Words and photography by Karen Retief

Close to the town of Walvis Bay a 500-strong community, descendants of one of the oldest peoples of Namibia, live the Khoi-Khoi. The Namib is the world’s oldest desert and home to clusters of Topnaar families living in informal houses along the dry Kuiseb River. Not much survives in this environment, except for a fruit that grows stubbornly on the sand dunes. This is the wild !Nara, the one the elders praise in poems as their ‘foster mother’. For close to 1 000 years, the !Nara has been the staple food source of the Topnaars. It has sustained them and has become the cornerstone of their culture.
Factors like a decline in subterranean water levels, a leadership battle, and land disputes, add to the Topnaars’ struggle to survive. But the one thing that binds them to this land, which makes it home, and for which they will never abandon the desert, is the !Nara, the cultural identity of the Topnaar community.