were taken in the early 1970's, when Namibia was still called South West Africa. The Herero women in the photos are on their way to celebrate Herero Day in Okahandja wearing their distinct traditional dress.

The Herero came under the influence of German missionaries during the 19th century who took exception to what they considered to be the immodesty of the traditional Herero dress, or lack of dress. At the time the Victorian Dress was still considered to be appropriate for a woman and the missionaries wifes dressed the women of the Herero accordingly by sewing long dresses for them that covered the arms and the neck. The first dresses were sewn of a material called Blueprint, imported from Germnay.

But I must say I love African creativeness.  Just look at the girl in the back with the leather boots and the red mini skirt. No matter under what and whose influence Africans came over the years, there will always be uniqueness and freedom of interpretation in what they do.

Herero Women On A Farm

After a while the Herero women adopted the style of dress for which they are so famous today. The dress itself falls to the ankles and has long sleeves and a bodice that buttons up close to the neck. Over this, many women also wear a shawl. 

Under the dress the women wear seven petticoats to add fullness to the skirts. The uniquely shaped headpiece is said to resemble and pay homage to the horns of their cattle. Although  Namibia is a modern African country today, Herero women are still seen proudly wearing this elaborate costume in rural parts of the country as well as in the capital Windhoek capital. 

And by the way the cream colored handbag is the bomb and some vintage loving ladies would go crazy about it.  

In Africa, When An Old Man Dies, It's A Library Burning

 In Africa, when an old man dies, it's a library burning - spoken by Amadou Hampâté Bâ 1960 at UNESCO 

"I graduated from the great university of the Spoken Word taught in the shade of baobab trees."

"The people of Black race, as they are not peoples with a tradition of written literature, have developed the art of speech in a most special manner. While it is not written, their literature is not less beautiful. How many poems, epics, historic and chilvalrous narratives, didatic tales, myths and legends of egregious literary style have so been transmitted through centuries, carried by the prodigious memory of the men with an oral tradition's, passionately in love with beautiful language and almost all poets." Amadou Hampâté Bâ 1985

"If you know that you do not know, then you will know."

All the proverbs are from Amadou Hampâté Bâ and the pictures are from Dr.Juergen Schlichting, my uncle and mentor, a street photographer and writer who was born in 1936. His extraordinary work covers the 1950's to the 1980's. The photos in this post were taken by him during a trip through East Africa in 1959. His images complement perfectly the quotes of Amadou Hampâté Bâ. The life of this great African writer fascinates me over and over again. For the ones who would like to read more about him I have compiled a small summary below.


Amadou Hampâté Bâ was born to an aristocratic Fula family in Bandiagara, the largest city in Dogon territory and the capital of the precolonial Masina Empire (Mali). After his father's death, he was adopted by his mother's second husband, Tidjani Amadou Ali Thiam of the Toucouleur ethnic group. He first attended the Qur'anic school run by Tierno Bokar a dignitary of the Tijaniyyah brotherhood, then transferred to a French school at Bandiagara, then to one at Djenne. In 1915, he ran away from school and rejoined his mother at Kati, where he resumed his studies.
In 1921, he turned down entry into the école normale in Goree. As a punishment, the governor appointed him to Quagadougou with the role he later described as that of "an essentially precarious and revocable temporary writer". From 1922 to 1932, he filled several posts in the colonial administration in Upper Volta, now Burkina Faso and from 1932 to 1942 in Bamako. In 1933, he took a six month leave to visit Tierno Bokar, his spiritual leader.
In 1942, he was appointed to the Institut Francais d"Afrique Noire (IFAN, French Institute of Black Africa) in Dakar thanks to the benevolence of Theodore Monod, its director. At IFAN, he made ethnological surveys and collected traditions. For 15 years he devoted himself to research, which would later lead to the publication of his work L'Empire peul de Macina (The Fula Empire of Macina). In 1951, he obtained a UNESCO grant, allowing him to travel to Paris and meet with intellectuals from Africanist circles.
With Mali's independence in 1960, Bâ founded the Institute of Human Sciences in Bamako, and represented his country at the UNESCO general conferences. In 1962, he was elected to UNESCO's executive council, and in 1966 he helped establish a unified system for the transcription of African languages.
His term in the executive council ended in 1970, and he devoted the remaining years of his life to research and writing. In 1971, he moved to the Marcory suburb of Abidjan, and worked on classifying the archives of West African oral tradition that he had accumulated throughout his lifetime, as well as writing his memoirs (Amkoullel l'enfant peul and Oui mon commandant!, both published posthumously).Wikipedia

The Nguni - A Mighty Tribe

The Cattle Of The Wildcoast

The Wild Coast is one of South- Africa's still undiscovered jewels situated in the Transkei. 

There are miles of unspoilt coastline and the rolling green hills of the Transkei descend down to endless white beaches. The famous local Nguni cattle, a strong, tough and disease resistant African breed, come right down to the beach.

This is in fact the only place in the world where I have seen cattle walking on rocks at the beach during low tide, lying in the sand and enjoying the misty sea breeze for hours.

 At the end of the day they walk up the mountains to higher greener pastures.

The Transkei is a place of great, wild and rough beauty. 

This is a piece of Africa where livestock roams free at will and to see these stunning cattle frolicking on the beach is a memorable sight.

A Nguni cow hide used as a carpet or wall decoration achieves a considerable price today and is sought after by designers for their wealthy clients. I just love them for their beauty.

Summer at the Wild Coast means reading on the deck, spending time with friends, swimming or surfing in the " cold " ocean. The water can be icy sometimes.  River or rock fishing is a favourite past time as well. 

But you have to cross rivers to get there.

The natural beauty and cultural heritage of this region offers a really unique experience to visitors. And if you have a horse you can ride on the beach. If you have none borrow one from the locals. They are more than happy to get a little additional income, in an area where there are basically no employment opportunities.

 I spent my childhood and youth in Namibia on a cattle farm and have always loved cattle.

Here in the Transkei they have no problems walking on the slippery green mossy rocks, balancing  their way through rock pools in which little fish and crabs are hiding.

I like these catte so much that I have created a greeting card set with some of their images I have taken during my last stay there.

During low tide mussels can be collected off the rocks of the pools for a delicious dinner for humans ( and if you like mussels of course)

Mali - In The Village

From time to time I like to infiltrate this blog with some photos that I have taken during my seven year stay in Mali in West-Africa. Simply because they are so beautiful.  All the pictures, me and my brother have taken during that time, are on film and they have that depth and deepness of colors you don't get so easily with a digital camera.

It is now after a couple of years that I find the time to process the material that me and my brother have accumulated during this amazing and enriching time. While I have worked as a project coordinator for a holistic village development programm in the North of Mali that reached out to over 60 villages, my brother did research on labor migration in West-Africa for two years and wrote his final thesis on this topic. There are some beautiful stories to tell.

PINDILE - In Memoriam

Some stories are happy ones and some are sad. This is one of the very sad ones.
These boots have worked hard all their life.
They belonged to Pindile. 
Pindile was a Xhosa man born in the Transkei a former homeland under the Apartheid regime - a rural area in the region were I live.

For 15 years Pindile did the hardest work a man can do on earth - working in the gold mines up north underground. He lost two fingers while working in the deep and dark. One day he stood in front of my gate.
He said he could do everything gazing over my green, wild and neglected jungle that was once a beautiful garden and surrounds the house.

So true. 

He could do everything.
He told me, the moment he lost his job he decided to become a gardener because he needed the color green, he said.

A TRUE GREEN. 
In this moment I knew I needed him and he needed a true green of which I had a lot. 

I got scared watching him how he worked. Hard.
But he said: " It's nothing ", rolling his tobacco in newspaper.

He stayed for three years. 

Then died of a huge tumor in the spine - aged somewhere between 40 and 50.

His boots stayed with me and I have hung them up on my wall in memoriam of a very decent and great man.