Making dreams come true

I am a teacher and the chair of the village council in Maltahohe in the dry Hardap region of Southern Namibia at the entrance to the Namib desert. Long before I became a councilor I started a home for abandoned children. There is a high rate of alcoholism and gender violence where I came from. This is made worse by a high rate of HIV and AIDS. There are currently 382 children in the home that I started, out of a village of 4000.

 

Six years ago my colleague Simon Anton and I started a culture group called Ama Buruxa, Nama for “Simply Amazing” for the children. Last year, I met the director of Gender Links, Colleen Lowe Morna when she came to Maltahohe to conduct research on gender and local government. She asked me what I would most want for my children. I said: “I would like them to perform in Johannesburg!”

 

So here we are, and I can only say that this is a dream come true. While we have been here, the children have performed with several other groups from around Johannesburg, including at Museum Africa and at the Constitutional Court. We got a tour of the court and a history of South Africa from apartheid to the present. The children from South Africa and Namibia did an exercise on past, present and future. Then they wrote and performed a song together.

 

We got to go and see Umoja (the South African musical that took London by storm). What an experience for the children of Ama Buruxa to watch those South African dancers who “dance like demons”! I believe in dance and song as a form of healing. What a healing experience this has been!

 

In the evenings, we sat in a circle and talked about our experiences, here and in Namibia. For the first time, I got to say “I am sorry” to Johannes* about something that has been paining me these few months. In October, we were performing at an old age home in Maltahohe. Suddenly I noticed tears flowing down Johannes’ cheeks. His voice was quivering. Johannes’ brother Peter is the drummer of Ama Bruxa. Later that day I learned that the boys’ mother had just died of AIDS-related causes.

 

I could not forgive myself for having allowed them to perform that day. But they told me that they wanted to; that performing is what gives them strength. Their mother was a domestic worker whom both boys cared for lovingly before she died. They do not know their father. Peter is now doing the last two years of his secondary school in Rehoboth. He needs just over R2000 per year to finish his school. Where can I get bursaries from to help the children?

 

Then there is Rachel*, whose step mother died a year ago, also of AIDS-related causes, leaving behind a two month old baby. She has six brothers and sisters. Her father is disabled as a result of an accident while he was a construction worker. We are not sure if he and the baby are HIV positive as they have not gone for tests. I had to tell Rachel that I could not take care of the baby; I just do not have the capacity to take care of the really small ones.

 

These things are so painful. But here is Johannesburg we have been able to talk. At one stage Rachel’s father wanted me to adopt her. But I said that is not the right thing to do. She must never be disconnected from her family. My duty is to make sure that she gets an education, so that she can uplift the rest of the family.

 

Aletta* also lost her parents to HIV and AIDS. After caring for both of them, she wants to be a doctor. There is Ruth*, who narrowly escaped being raped twice. I had to send her to live with my older daughter in Windhoek, to get away from it all.

 

Yes, my work can be very depressing, but it can also be so rewarding. I have trained as a counselor, to help the children, and to help myself. I have learned that when children lose their parents, they become introverted and withdraw. Ours is to inspire them, fill them with hope, make them realise what they are capable of, make them know that they are, after all, “simply amazing.”  

 

I lie awake at night in Johannesburg, and the sounds of Umoja, the spirit of togetherness, run through my mind. I am thinking of new dance routines for Ama Buruxa. I am thinking of how to raise money for school fees so that every one of my children can finish their education. I am inspired. I am ready to soldier on.