Independence Day

I’ve mentioned in several of my emails that Namibian Independence Day is March 21^st. And that it celebrates seventeen years of freedom from South Africa—which it once was apart of. Meaning that Namibia shares not only its border and hot summers with its southern neighbor but the harsh barbed history of apartheid as well. I remember the story our language trainer, Dos, told during orientation. He was a young man in his mid twenties in 1990. An avid and talented soccer player in those days, he traveled to South Africa for a tournament shortly after Namibia reclaimed itself. South Africa would remain captive for four more years. There, with his team, reminded of the life that had once been his own, he and some of the other players purposely walked through a ‘white only’ entrance. Within seconds, he said, police swarmed them. He spent the rest of that weekend in a South African jail. Dos smiled grimly at us as he finished the tale, and we all understood. The story was not one of regret but of pride.

The people in my village do not talk about life before Independence, or at least they do not talk about it to me. And I have yet to feel comfortable enough with someone to ask any serious questions. Especially since for the Hereros (the tribe that lives in my area) the twentieth century was a particularly horrific time. In the early 1900’s the population dwindled from about 80,000 to 20,000 due to the German occupation. Though here, the word occupation is not used—it is supplanted with the word genocide. A genocide that the Hereros are still seeking compensation for from the current German government.

How do you bring up a conversation about how the majority of the country was once considered second class under the law, how that majority could not choose where to live or where to go to school? How whole groups of people were simply wiped out? How do you prompt someone to relive pain that will never fully heal?

A belligerent man at the Omatjete hike point told me one afternoon that all that had changed since Independence was the color of their leaders’ skin. Everything else remained the same. “We are still suffering. Look around—look around and you’ll see. You must see,” He babbled. I’m pretty sure he was drunk, but I still thought a long time about what he said to me. If you enter any Location, with its “houses” made with slats of metal, no plumbing, thousands of people eking out every day just to make it to the next one, it is hard to deny that inside the man’s rambling was a grain of truth. Most of the businesses here are still owned by Afrikaners (white South Africans/Namibians—many of German descent). Few Namibians own anything—even the teachers at my school (well-off by Namibian standards) live in houses provided by the government. Society is still extremely segregated—there is no need for signs to forbid the entrance into particular restaurants, stores, or parts of town. Price tags will suffice.

While I think his view is an easy one to hold, I do not think the man was right. Namibia has a lot of problems—poverty, corruption, development plans that are often slow and disorganized, AIDS, crime, high rates of alcoholism, the list goes on. Most of these problems existed in 1990, and a new constitution is not a magic wand. But there is a sense of ownership of these obstacles now, and the genuine possibility of addressing them. While a fresh design cannot generate a cure for all the country’s ills, perhaps it offers the chance at a reality that few Namibians have any memory of: one of choice, of expression beyond skin, of a life lived through action not decrees.

Maybe I can believe that because this is not my history, not my life. Maybe I can believe it because I’m twenty-three and naïve. Or maybe the belief is rooted inside my students. Yes, so many of them can barely read. So many come from broken homes. So many walk a thread as thin as floss, hovering directly above the sad, fruitless lives of their parents. But there are others—others like Tjizakuje. The tiny, brilliant twelve year old from seventh grade who I’ve been meeting with outside of class, giving her extra English work. I’d given her classmate Jeneth a difficult text to read and had Jeneth write down all the words she did not understand. Tjizakuje approached me the next day after school and said with a polite frankness that made me smile, “Teacher, I want to learn hard words too.” I couldn’t help but grin proudly at her. I’d already planned to give her more challenging assignments but she beat me to it.

She sat on my doorstep this afternoon and told me how much she loved Omatjete. How she wanted to grow up, become a teacher, and teach sixth grade here. She doesn’t want to leave—she wants to stay and make the village better. Of course, she’s twelve. She might change her mind. But hearing her talk about her home, seeing it through her eyes, not as tattered or desperate or even small but instead whole and worthy of her life, changed me a little. When I look at her I can’t help but catch a trace of hope. And for a moment I feel calm. I feel like there’s a tiny, fragile chance that Namibia’s past will not necessarily be its future.

(Popo, Tjizakuje, Funa)

So this Wednesday, as you sit down to dinner, raise a glass for the Namibian people, raise a glass for those long buried and those still trying to live. Raise a glass for what is yet to come—a glass for Tjizakuje.