Like much of Africa, the Caprivi Region of Namibia has long carried the imprint of European colonialism. Once in the possession of Germany, many streets, towns and regions carry German names. There are Schultzes and Meinerts among the locals, and German is the mother tongue for a local minority.
But now, nearly a century after the end of German colonial rule, the Namibian government has decided to replace many of these German names with those of a more indigenous lineage.
Caprivi is now Zambezi, after the river that runs through the region. A tropical strip of land that juts off from the country's northeast corner, it was named by the Germans after Count Leo von Caprivi, a Franco-German War veteran who succeeded Otto von Bismark as chancellor of imperial Germany.
The harbor town of Lüderitz is now !Nami=Nüs, with the symbols indicating two of the four click noises used in the local Khoekhoegowab language. And the 800-inhabitant town of Schuckmannsburg -- named for Bruno von Schuckmann, the former governor of what was then German Southwest Africa -- has reverted back to its old name of Luhonono, which is also the name of a tree native to the area.
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