Despair rises as the flood water recedes

THE shock of this past weekend’s floods didn’t recede along with the water on Monday morning when residents of Mariental’s worst-affected areas regained access to their homes.

For eight families living at the Sandberg Hotel at the entrance to the town, the situation became worse. Because of extensive damage to the hotel’s infrastructure, hotel employees this week received notice that their jobs would be terminated at the end of March.Their boss, Ernst Simon, says that he just can’t afford to keep the place going.”I feel very sorry for these guys, they’re really good people.Maybe if, in eight months to a year, I manage to get it back up, I will try to employ them again,” he said in a telephonic interview with The Namibian at the end of last week.”What do I do now?” a disheartened Poppie Kambule asked while showing The Namibian where she had tried storing mattresses and other furniture while the floodwater kept rising around her.When the water reached knee height, she said, she decided to give up this attempt and rather tried to get her five children to higher ground.”I have a baby aged one year, another three years old, and another who’s five years old.What now? I’ve lost my job and my home in one go.At least if you have one you can look for the other,” she said.A co-worker, Axel Sheekule, also lived on the premises – with his pregnant girlfriend – is now staying with a friend, while Kambule and her family have been moved into the Mariental High School’s hostel.”For now we’re okay, but sooner or later we’ll have to leave there and find somewhere else to stay,” she said.”How do I feel?” Sheekule asked, waiting for an answer.”People were travelling on this road with boats this weekend,” he says while taking The Namibian to a house behind the Mariental hotel, also owned by Simon, where a co-worker lives.”She’s afraid to show you this,” another of his party says of the place.A sour smell emanated from the entrance to the house, which looked more like a construction site than a place where anyone ever lived.”See here? This used to be the bathroom,” Sheekula said, pointing to a toilet, which, along with the bathtub and the headboard of a bed, was the only remaining item in the entire building.Earlier, Sheekule and Kambule had shown the newspaper a number of their own items that had been “dancing on the water”, according to Sheekule, employed as a barman at the Sandberg.After walking about 300 metres, Kambule looked down and asked Sheekule to pick up a shoe stuck in the mud, which had caught her eye.It was her daughter’s, she confirmed after studying it.This discovery elicited another revelation from the mother, who said that her children’s school clothes and books, along with some of their furniture, were swept away by the water rushing past, never to be seen again.The diesel-powered water heater situated below the hotel was still under water, and Sheekule almost slipped in the foot-high mud in front of the stairs leading to it.”This is the big damage,” he says.Owner Simon would confirm this later, saying that the geyser was totally destroyed, but refrained from estimating the cost of the damage.Simon said that, as the hotel didn’t make much profit, he depended on his plot in the Hardap Irrigation Scheme to subsidise the hotel operation.”That land helped me run my other businesses, and the damage caused to it [the plot] alone is around N$2 million.I don’t know if I’ll ever get on my feet again,” he said.Meanwhile his workers are trying to find a way out of an impossible situation, and if that solution should come from a political power, Kambule says, so be it.”Maybe the President will do something, because I don’t see anyone starting a business here again anytime soon” she said.Sheekule has his doubts, though.The President visited the town on Wednesday, he said, and nothing came of that.Because of extensive damage to the hotel’s infrastructure, hotel employees this week received notice that their jobs would be terminated at the end of March.Their boss, Ernst Simon, says that he just can’t afford to keep the place going.”I feel very sorry for these guys, they’re really good people.Maybe if, in eight months to a year, I manage to get it back up, I will try to employ them again,” he said in a telephonic interview with The Namibian at the end of last week.”What do I do now?” a disheartened Poppie Kambule asked while showing The Namibian where she had tried storing mattresses and other furniture while the floodwater kept rising around her.When the water reached knee height, she said, she decided to give up this attempt and rather tried to get her five children to higher ground.”I have a baby aged one year, another three years old, and another who’s five years old.What now? I’ve lost my job and my home in one go.At least if you have one you can look for the other,” she said.A co-worker, Axel Sheekule, also lived on the premises – with his pregnant girlfriend – is now staying with a friend, while Kambule and her family have been moved into the Mariental High School’s hostel.”For now we’re okay, but sooner or later we’ll have to leave there and find somewhere else to stay,” she said.”How do I feel?” Sheekule asked, waiting for an answer.”People were travelling on this road with boats this weekend,” he says while taking The Namibian to a house behind the Mariental hotel, also owned by Simon, where a co-worker lives.”She’s afraid to show you this,” another of his party says of the place.A sour smell emanated from the entrance to the house, which looked more like a construction site than a place where anyone ever lived.”See here? This used to be the bathroom,” Sheekula said, pointing to a toilet, which, along with the bathtub and the headboard of a bed, was the only remaining item in the entire building.Earlier, Sheekule and Kambule had shown the newspaper a number of their own items that had been “dancing on the water”, according to Sheekule, employed as a barman at the Sandberg.After walking about 300 metres, Kambule looked down and asked Sheekule to pick up a shoe stuck in the mud, which had caught her eye.It was her daughter’s, she confirmed after studying it. This discovery elicited another revelation from the mother, who said that her children’s school clothes and books, along with some of their furniture, were swept away by the water rushing past, never to be seen again.The diesel-powered water heater situated below the hotel was still under water, and Sheekule almost slipped in the foot-high mud in front of the stairs leading to it.”This is the big damage,” he says.Owner Simon would confirm this later, saying that the geyser was totally destroyed, but refrained from estimating the cost of the damage.Simon said that, as the hotel didn’t make much profit, he depended on his plot in the Hardap Irrigation Scheme to subsidise the hotel operation.”That land helped me run my other businesses, and the damage caused to it [the plot] alone is around N$2 million.I don’t know if I’ll ever get on my feet again,” he said.Meanwhile his workers are trying to find a way out of an impossible situation, and if that solution should come from a political power, Kambule says, so be it.”Maybe the President will do something, because I don’t see anyone starting a business here again anytime soon” she said.Sheekule has his doubts, though.The President visited the town on Wednesday, he said, and nothing came of that.