These proud people are from ethnic Bantu group, most of whom live in this country, where they number around 270,000, mostly making their living tending cattle  around the town of Okahandja in central Namibia, just 45 minutes or so north of Windhoek. For visitors, the most distinctive thing about them is their dress, especially that of the women, with traditional ekori headdresses (made of rolled up newspapers wrapped in fabric) symbolizing the horns of the cattle from which they make their livelihoods, and elaborate, colorful,  floor-length dresses, a legacy of German colonial rule in the late 19th and early 20th century.


Hans Hillewaert