Living on the edge

THE CLOCK has just struck 12h00, and the midday heat over Omalyandhila village in the Omusati region soars to its peak.

At one homestead, 52-year-old Mweyako Shipena is seated with her legs stretched out on an maize meal bag which she uses as a mat. She is weaving a basket. This is her home.

Her family of 27 people undergo a daily struggle to stay alive in four dingy huts.

Nineteen of them are children aged between one month and eight years. And, although the house is neatly built with sticks, the hopelessness and call for help on the children’s faces paint the entire grotesque picture of poverty.

Five of these children, all barefeet, had earlier run to meet me as I approached the entrance of their homestead. They wore huge smiles of anticipation. As though unsure whether to greet me or not, they had stopped midstream, and stared inquisitively.

With shoulders hung low in disappointment, they then slowly made their way back.

Their hopes had just been shattered, again. I had no bag, no food … just my notebook and pen.

Shipena tries to call them to order. She tells them to leave while we have our discussion. They walk away. One goes behind the hut which was offering us shade, and starts to sob heavily.

“This is our everyday reality. Don’t worry, she will stop crying soon. They were running to you because they have not eaten today. They probably thought you had brought them food because every time the councillor comes here, he brings them bread,” Shipena says.

The dire situation is better captured by data from the Namibia Statistics Agency (NSA), which says more than 10% of the Namibian population is living in abject poverty, translating to about 258 259 people. Namibia’s population stands at approximately 2,4 million.

The poverty figures are according to the unsustainable development goals’ (SDGs) baseline report for Namibia for 2019, launched last month by the NSA.

Namibia’s extreme poverty line stands at N$293 per month for food for households. This is the average amount available to families to live on per month.

But Shipena says her reality is worse than this – a month can pass without her receiving or earning a single cent. Even paying for water, which they fetch at a neighbour’s tap for N$50 a month, is an uphill struggle. At 52, she does not qualify for the government old-age grant. Only those 60 years and above get a state pension of N$1 300 a month.

The family has enough huts to sleep in, but in their state, they cannot withstand the of the weather during the rainy season.

The family members have no beds or mattresses. They do not have enough blankets either. They use one pot, which they put up five times before enough porridge is prepared to feed the 27 of them. The schoolgoing children have no uniforms, neither do they have shoes.

Shipena is unemployed. During the rainy season, she earns money from ploughing the field, and on odd days, she weaves baskets, which she sells to other villagers.

She has eight children of her own – seven girls and a boy – who have given her 19 grandchildren to look after. Although she tried to educate all her children, none of them completed school, and the one with the highest qualification ended in Grade 10. They all do not have formal employment.

Her children and grandchildren all live with her. Shipena told The Namibian that most of her daughters leave home “to look for employment”, only to come back a few months later heavily pregnant – “to give birth again”.

On this day, 12 September, three of her grandchildren were not home. Two, aged seven and eight, were still at school at Chief Daniel Shooya Combined School. It was the school authorities who contacted Titus Kanyele, the Onesi constituency councillor, about the harsh conditions under which the children live, and asked him to intervene.

As we chat, four of Shipena’s children join us in the hut. They are all breastfeeding. The babies do not have nappies. They pee as we talk, and others poo. But the people are unbothered. The conversation continues.

Namibia has a problem of absent fathers, which saw first lady Monica Geingos embarking on a campaign to emphasise the importance of having both parents playing a role in a child’s life. This is yet to yield results.

According to the 2016 social statistics report by the NSA, Namibia had 204 162 orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) – most of them fending for themselves. Of this number, 137 309 OVC are receiving maintenance grants, which one can use as a proxy for absent fathers.

The 2016 National Housing and Income Expenditure Survey (NHIES) also states that 53,5% of households are headed by males and 58,1% by females, while 86 596 households have more than one orphan, 66,6% of them residing in rural areas.

Ndapandula is Shipena’s eldest child. She has three children aged eight, five and two. She does not have a birth certificate because her mother could not locate her father, and as a result, her children too do not have national documents.

Ndapandula’s last-born Olivia*, clad in a red dress with white and blue heart drawings, walks in and smiles at me. There is a sack protruding from the toddler’s dress. Ndapandula explains that her daughter was diagnosed with anorectal fistula.

Anorectal fistula is a small channel that develops between the vagina and anus because of an infection, which leads to faeces coming out through the vagina. Surgery is required to close the channel.

The medical card shows that two-year-old Olivia was operated on last month at the Oshakati State Hospital, and she was due for a follow-up on 3 September. But nine days later, Ndapandula is still scratching her head for transport fare. The father of her children has not been supportive.

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