The problem is that is would flood the lands crossed by the Himbas. It would suffocate the palms, whose fruit they eat, and cover their pastures and ancestral graves with water. To avoid all this, the Himbas have discovered what journalists and lawyers are. And for the moment they seem to have won their battle.

The sun is already high. Hundreds of kilometres to the south of the Kunene, in the central prairies of Namibia, the Herero women are all dressed up: eight metres of fabric worn with ease. The ankle-length pleated skirt, puffed up by innumerable petticoats.