Ogongo

Ogongo is a village situated in the Omusati Region, in the central North of Namibia. Its neighbouring places include Outapi, Elim and Oshikuku.

Up to the early 90’s life in Ogongo was determined by manual subsistence farming. There were no tarred roads and the village was not connected to the national electricity or warter supply systems. Inhabitants of Ogongo collected water by foot from nearby dams and wells or from the neighbouring town of Oshakati. There were no shops except for shebeens (bars) at Ogongo village, people used to go to Oshakati to buy their goods and necessities, although it was not easy because transport to Oshakati was rare and expensive. There were hardly jobs available for the people, so people used to rely on their mahangu fields and livestock for maintenance and survival. There were no proper church buildings that time, so people gathered under a tree for their services. The same applies to schools and due to the lack of secondary schools in Ogongo learners used to go to schools in neighbouring towns after completing their grade seven. There was only one clinic at that time, situated far from the residents.

When Namibia got its independence in 1990, the Namibian government had plans to rural areas, including Ogongo village. The government started building primary schools and the Ogongo combined secondary school. Plans were made to build a clinic to cater for the people in the settlement. The construction of a main road also took place. The development led to the Ogongo Library Project, which was supported by individuals like Rachel Manley, who was a teacher at Ogongo combined school.

There was a military base in this village, which was called Ogongo Base and was located just to the south of the tar road, approximately 50 kilometers west of Oshakati, on the Oshakati to Ruacana road. The base was situated next to the Ogongo Agricultural College in the village of Ogongo. It was a satellite base of 53 BN, Ondangwa in Sector 10. The map provided below shows the base as it looked during the 1980s.

The Ogongo Agricultural College is part of the University of Namibia has led to job creation for the local population and attracts visitors from across the country as well as abroad.

The Ogongo 2 observatory is situated on the communal farming areas in the Omano Go Ndjamba Village, which is an estimated 10 kilometres west of the college at a similar latitudinal location as the Ogongo 1 Observatory. The land use system in this village, as in most parts of central-northern Namibia, is agro-silvi-pastoralism, primarily based on pearl millet pennisetum typhoides as the cropping component (locally known as Mahangu), livestock keeping through communal grazing, and a multipurpose use of indigenous plants e.g. wood harvesting. Although this conventional way of life has for many decades protected the environment within which they live, the system is said to be currently under stress mainly due to population increase (Kreike, 1995). Ogongo 2 Observatory is now a well developed village where technology has played a decisive role in uplifting the standard of living. Education, water and electricity are available to the community and because of the agricultural college there is supply with a variety of healthy food items.

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Wikipedia