Life in Katutura

When I went to Windhoek with my aunt Elma after my grandfather’s funeral, was my first time to the city. I remember sitting at the back of Uncle Joanne's El Camino (his real name is Johannes), but everybody called him Joanne, as we drove into the city. He loved that car, we all loved it, and it was a classic. His car was regular and reliable transport for most people that travelled to Windhoek, especially for the school going kids. He was in the business of selling empty beer and cooldrink bottles, - it was the times when cooldrink was packaged in bottles - animal bones as well as firewood to the factories in the city. He would usually collect those items throughout the weekend and packed stacks them up in the back of the car. Those items were priority for him before anybody would get on the car with their luggage, by the way, it was free transport, who would complain. So, I was seated very high above a bag of bones – these were bones that would be dumped in trash after eating meat of all sorts of edible animals like goats, sheep, pigs, cattle or even wild animals, that people collected and he bought them for a small fee and he sold them at a factory in Windhoek that used dried bones for something that I really do not know what.

As we drove into the city, my first observations were the crowds of people walking on the sidewalks or crossing the street in groups, vendors alongside the roads, taxis hooting and lots of cars moving in all directions. I think my uncle used the back entrance to the city, that led straight into the suburbs of Katutura, probably because his vehicle was always overloaded with stuff and passengers.

The busy streets were stirred some excitement inside me but at the same time I felt a bit of anxiety because the busy and noisy streets were intimidating. I was soon going to be on those streets to explore the city and blend in with the locals but the thought of it was extremely scary as I knew nothing about the city, apart from the horrific stories of gangs robbing people on the streets, human-trafficking and all sorts of scary things.

There were houses built from all sorts of building materials, some were makeshift corrugated iron sheet shacks in different shapes and forms next to brick houses, some small others double level with brick boundary walls around them and three level apartment buildings that had colorful clothing hung on the balcony railings were all interesting things to observe as we maneuvered through crowded streets to where my aunt was renting a house in the heart of Wanaheda.

It was soon after I wrote my grade 10 examinations and holidays started early for me and I was just excited about being in Windhoek. I was going to stay at my aunt’s house. The soon to be my school, which was the only high school closet to my aunt’s house was A. Shipena High school in Soweto, one of Katutura’s suburbs.

In the first days of arriving in the city, my cousins took me around to the local shops near the house and to their friends’ houses to introduce me and just to show me around the neighborhood. It wasn’t that scary because in fact everyone I met thus far seemed friendly and normal. Nobody looked like a thug or a gangster, at least based on the imagination in my head from descriptions in the books that I have been reading. Some parts of the infamous Goreangab dam were visible from where my aunt’s house was because then, the only newly extended suburb towards that side was called Greenville Matungo, with just few houses that could not obstruct the view of the dam.

Next to explore was town. Wernhill was the only mall with shops like Edgars, Jet, Ackermann, Pick n Pay, Clicks and few restaurants in the Post street mall. I remember that Dross restaurant was in the Post street mall and next to it was the ice cream shop, can’t recall what it was called but I remember that it was a famous hang out for teenagers. I blended in with the city teens as my outfits were similar and I did not stand out.

The vacation was exciting with lots of relatives coming and going or staying for a few days at aunt’s house, mostly to visit my ouma who had to stay with my aunt after oupa’s funeral because she was too old and sickly to be living by herself at Tubusis.

Soon the school started and I made few friends at my new school because in the first week I joined the school’s dancing group. I think that’s a story told in another chapter. My experiences of living in Katutura were interesting. Katutura means "we will not move" in Otjiherero language. It was birthed when the black people were forcefully moved from the area they first settled in namely the Old Location, now known as Pioniers Park. That was one of the horrific acts of apartheid, which I do not want to dwell into right now. Katutura has become home to black people with smaller suburbs within they were named as follows Wambo location which included; Shandumbala, Donkerhoek and Gemengde just next to Damara location which included Dolam, Nama 10 and Golgota bordered by Soweto which extended to Luxury Hill before crossing over to Wanaheda. The Herero location was separated by the main road, the Independence avenue, which stretched from central town all the way through Katutura towards Goreangab Dam. The only biggest shopping complex then was the Black Chain shopping centers before the Katutura Shoprite complex was built just next to the Red Cross building. The Groot Winkels (Afrikaans) or the same translation in all local languages, another shopping complex with a few shops, was in what was then referred to as the old Katutura before all the other extensions. There were other suburbs such as Freedom Square bordering on the Herero location and Okuriangava, Freedom Land, Hakahana and Ombili. Khomasdal was another affluent suburb which was mainly inhibited by the Kleurling or Baster people or those better off people. Many of the suburbs that exist now, most of their names I do not know, did not exist back then.

I have lived all over Katutura with my aunt as she would move wherever she could find an affordable place to rent. My aunt took in many of her siblings kids that went to schools in Windhoek, so the house was usually over crowded with about eight or nine teenagers. The houses that she could rent were not always big enough to host all of us; it was mostly two-bedroom houses, so the girls would take one bedroom, my aunt the other while the boys would stay in a shack at the back. As the only grown-up she had to do multiple jobs, sometimes two jobs at the same time or to even do some extra work on weekends, just to provide for us all. So, you can imagine how life must have been, it wasn’t always easy even though the parents of some of us also assisted her in whatever ways they could.

It was during those moving around that I got to know Windhoek very well and had some interesting experiences too. There was this one time that my aunt could not keep up with living with all of us at the same house and the girls had to go live with her ex-husband, who was the twins’ dad. He lived in Golgota. Initially, I wasn’t supposed to go live there because he agreed to take in his daughters, including Anita, who was practically his daughter as he raised her but he agreed when his favorite daughter Linda begged him to let me stay.

The feeling of rejection and unwanted was difficult to absorb but my cousins made sure that I felt welcomed. I get nostalgia just by thinking back about the experiences of living with Uncle Joel (a brother of President Hage Geingob). He was a great dad and he loved his daughters. While living with my cousins there I was introduced to him through his daughter, Nancy – as we called her then – who used to live in the USA with her mother would visit her cousins and we would go to his office, by then he was the Prime minister. I remember how he would always make excuses every time we went to his office that he was broke and had no money but he would give each one of us N$100 saying that was all he could give us. By then 100 dollars were probably the same value of 1k now, if you had hundred dollars, you were practically rich. You could do a lot with it those days. A top in the Free section of Edgars cost on N$20, if you were lucky you would even get it for N$18. Nobody has ever given me so much money just to go spend on sweet nothings like chocolates and ice cream. I was thinking to myself, “He says he is broke but he is giving six girls each 100 dollars from his pocket, not even from the wallet”. Those are one of the fond memories of my teenage years in Windhoek and living with my cousins.

My living situation at Uncle’s house also had some down moments. Some days were so hard but most days had hilarious display of events. I was and will remain forever grateful for just being able to eat and have a safe place to sleep at night. Windhoek hasn't been the kindest of places to grow up and being a teenager without much support or guidance, it can be tough. I have been in much worse situations, some are heartbreaking as I recall even after so many years, and others were great lessons while some are just hilarious.

Like the times that uncle Immanuel would go and close the main tap that supplied the water to the house while I was in the shower, all covered up with soap, head to toe. I would then hear him shouting "Linda sas ge ti oms ai a hau khoesa si ti showersa xu ǂoa kai re, ti ǁgam-e ra mors" (Linda tell the person you brought to my house to get out of my shower, she is wasting my water) . Linda would beg him to open the tap so that I could just rinse off the soap and get out. At that moment that it was happening, it would make me extremely sad and I'd cry, wanting to take my stuff and leave his house but I knew that I had nowhere to go, so it would be the saddest day for me. Other than that, staying at his house was a completely different experience that taught me a lot about life and toughened me up.

I have learned that even as a school kid, living rent free in someone’s house in Windhoek was a luxury that needed to be highly appreciated. I have been lucky. One good thing about staying there was, he did not see me as his responsibility and I did not need to ask him permission if I wanted to go somewhere, as far as he was concerned, it was better for him not to see me around in his house - so I could go to my friend's houses or to my Uncle Jafet’s service station/shop or even to town whenever I felt unwelcomed. There were times that he spoiled us with nice food and goodies but there were other times that I would be extremely hungry because no food would be reserved for me and the aunty next door was selling fat cakes, so I would go get some on "account" because even though she knew that I wouldn't be able to pay her she would still give me anyway.

Eventually, I completed school and life went on. However, living at people's houses in Windhoek didn't end there. I had not known then that Windhoek would take me on a journey of learning experiences and self discovery on my quest to achieve my dreams. I remember the time that I have started living at Mister K's house.

I joined the National Youth program that offered vocational training courses to out of school youth who could not enroll at tertiary institutions. After my training, I was doing internship at a factory in Windhoek. Upon completing my internship, the company offered me a job. That is when I started staying at Mr. K's house in Wanaheda.

It was a big house and he used to stay with a lot of boys. He was a backyard mechanic/principal, so his house was crowded with oily car parts, dismantled car engine parts siting in the middle of the living-room floor and the backyard had all sorts of old car parts. The deal was for me to pay him 100 dollars monthly and cook lunch on Sundays. That was a good deal and that was actually the first time that I lived by myself as young adult. I was twenty-two years old. I soon got to know everyone living in that neighborhood. Ausi Piriro was my mother’s friend and her house was just a few houses away from where I was staying. I knew Bridgette, her daughter, from the village school at which I was a relief teacher and I was her teacher. Bridgette (Brikitte) as we used to call her, soon became my friend as the age gap between us was not much. I think I was two or three years older than her. She was still in school then, I think she was grade 11 or 12 but she was born and bred in Windhoek and was street smart. She often took me along to house parties with her school friends or we would hang out at a local bar. Some days I would spend the nights at their house and it was not long before I moved into their house.

Bridgette's parents were lovely people who always welcomed their kids' friends in their house. We would sometimes have parties in the backyard and their kids’ friends were always welcome to sleepover. It felt good being part of the family because I was treated like their child and same rules applied for Bridgette and I. While living with them I have experienced so much humility. These people never made me feel unwanted and they did not expect me to contribute anything while living there. They used to say that I was their child and needed not to feel like a stranger. It was up to me to buy small things like bread, butter, milk, eggs and sausage. I have extreme gratitude towards them.

I have learned that not only your blood relatives can be your family. Life takes us through a string of situations that let us depend on each other and circumstances that actually humble us and teach us gratitude and love. It has taught me to assist someone without restraint or expecting anything in return. Sometimes God puts you in situations for you to learn something from it, and in many instances, one not only learn one thing but also contributes positively to the situation. We all need each other in life and while someone may not be aware of the impact that you can have on other's lives.