Okahao

History

When the first Finnish missionaries had arrived to Omandongo in Ovamboland on 9 July 1870, they immediately took measures aiming at establishing a missionary presence in two other tribal areas also, that is, in Uukwambi and Ongandjera. Already four days later, Pietari Kurvinen, Martti Rautanen, Karl August Weikkolin and Antti Piirainen, left for Uukwambi, to the court of King Nayuma, where they arrived on July 16. And still within the same month, Rautanen rode on an ox to visit King Tsheya of Ongandjera. The Finns wanted to establish a mission station in Ongandjera, but Carl Hugo Hahn of the Rhenish Mission wanted to have a permission for this undertaking from the board of directors of the Finnish Missionary Society. The matter was put off until the following year, when Rautanen was able to visit Ongandjera in the month of May, with the king receiving him in a friendly manner. Rautanen gave the new mission station the name Rehoboth. Heinrich Kleinschmidt, the father of Rautanen's fiancée Frieda Kleinschmidtin had earlier given the same name to a mission station he had founded in Namaland. By the end of July, Rautanen had built a house for the mission station, and Tobias Reijonen, a new arrival that year, joined him there at the time. The daily life in Ongandjera was difficult for them, since they had few European provisions, and few goods with which to exchange grain from the local people. The rainy season of 1871–72 was difficult for Rautanen and Reijonen, as they both fell ill with typhoid fever. Their servant boy, who was superstitious, ran away, but finally they were able to convince another boy to take a letter to Uukwambi, and Pietari Kurvinen, accompanied with his wife, came to help them. They took with them Reijonen, who was more seriously ill, and left…

Geography

It is situated in the Ongandjera tribal area west of Oshakati on the main road MR123 (Outapi — Tsandi — Okahao). The area around Okahao is flat, arable land which is mainly used for subsistence farming. Okahao is the largest town in the Ongandjera tribal area, the birthplace of Namibia's founding president Sam Nujoma. The language spoken there is mainly the Oshiwambo dialect Oshingadjera.

Most-observed species

• Pied Crow

  Corvus albus Statius Muller, 1776 · Aves
  2
• Coridius viduatus (Fabricius, 1794)

  Coridius viduatus (Fabricius, 1794) · Insecta
  2
• Oedaleus plenus (Walker, 1870)

  Oedaleus plenus (Walker, 1870) · Insecta
  1
• Sundowner moth

  Sphingomorpha chlorea Cramer, 1777 · Insecta
  1
• Christmas Butterfly

  Papilio demodocus Esper, 1798 · Insecta
  1
• Gloomy Antlion

  Lachlathetes moestus (Hagen, 1853) · Insecta
  1
• Northern black bustard

  Afrotis afraoides (A.Smith, 1831) · Aves
  1
• African Palm-Swift

  Cypsiurus parvus (M.H.K.Lichtenstein, 1823) · Aves
  1