One fine day in 1908, while shuffling sand next to a railway line, Zacharias Lewala made an unexpected find: he stumbled upon a small specimen of the shiny stone loved as the diamond. What came after was a diamond rush that brought a German colony to the arid South West African landscape, affecting many a man’s destiny.

But for the colonisers, the fame and fortune was short lived, and it wasn’t too long after that fateful find that they were made to move on.

And so, with dancing shadows teasing dying doorways, the desert slowly reclaimed its territory…

Kolmanskop, remnants of a diamond mining village, Tsau-ǁKhaeb National Park (former Sperrgebiet), Namibia

© Marita van Rooyen, 2014