Following the water of life

WHEN Pedro Dhila left his homestead in northern Namibia one year ago to seek greener pastures in the country’s capital, he meant it both literally and figuratively.

Dhila hoped Windhoek would hold better opportunities after worsening drought in the Omusati region decimated his crops and nearly 30 of his cows.

But once he arrived in Okuryangava, he faced a new set of problems: overcrowding, crime and poor sanitation.

“It is very painful to live here where decent land and housing is hard to find. We can’t farm,” said 37-year-old Dhila, sitting outside his friend’s corrugated iron shack.

“I can think of 30 other families who left Omusati because of drought,” he said.

As rural Namibians move to cities to escape the worst drought in nearly a century, many find themselves navigating a no-man’s land between over-saturated slums and the parched farmland they hope to one day return to, say activists and aid officials.

In 2015, nearly half of all Namibians lived in urban areas and that number is expected to reach 60% in 2030, according to Sweden’s Lund University.

The UN estimates that nearly 70% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050.

In January, Namibia moved closer to famine after dam levels fell below 20%, a drop officials blame on climate change and prolonged drought.

As a result, families were “following the water”, said Bernadette Bock, the secretary general of the Namibia Red Cross Society.

Recent heavy rains, however, had eased the water shortages brought on by drought in recent years, local media reported yesterday.

Online publication New Era Live quoted the chief executive of parastatal Namibia Water Corporation, Abraham Nehemia, as saying the considerable rainfall into the three main supply dams feeding water to Windhoek, Gobabis and Karirib, had averted the drought.

Many ended up in makeshift houses in informal settlements in Windhoek, Bock added.

According to Namibia’s statistics agency, in 2016 – the most recent data available – more than a quarter of urban and rural households were classified as “improvised housing units” or shacks, up from 16% five years earlier.

Residents of Okuryangava, on the fringes of Katutura, said new shacks were being built on a weekly – sometimes daily – basis, although official data is scarce.

Dhila, a retrenched accountant and subsistence farmer, shook his head as he remembered his 45 hectares of maize, tomatoes and spinach drying up and the slow death of his cattle.

“I hope for support for communal farmers such as seeds, boreholes and livestock feeding. Then we could return to our farms,” said the father of four.