Rundu

Five small kingdoms grew up along this stretch of the Okavango, among them the Kwangali, Mbunza, Shambyu, Gciriku and Mbukushu, whose people farmed millet on the floodplain, fished the river and kept cattle back from the water. The river was a route rather than a barrier, and families and cattle moved between both banks long before any border was drawn on a map. The line that separated German South West Africa from Portuguese Angola cut through that world, and left communities divided between two colonial states.

The Germans never ruled this far north directly, and the area lay outside their Police Zone; Catholic and Protestant missions arrived instead, and the South African administration that followed the First World War governed lightly and recruited labour heavily, sending men south to the mines and farms under the contract system. Rundu itself grew from an administrative post on the river, and in 1936 it became the seat of the local governor, replacing Nkurenkuru as the capital of the Kavango district.

Its modern size comes from war. Fighting between South African forces and SWAPO's guerrillas spilled across the border through the 1970s and 1980s, and the Angolan civil war drove refugees and returnees to the Namibian bank, while the military built roads, an airfield and a garrison. After independence in 1990 and the end of the Angolan war in 2002, people stayed and more arrived, and the town has expanded across the sand for kilometres. The Kavango was split into two regions in 2013, and Rundu became the capital of Kavango East.

Rundu is a Kavango town, and the traditional authorities of the river's kingdoms still carry weight in matters of land, custom and dispute alongside the elected regional government. Rukwangali is the most widely used language, with Thimbukushu and other Kavango languages, and Portuguese and Angolan music are heard because of the traffic across the water. Extended families organise life, and a great many households divide themselves between a town job and a homestead in a village along the river.

Woodcarving is the craft the region is known for across Namibia. Carvers work hardwood into bowls, drums, masks, animals and furniture, sell along the main road here, and supply the big craft markets in the centre of the country; some families have done it for generations. Basketry, pottery and drumming are strong local traditions too, and Kavango dance groups perform at public events.

Christianity is near-universal, Catholic and Lutheran above all, and church gatherings, weddings and funerals are the big social occasions, often lasting a whole weekend and drawing relatives from far away. Fishing is both work and identity, done from dugout canoes with nets and lines. Manners are formal in a quiet way: greetings, handshakes and enquiries after the family come first, and respect for elders and for chiefs is expected.

About 118,600 people were counted in Rundu at the 2023 census, which makes it one of Namibia's largest towns, and it has grown faster than almost anywhere else in the country. The growth is horizontal: fenced sand plots with a built house or a homestead stretch for kilometres south of the river through Sauyemwa, Ndama and newer areas, many of them without piped water, tarred roads or connections to the grid, while the centre holds the shops, banks and offices.

Work is scarce and mostly informal. Government offices, schools, the hospital and the shopping centres provide the salaried jobs; beyond them people trade, carve, fish, farm mahangu and vegetables on the floodplain, and run stalls and shared taxis. Cross-border trade with Angola adds to the market, and tourism supports the river lodges. Rural poverty in the Kavango regions is deeper than elsewhere in Namibia, and unemployment among the young is the dominant issue.

The day begins before sunrise, when the market fills and the river is busiest, and slows in the afternoon heat. The river sets the rhythm of the year as much as the calendar does: high water after the rains, fields planted with the first storms, fish traps and canoes at low water. Malaria, flooding in wet years and drought in dry ones are the recurring hardships.

The staple is oshifima, a stiff porridge of pounded mahangu — the pearl millet grown on the floodplain — eaten with the fingers with a relish of meat, beans or wild greens. Mahangu is pounded by hand in wooden mortars, and sacks of the meal are one of the market's main trades. Maize meal is eaten the same way when millet is short.

Fish is what makes the food here different from the rest of Namibia. Bream from the Okavango is grilled whole over coals, fried, or dried and smoked for keeping and for trade, and catfish and tigerfish are caught too. River fish with porridge is the everyday meal in the villages, and the lodges serve the same bream cooked whole for visitors. Goat and beef are grilled over open fires at the market and sold by the piece, as kapana is elsewhere in the country.

Drinks and seasonal foods come from the trees and the rains. Oshikundu, a lightly fermented millet drink, is made at home and sold in containers at the market; marula fruit makes a fermented drink brewed for celebrations, and its kernels are pressed for oil. Wild fruits, mopane caterpillars and the big mushrooms that grow on termite mounds after the rains are gathered and sold at the roadside. Lager and Portuguese-influenced tastes from Angola round out the town's drinking.