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Namibia’s Himba Struggle To Conserve Their Culture Amid Globalization

Namibia’s Himba Struggle To Conserve Their Culture Amid Globalization

http://youtu.be/5KOfmCBLXsE

Namibia’s nomadic Himba tribe is one of the few stable remaining ethnic groups in Africa, but they too are under threat from a world that is quickly being globalized with technology and tourism, CCTV Africa reported.

This remarkable tribe live in an enchanted environment in the north of Namibia where they tend to their cattle and lead pastoral lives in the desert plains of Kaokoland, which was until recently sheltered from outside influence.

But the need to eke out a decent living has forced the tribe to allow more than eager tourists to interfere in there close knit community. They have also allowed their children to attend schools and mobile phone use is slowly creeping into the tribe.

Tony Park describes the Himba people as “proud, noble, strikingly beautiful people living a life that rarely crosses paths with the modern world. The women cover their exposed skin with butter mixed with ochre and set their hair with a mixture of butter, mud and goat hair. Save for the odd mobile phone, there’s nothing to separate the way today’s Himba live their lives as semi-nomadic cattle herders from those of centuries past.”