You can handle just about anything that comes at you out on the road with a believable grin, common sense and whiskey - Bill Murray

8 May 2019, Sachsenheim Guest Farm to Okashana, 85,2km
Okashana Rural Development Centre N$430

Our guest farm had an abundance of butterflies in the bottlebrush bush, of bats under the eaves of a neighbouring cottage, and of mosquitoes in our room. We took great pleasure in nuking as many of the latter with our Crazy Store Electric Mosquito Trap, a battery-driven bat that electrocutes the little zappers. Still, I slept under a mosquito net. When we awoke in the morning, below the electric fan we had left running through the hot night were tens of mozzie corpses.
At a picnic spot at which we rested and ate today were two small boys seated, allegedly keeping an eye on goats grazing the verges. They made to move off when we pulled up, but I gestured for them to sit. They were curious about the map we studied, so we told them from where we had come and to where we were headed - just the names of places nearby which they recognised and related to. We gave them a couple of sweets each and the last two pears in the can we had opened.
And at the Casablanca bar / shop where we bought cold drinks, the young woman who served us brought us chairs to sit on and a rickety table to hold our cans.
It is very dry out there, and in this part of Namibia there is no grass left even on the verges. So the verges are dust and the earth beneath the trees is dust. And when the wind blows, it blows dust into our faces and eyes. We were told a day or two after this day, that some smallholders drive 200km to south of Oshivelo to buy grass harvested from the verges on which to feed their livestock.
Despite the hardship of an ailing economy and a several-year drought, the farmsteads we passed were neat, fenced with the owner’s name on a board at the gate. Inside the outer fence are the homesteads, separately and more heavily fenced, comprising several buildings including round thatched huts. Evident are cattle, their ribs showing though not starving, and goats and donkeys and corn and grain sorghum.
At times we saw harvested grass for sale on the verge, and bundles of wood for fire or fences, and on occasion woven baskets. What pleased us was an honour-system at play. No-one seemed to be watching the goods on display; in some cases a cell number was written on a board. Otherwise we assume a toot would bring the seller running.

For today's route see below photos
For overview route, click on ROUTE tab above…