The Caprivi strip is along narrow section of land in the north of Namibia that spikes out to the east touching Zimbabwe with Zambia to the north and Botswana to the south. Angola shares the northern border with Zambia. Here the Himba people live with a scattering of other tribes including the San-people.
In the seventies this piece of land was cris-crossed by the South African Defence Force waging a full scale war against SWAPO a communist based political party.
Rasta was a nine year old boy living with his parents and extended family on the eastern section of the Caprivi strip.
"One day the tanks came and was shooting all the time, they just came down the road, we were running. I can still see them coming. The children just kept on running and running through the bush. We run for a long time. We run every day for many days! Until we get to the people on the other side of the river (Angola).There we are put with many other people who ran away. There we stayed, but after a while the army (SADF) came again. The SWAPO helicopters came and was in the air trying to get people away.They were hanging ladders out of the people to cimb in.I climb the ladder and hanged on. Yes why not! I held tight. We were put down. Then the lorries came and took us to the north west of Angola. There was a refugee camp there. I went to school there. "
I sat and listened to him; we were drawing the outlines of the countries boarders in the dust. He got very exited when I point out places like Grootfontein, Katima-molilo, Tsumkwe and the Poppa falls. "Yes! yes! you know" he exclaimed. By now a few peope were gathering around us listening.
"I moved to the next camp" he says "and the next and some other camps until I get to Nairobi. There I go to college, I study, I live there. For seventeen years. Then they put me here in Kakuma. Now I am fifty. Here I am. Here in this camp".
He is the only Namibian in the camp and has been at the reception area for about five years. The normal time spent there in the dormitory-like buildings are between two to three weeks until tent is given and a place allocated to erect it. Mark the refugee guide explain that we were lucky to find him in a co-herent state, as sometimes he is not so lucid. He refuses to move from the reception and now they (the camp officials) are used to him there.
When I ask Rasta what he wants to happen; he smiled "I am waiting" he says "I am waiting to go to America!"
It is amazing how the image of America as the land of promise still holds after all these centuries of immigration. Enjoy Cairo.
ReplyDeleteRoula.