Nujoma Drive

An uber drive to Cape Town’s Castle of Good Hope is the last place I expect to be a site of a memorial, but it may be as good a place as any.

The midday traffic is starting to thicken. The sun has clearly mistaken Cape Town for Windhoek and it burns my arm when I dare to place my elbow in its glare.

I share that silly little joke with the Uber driver who realises I’m from Namibia. Windhoek is a place he’s heard of, hopes to visit, and he’s shocked when I tell him the founding president recently died.

“Sam Nujoma!” he says, as if I’ve informed him of the death of an old friend.

Quickly, he asks for the details. When? 8 February. Cause of death? Reports say illness. Age? 95. The fact that Nujoma had lived so long seems to soothe him and he launches into a tribute worthy of a more formal commemoration.

“Nujoma was one of the best, a freedom fighter who took no nonsense,” says Ven, whose name I note on the Uber app.

Ven’s praise is effusive. It recalls Nujoma petitioning the United Nations for Namibia’s freedom from South African rule and the oppression of apartheid. His eulogy remembers that Nujoma was a straight talker and that he was not interested in appeasing the ruling white minority.

In the weeks since Nujoma’s death, a more nuanced picture of his life and efforts has emerged in the national consciousness.

But I agree that Nujoma’s work, impact and commitment to a free and independent Namibia birthed the relatively peaceful country we enjoy today.

Watching the national tour of Nujoma’s body from afar in Cape Town has been strange, isolating and like peering into my own reality through a fog.

So I feel grateful to share a moment with a working-class South African of colour who really takes a moment to honour Namibia’s loss as well as the part Nujoma played in South Africa’s long walk to freedom.

When I tell Ven that the then sitting president Hage Geingob died almost exactly a year before Nujoma, he whistles sharply as if warding off an evil spell.

“That’s not good. Not good at all.”

No it’s not.

Not at all.

After sitting silently together for a moment, Ven lets me out at the castle.

Despite having looked straight ahead throughout our brief trip, he turns to face me fully and with a small smile.

He seems to want to underscore his sincerity. So I return his smile and say I’ll convey his condolences when I watch Nujoma’s casket procession go by in Windhoek.

The idea of Nujoma’s body visiting various regions sits well with him and Ven thanks me for carrying his message before driving away under the white-hot sun.

As I amble towards the castle gate, cursing my decision to wear high-heeled boots for a trek through dirt and over cobblestone, I think about how this is where so much of what Namibia endured begun.

The Dutch on the horizon, Jan van Riebeeck building the Fort de Goede Hoop which later became the Castle of Good Hope, which was once the Western Cape’s local headquarters of the South African Army.

The same military outfit which waged war against Namibian independence, famously led by Sam Nujoma.

At the gate, a woman in camouflage fatigues greets me apprehensively. I’m told you can sign up for the military at the castle and my blood runs cold at the continued need for recruitment.

Namibia’s battle for independence is long won and we are grateful.

But somewhere, always, there is war.

– martha@namibian.com.na; Martha Mukaiwa on Twitter and Instagram; marthamukaiwa.com