Important Information!

Nharo Museum is closed

We are very sad to announce that we have to close the Living Museum of the Nharo-San, situated on the premises of the Airport Guestfarm of the Trümper family.

The museum was established in February 2010 based on the idea of Werner Pfeifer and a group of the Ju/’Hoansi from the Living Museum in Grashoek, who wanted to work close to Windhoek to give some of the Nharo-San of the area the possibility to build up their own Living Museum. The Living Culture Foundation strongly supported this idea and the museum.

It was intended as an educational institution not only for tourists, but also for local schools and universities and as a place where people from Windhoek, who are not able to travel a lot, would have the chance to meet the bushmen on eye-level, to learn about their fascinating culture. Indeed we had a lot of positive reactions, especially during programmes with the University of Namibia and TUCSIN (the University Centre of Studies in Namibia). School children also enjoyed the interaction with the San very much.

In September a group of Nharo was found, which showed interest in the concept of the Living Museum and the group of the Ju/’Hoansi trained them in traditional skills like the tanning of leather and the construction of tools and weapons. However some of the people from Grashoek wanted to go back to their village in the N#a Jaqna Conservancy, east of Tsumkwe and the Nharo-San who were supposed to take over the museum decided shortly after that, that it was not a business they wanted to run. Another family was found, but they had to go to a funeral only two weeks after arriving at the Nharo Museum, leaving the Living Museum almost empty for one and a half weeks.

We then finally realized that the concept of a Living Museum has to be community based. It can only work if it is established from scratch by a project group itself, which makes it very hard to work on private land where the people are lacking support from their extended families and are dependent on the farmer. Due to obvious reasons the number of people living on private land has to be limited thus making our concept of the Living Museum hard to realise, as the actors get homesick after a while. Thus the museum always lacked the enthusiasm we experience with the other Living Museums in Namibia and we have therefore decided it is better to close the museum.

Uwe Trümper and his whole family have supported the project intensely and we thank everyone from the Airport Guestfarm very much for the opportunity to establish a Living Museum on the farm land. Uwe was deeply interested in bringing the tradition of the Bushmen to visitors and in supporting the group of the Ju/’Hoansi.

The closure of the museum is a big disappointment for everyone involved and a setback for our work at LCFN. Hopefully this is an experience, which can lead to the better understanding of our concept and the people we work with.

A big thank you to everyone, who supported this project!