You probably have quite often heard that Namibia is a very dry place. Indeed, some parts of the country are ones of the driest on the planet and Ongava receives on average 380mm of rain each year. But Namibia’s climate is also characterised by important variability with droughts and wet cycles. On top of that, storms with localised heavy downpours over small a area and only a few drops a few kilometres away are common. Early 2021, we fully experienced what it meant.

It all started on the afternoon of 7th January with a serious hailstorm over Andersson’s camp. Plant material broken off by the hail blocked the gutters and drainage lines, causing massive accumulation of water everywhere. With the office building sitting in a depression, flooding was bound to happen, and it did! We spend the most part of the evening shovelling water out of the corridors and building dam walls with sandbags… We even used the pump meant for firefighting to move the water away from the doors! Within a couple of hours, we received more than 100m, while, at Ongava Lodge (3.5km from us), they merely had 30mm! For a few days, no one could reach the office without walking through water!