Oshakati travel guide

Oshakati has many faces. There is the ‘town’, the former South African military base, where government employees, expatriates and the ‘successful’ live in detached houses set in leafy gardens close to the video shops, private schools and public library. Then there are the various ‘locations’ where shanty-type dwellings of corrugated iron and scrap metal are dotted with NGO and municipally built public lavatories and stand pipes. In between these extremes are those with housing and services of a basic standard, mostly lowly government workers of some kind.

The commercial centre of Oshakati and the north happens where the high street, banks and the open market, Omatala, face each other across the dusty main road. The University of Namibia has its Northern Campus in town, and you will notice a major influence of municipal buildings including the new town council complex, which rather oddly perhaps, was opened by president of Botswana Festus Mogae in 2006. Services include several petrol stations, vehicle repair places, supermarkets, and a branch of Cymot for camping equipment. But, while there is certainly money in the area, the impression remains that life for the majority in Oshakati is hard.