Namibia country report

Typical of this category of beneficiaries was Lukas who settled at Drimiopsis in 1996 whenhe was 62 years old. He was born in 1934 in Omabalantu in what is now Omusati Region inthe north, and never went to school. He said that his parents had not treated their childrenwell. His ‘education’ was to look after goats and cattle. He was recruited as a contract workerat a young age and spent his entire working life working on commercial farms. His maintasks as a farm worker were looking after livestock, which included fencing and animalhealth tasks. One of his tasks was to collect cattle in the veld on horseback. After injuringhis back, he found it increasingly difficult to perform his duties, and his employer suggestedthat he should leave the farm if was no longer able to do farm work. He had heard thatgovernment was accommodating people at Drimiopsis. He talked to the then headmasterof the school on the farm, Kilus Nguvauva (who later became the Regional Councillor forthe constituency in which Drimiopsis falls and thereafter Deputy Minister of Fisheries),about settling there. Mr Nguvauva gave him permission to look for a place for himself onthe farm, and Lukas stayed on there, but he settled on the eastern side of the main road,away from the group project, hoping that he would be resettled elsewhere sometime, whichhe believed would enable him to “go forward”.Benjamin’s life journey was very similar to that of Lukas. He was born in 1932, never wentto school, and spent his working life moving from one commercial farm to another, thelast being in the district of Maltahöhe in the south. The owner first sold his livestock andthen the whole farm to move to South Africa, leaving Benjamin without employment. Dueto illness, Benjamin was no longer able to do hard physical work. His arms, legs and wholebody ached. When he heard that government had obtained Drimiopsis and that people heknew were going to settle there, he decided to do the same. In 1991, at the age of 59, he stoppedwork and went to Drimiopsis where he stayed for two years and then took up the offer ofresettlement at Skoonheid. He anticipated that their lives would improve at Skoonheid, andthat government would help them to achieve this improvement so that they wouldn’t haveto struggle to achieve it. But he was also aware that he would have to do some work and notjust rely on government support. All went well initially when he and the other beneficiariesreceived food from the communal garden as well as government food rations under the Foodfor Work Programme, but when the latter was terminated in 1998, the struggle to survivebegan again.Group resettlement in Omaheke gave some people an opportunity to retire to resettlementfarms before reaching official retirement age. Some stated that they opted for resettlementbecause they had worked long and hard enough for somebody else and needed to slowdown. They sought a place on a group resettlement scheme in order to obtain a secure andpermanent place of residence. Many expected government to assist them to improve theirlives considering that they had worked so hard on commercial farms.The case of Karolina and her family exemplifies this point. She was born on a commercialfarm close to Drimiopsis, but does not remember when. On that farm she met her husbandwho was a farm worker. She accompanied him when he worked on various commercialfarms in the area. The last job he had before settling at Drimiopsis was piece work on a farmneighbouring the one where they had met. Although he had not yet reached pensionable130 ● Livelihoods after land reform: Namibia country report (2010)