When we are open to receive it there is so much beauty in even the most barren of places, so much magic in what others may dismiss as mundane.
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When you are quiet in the desert, you can hear the duet of the light and sand.
Tags: Deadvlei Namibia desert sand trees landscape namib nature sossusvlei
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In 1904 the people of Nambia rebelled against the German colonizers, who retaliated with genocidal ferocity by killing over 60,000 of the Herero people.
In 1908 a Namibian railroad worker named Zacherias Lewala was shoveling railroad tracks clear of creeping sand dunes when he saw some stones shining in the low light. Lewala's German employer identified them for what they were: diamonds. Lewala was not paid or rewarded for his find.
Soon hordes of prospectors descended on the area. By 1912 a town had sprung up Kolmanskop producing a million carats of diamonds a year. Tribespeople displaced from their land by the zone's construction were often employed as laborers in diamond mines, forced to live on cramped, barracks-like compounds for months at a time.
But it wasn't to last. Intensive mining depleted the area by the 1930s and the town's fate was sealed when the richest diamond fields ever known were found on the beach terraces to the south. Once again greed drove the townspeople in droves, abandoning homes and possessions.
And why are the houses painted in these vivid colors you ask? It was to keep the German women happy far from their homeland in a place where the men folk worked in the mines all day and were hardly ever home. And if you are wondering why no one lives there anymore...cause its just bad karma :)
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I like images that are metaphorical. That spark our wildest imagination to derive meaning that goes far beyond the physical objects and instead looks inward within ourselves to find a deeper interpretation to the visual before us. Perhaps that is why its said a picture is worth a thousand words.
Please do check out the album Namibia in my Flickr account.
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It is images of the sand dunes and the interplay of light and shadow that inspired my trip to Namibia. All of my expectations were met and then exceeded.
Tags: WPD22Nature
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