havering- March 1

Dear Friends

 

Cameron was 11 last Tuesday. “What would you like for your birthday son?” I asked. “A fish supper” he replied. So on Tuesday night we took Cameron and his pal Raul, to ‘Luigi and the Fish’ (the only restaurant in Namibia, according to Cam the connoisseur where the fish and chips are ‘nearly’ as good as Romano’s, the Burntisland chippy) where Cameron and Raul ordered……..pizza.

 

I recounted the tale to Fenny, my very bright and articulate colleague who at 26 is expecting her first baby, quite old for a first time mother in Namibia. “11 years” she said “does it seem like a long time?” “It seems like yesterday” I replied, each year of course passing more quickly than the one before. “You know” she said “I’ve been thinking how different it will be for me, compared to my mother”.

 

Fenny was born in exile in Angola and she has a favourite picture of her mum, a striking young woman in combat fatigues holding an AK47. Fenny’s mother was the oldest of four children, living with her grandparents. Some days the soldiers would come, some days they wouldn’t. When they came they would beat her grandparents in front of the children, and if they wished they would beat the children too, and sometimes worse. At 13 Nangola had had enough, this had to stop. So she decided to join the SWAPO fighters and walked the ninety miles to the Angolan border. The border was a cleared strip of land maybe three hundred yards wide, mined and heavily patrolled. Nangola waited until nightfall and a gap in the patrols, she ran as fast as she could through the darkness. Her movement was detected and she could hear the whistle of bullets through the air. Nangola kept on running, straight through the minefield and across the border into Angola and on to the first village she found, where she fell exhausted. A kind old man gave her food and shelter, and put out word for the SWAPO soldiers to come. She was taken to a special SWAPO camp for women and children, highly organised where there was food, accommodation, education and medical supplies. For the first time in a long while Nangola felt safe.

 

The South African Army, however, did not distinguish between camps with women and children and camps with fighters. One day Nangola heard helicopters and saw the Caspars, the armoured vehicles of the South African Defence Force encircling. Everybody was running and screaming, the South African soldiers firing at the fleeing women and children. Nangola held the hand of her best friend and they ran in terror as fast as they could. In the panic her friend had tripped, or so Nangola thought, she too fell to the ground and turned to look. Her friend had been shot through the back of her head, she no longer had a face. Nangola let go of her friend’s hand and ran on down to the river with the others. Children were running into the water, most couldn’t swim and there were crocodiles. She stopped, knowing that if she went into the river she would die, she couldn’t fight and she couldn’t run, all she could do was hide. Amongst the screaming, the crying, the terrible noise of the helicopters, the firing of guns she lay down amongst the dead bodies on the river bank and closed her eyes. Many hours later and a long time after the shooting and the screaming had stopped, she could hear voices, Afrikaans. Soldiers were walking along the river bank, their bayonets fixed, striking at each body, making sure the job was done. The soldiers came nearer, she lay motionless, then more shouting and, thank God, the soldiers were called away. For two days Nangola lay too frightened to move, bodies became bloated in the heat. Then on the third day there were Oshiwambo voices. Nangola stood up to be lifted by a SWAPO fighter “You poor child” he cried, tears in his eyes. Four years later Nangola had a child of her own, Fenny, who tells me she was one of the lucky ones because both her parents came back from the fighting. 

Its twenty years since the end of the war this coming weekend and we felt honoured to attend the Namibian Business Awards on Thursday night where the guest of honour was Dr Sam Nujoma, leader of SWAPO throughout the liberation struggle and the official ‘Founding Father’ of the nation. Like all revolutionaries he spoke far better when he put down his notes and spoke off the cuff. He espoused the need for education, saying it was essential for Namibia “to train our own marine biologists to safeguard the richness of our fishing grounds, to train our own engineers to add value to the minerals we take from our land, farmers to grow our food and doctors to care for our people.” Interestingly, although he no longer has any direct role in Government he suggested to the Minister of Education, who also attended the event, that this year he felt spending on education should be a minimum 6% of GDP. Something tells me it will be.

 

After his speech some of the school pupils attending, all of whom called him ‘Tate’, meaning father, asked Sam Nujoma to dance. To their delight he did, holding his clenched fist aloft as he swayed to the sounds of the Old Location Band, some of whose members where older even than the Founding Father himself.

 

On Friday I met with another leader, this time a musician, Leonard Zhakata, the King of Zim Rumba. He plays “a fusion of Zairian rumba, traditional Zim rhythms and township grooves all stirred in with a little love, brother, a little soul” In 1995 Leonard set the record for the first Zimbabwean recording artist to sell more than 100,000 copies of an album. A record broken just two years later when 150,000 copies of an album was sold by ……..Leonard Zhakata. For the last ten years or so, he and his band have been working with youngsters from the informal settlements around Harare and in the rural areas, teaching kids who previously had only played homemade instruments how to play electric guitar and how to compose music. Selecting the most talented he works with them to make demo tapes which he sends on to record companies. Of course they listen to tapes recommended by Leonard Zhakata and in this way he has launched the careers of dozens of young Zimbabwean musicians. He had heard about OYO and now wants to work with us. Next month he’ll perform with some of the young people we work with at a performance in Cape Town, to parliamentarians from all the southern Africa countries. When he left for the airport on Friday I offered him my hand holding my right elbow with my left hand, the traditional way of showing respect and deference to another in Namibia. Leonard responded by clenching his left hand over his heart as he shook my hand. “We are all brothers now” he said.

 

Have a good week everyone.

 

Alan