Sacrifices worth making

Tunohole Mungoba

Born in Windhoek, Leokadia Jacob is a finance administrative officer of Dolomite Camp, which is part of Namibia Wildlife Resorts (NWR).

After completing her studies at the Institute of Bankers in finance and graduating with an advanced diploma in 2017, Jacob was hired to work for NWR in 2018.

“I have been working here at Dolomite since 2018 to date and it has been an interesting journey so far. I also double as the receptionist on occasion and my duties usually involve dealing with customers, bookings, payments and all other administrative duties at the camp,” says Jacob.

“When it comes to finance, I do the cash-ups from points of sales, conduct my daily reports and banking at the end of each business day.”

Jacob says she has always been interested in the tourism industry as she loves travelling, so it has been the best of both worlds for her so far. She says the most notable lesson she has learned so far is the knowledge of different departments at each camp.

“You need to be flexible as experience will come in handy and you will learn different skills on your job. The challenges are dealing with the difficult clients. Some clients want to be risk takers and claim they have paid for their bookings when they actually haven’t and it goes against the rules of letting a client check in without proof of booking and payments made,” she tells Careers Hub.

Jacob thoroughly enjoys the multi-cultured conversations she has with different guests and experiences with tourists who want to know more about Namibia.

Although she is more than 500 kilometres away from her loved ones, she says she would not have it any other way.

“My daughter was two months old when I left her with her father. I used that as motivation to work hard as all these sacrifices will truly be worth in in future,” she says.

“Dolomite Camp is a very beautiful camp and I love its uniqueness. I keep telling my friends and family to visit this side of the park and make beautiful memories.”