The stark surface of Namibia´s deserts and the more mellow savanna plains have undergone many a sensational change in the year 2011 with its copious rain. By the end of January many farms and communities all over the country had already surpassed their annual average downfall. By the beginning of April the rain gauge had in some places added up to as much as four times the annual average precipitation!
Needless to say that such downfall has caused the flooding of river plains, drainage systems and the densely populated inland delta, the Cuvelai system with its shallow depressions (oshanas) straddling the border from southern Angola and draining sluggishly towards Etosha Pan.
There is a threshold beyond which the joy of plenty “in the land between two deserts” turns into hardship as the water level of the oshanas in the Oshivambo speaking regions continued to rise to engulf homesteads, cutting off roads and causing the temporary closure of hundreds of schools.
Some observers ascribe the increasingly humid phase of the past decade after 2000 to climate change. On the other hand, our short lived human life span set against the vast and timeless landscapes allows only a minute space for comparisons, let alone for conclusive insight and comprehension of our climatic and geographical constellation. The furrows and ravines, the canyons and broadly meandering dry, but this year gushing rivers on sandy plains - all tell the story that Namibia has experienced previous wet and humid years and decades, shaping the fascinating face of this country.
With more and repeated rain the Namib desert especially has undergone an astounding “facelift” with grass growing both on the slip face and the weather side of dunes and water filling the desert pans, including the most famous of them all, Sossus Vlei. The camel thorn trees lining the riverine oases of the desert and which have withstood decades of little or, more likely, no rain at all, show that within the stretch of a few hundreds of years they have had some periods interspersed with wet years to become the tree wonders in an environment which appears to be extremely hostile to large plants and animals. Wet years provided the opportunity for their roots to reach some scarce moisture far down below to tide them over the – in human terms – extremely lengthy periods under the scorching desert sun and dehydrating sandstorms.
Namibia is now truly experiencing a phase where the deserts are shrinking, whereas there have been decades during which the fear, indeed “angst”, was rife that the desert would extend uncontrollably further and lay formerly productive land to waste.
Now the desert will surprise you with hitherto unknown splendor and crawling wonders. Researchers have recorded lilies on gravel plains never seen before and night animals like the barking gecko of the Namib suddenly hunt flying termites during daytime. Namibia, the land of extremes between scarcity and abundance is in the year of plenty.
