DANCING AT HOACHANAS

DANCING AT HOACHANAS
We stopped at the township of Hoachanas and were entertained by great singing and a bit of dancing.

Hoachanas is a small village at the edge of the Kalahari in Namibia, approx. 200km south of Windhoek. The country is dry and is suitable only to limited agriculture. In the mid 19th Century the first groups of the Nama settled here. But already in the 18th Century the area was an important meeting place of the traditional leaders.

In 1853 the Rheini mission created a small mission station in Hoachanas and between 1857 and 1863 developed a brick church, one of the first in Namibia, which possessed a bell tower. In order to give to the Nama basic training, a mission school was established.

Today Hoachanas has a population of 2000. Unemployment, poverty and AIDS are problems.