I was staring into the dregs of a bottle of Hunter’s Dry when it hit me.
His name floated towards me from the white tag next to a barbed wire birds’ nest and I realised that while we’re shooting the breeze or walking our dogs the two blocks it takes for them to relieve themselves in someone else’s rock garden… David Ndjavera is taking over the world.At first it was just coincidence.I saw him at the Namibian Theatre and Film Awards nomination evening and took a photograph of him and Joel Haikali before moving on with a life in which he wasn’t around every corner.The next day I got an email.”The Chameleon’ – a one man theatre play starring David Ndjavera.’’Him again,’ I thought as I entered ‘Namibian Theatre and Film Awards jury meeting’ into my day planner before checking my mail once more.At this point, having just seen him then being invited to view his play; it was one of those coincidences that make me feel like there is some kind of poetry to the world. I get the same feeling when I’ve been singing a song all day then walk into Checkers to hear it playing or when I’m thinking about a long lost someone who then contacts me.I like to think of these little coincidences as God being cute but when I opened my mail to a horde of ‘Taste of Rain’ press releases from my editor, Tony Figueira and Richard Pakleppa, it kind of graduated to God being less cute.’David Ndjavera gives a chilling performance as an ex-Koevoet torturer who crosses paths with one of his victims,’ they said over and over and over again.’Third time just as charming for David Ndjavera,’ I said out loud before tallying him up as being at the film awards nomination night, in the play I had been invited to see and in the press release I was reading. It was strange but not yet strange enough to realise that he was slowly weaving himself into the fabric of… everything.With more pressing things to do than cower at the might of David Ndjavera, I went on with my day which included brushing up on a few films before doing a final judging for the film awards. However this proved to be just as swarming with Ndjavera because the man is in almost every narrative film that was nominated.In ‘Dead River’ he plays an old man coming to terms with his past, in ‘Try’ he plays a petty criminal with a penchant for poor boy caps, in ‘Place of Peace,’ he plays a mysterious waiter and in ‘100 Buck’s he plays an optimistic taxi driver.There was no escaping him.Smiling, laughing, frowning or beating up Joel Haikali on screen, David Ndjavera was everywhere and it seemed like if you tried to get away from him, he would only wheedle his way into your psyche in as many guises as John Malkovich in that all-Malkovich scene in ‘Being John Malkovich’ (1999). Like the most clichéd of revelations, this one came to me while I was staring into the depths of a bottle of alcohol.I had escaped to the one place I knew the film star couldn’t find me and as I walked around the Franco-Namibian Cultural Centre gallery, which was still trashed with beer bottles and confetti from the Unam Fashion show held two nights before; I knew that someone as seasoned as Ndjavera couldn’t haunt me at the annual Unam student art exhibition.I chuckled triumphantly at my cunning escape and on a whim I picked up an empty bottle of Hunter’s Dry and looked around through the glass which gave everything a green hue. What caught my eye was a large barbed wire bird’s nest near the gallery entrance.As I was intrigued by the fragility of the eggs and the viciousness of the barbed wire, I walked towards it thinking I’d like to include it in my review.However, a glance at its accompanying name tag made my hands grow cold. I dropped the bottle and it rolled away in a whirring sound I couldn’t be sure was bottle rolling on flooring or blood rushing to my head because the piece was made by none other than … David Ndjavera.I don’t remember much after that.The only thing I recall after being engulfed in a faint is waking up with my arms bound in this padded cell and a cottony taste saturating my tongue.Not long ago an orderly told me that I have a visitor.I can hear their footsteps walking down the hall in a rhythm that sets my teeth on edge and my hands begin to shake like a Mardi Gras maraca.As the doorknob turns to the left, I hope it’s my mother. But given the fact that there is only one man plaguing my waking existence… I know it isn’t.
Catch David Ndjavera in ‘Taste of Rain’ on Tuesday, November 20 at 20h00 at the Goethe Centre and on Wednesday,November 21, at 18h00 at the FNCC. All screenings will include screenings of Namibia Film Commission produced short films.
