New Era

WINDHOEK - Landine !Goagoses, age estimated at 50 years, was on February 18 rushed to Windhoek from Grootfontein where she succumbed to her illness.

More than a month after, Chief Alex Kaveru of Okasitu village in the Okotjituuo communal area in the Okakarara constituency, has as yet to hear from the authorities about the whereabouts of her body and its repatriation to the village for burial. Is it still in Windhoek? Tsumeb? He is not quite sure. A body has been reported in Tsumeb and it is not certain whether it is hers. Chief Kaveru says the problem of burying members of the San community is an everyday problem in his village and surroundings. As the San people are normally a community that sticks together, employing one of their members means taking responsibility for a whole community. This also means responsibility for their livelihood and eventually for their burial with little help from the authorities.

Kaveru seems to contradict the former Governor of the Otjozondjupa Region, Theo Eiseb, who said this is no longer a problem in the region as regional councillors now intervene on behalf of their San constituency members to apply to the regional council to help financially with the burial of those who cannot afford it. Eiseb, however, admitted that initially it was a problem.

The problem is not Chief Kaveru's only. Despite Government's efforts to afford the San community, especially the elderly, a dignified burial by providing coffins, it seems the problem is not limited to the senior generation but is general to most San communities wherever they mind themselves. Most of the regional councillors in the areas populated by the San communities seem to affirm that burying San people present them with a financial hurdle.

The Councillor for the Otjombinde constituency in the Omaheke Region, Mati Ndjoze, admits that there is simply no official provision for the burial of San people in his constituency with the families of the deceased expected to dig up N$600 or so for a standard coffin made specially for those at the unfortunate social and economic continuum, if not specifically for the San people. Yet, most able-bodied San people in his constituency are either unemployed or only receive pitiful rewards for their toiling to even afford this coffin for themselves or their family members.

Ndjoze says as a result, the community is forced to scurry around to scrap together money to afford the N$600 for the coffin. But the cost involved is not only for the coffin, as there are other costs like for transport from Gobabis to Otjombinde. He says they have particularly been experiencing problems with people who die in Gobabis after being rushed there by ambulance. After such an emergency trip to Gobabis per ambulance, the responsibility of the Government seems to end there and then and the impoverished family is left to its own devices upon the death of one or the other member. Not being able to afford the deceased's burial thus becomes a burden to the family that the councillor as well as the community cannot shy away from. Thus most of the San people prefer to have their own pass on in the constituency rather than being rushed to Gobabis where upon death they become a burden for the family and the community.

Chief Fanuel Tumbee Tjombe was not aware of any recent complaint relating to the difficulties within the San community as far as the burial of their loved ones is concerned. He has been in and out of the constituency to be certain but did not deny that it might exist. He recalled hearing of the case of San women whose burial took months because of the same problem.

The San people in the Otjinene constituency are generally at the sharper receiving end of inhuman existence and lack of proper burial service is not their only concern. Ejected from neighbouring commercial farms, the best the village of Otjinene has been able to offer them is a space for squatting. In view of their squalid living conditions, a dignified burial has thus been something hard to come by, even the N$600 coffin has been out of their reach.

"Very much, as San people we do not have work and even when a sick person is taken to Gobabis with an ambulance and dies there we cannot get him back as we cannot afford the coffin or the transport," San senior councillor Max Kao affirms the problem. "Even the coffins, the so-called San's coffins, we cannot afford," he adds, referring to coffins from the coffin-making project in Gobabis pointing out that the community faces the hardship of collecting money for the burial of one its members while farmers in communal areas have been able to help in the case of San workers who have been helping them with faming activities.

Due to lack of money to afford coffins or let alone transport, many a time the San people have been forced to give up their deceased ones wherever they pass away. What burial such deceased eventually receive is unknown to Kao, who only hopes the State does take care of them. He adds that a member of the community who died in the Epukiro communal area last year was only buried this year. Kao who serves under Chief Sangiro Kanguatjivi, an unofficial chief of the San in the Epukiro constituency, says their problem is lack of land and if they had land where they could engage in self-help projects, their living conditions would perhaps improve and their traditional leadership recognised.

Assaria Tjingaete, the Assistant Programme Manager of the Ongendo Development Trust at Otjinene, testifies that as recent as beginning of February, the trust had to chip in to make the burial of a San child possible by literally scraping for money from among the community. The N$600 coffin was not available, compelling them to sharpen their begging efforts for a more expensive coffin and the transport to ferry the remains of the deceased from Gobabis where he had died. This, according to Tjingaete, is their daily struggle in the burial of San people with the cheap coffins hardly available mostly due to lack of wood to continue production. Neither would the authority release any body without a coffin.

Luckily a prominent villager by the name of Kaurumbua Katire volunteered his car.

The problem, Tjingaete adds, is not confined to burials in the Otjinene constituency, but San pupils have equally not been escaping the difficulties engulfing the San community in Otjinene. Some children who attended school at Gunichas last year were made to scramble for places in the local schools in Otjinene this year. Previously they benefited from the Omaheke San Trust that has meantime collapsed. Tjingaete says they could only manage to have four pupils accepted, while the majority is languishing in the San informal settlement on the outskirts of the village where about 20 people share a single-room shack.

The Aminuis constituency also experiences similar problems of able-bodied but unemployed San people, or their families not affording coffins. Ultimately the burden falls on the councillor, Ervin Uanguta, and the community at large to collect money for the funeral(s) costs, which include coffin and transport costs.

Uanguta says it has not been plain-sailing for the coffin-making project that started well but ran into problems inflicted by the coffin-makers trainees themselves in Gobabis. However, the Omaheke Governor, Laura McLeod-Katjirua intervened to revive the project.

Uanguta says his constituency has as yet to partake in the coffin-making project having been left out together with the Otjinene and Steinhausen constituencies during the first phase. The problems that had been associated with the project notwithstanding, Uanguta attests to the quality of the coffins. However, the problem is not a daily one but occasional when there is a death among the San community other than that of an elderly for which the State provides a coffin. Uanguta says while the Government's expectation is that local communal farmers should take care of the funeral costs of the San people who work for them, given their nomadic life they are not in permanent employment of these farmers and this makes it difficult for the farmers to help them, even in incidences of death. It boggles the Councilor's mind how the problem may be solved, mindful that there is no way the Government can be expected to provide for the coffins of able-bodied people.

Uanguta says as much as communities have in most cases been forthcoming in helping with the funeral costs of San people, they have not been encouraged by the continued accusation that San people partly owe their underdeveloped socio-economic conditions due to their continued exploitation by these very same communal farmers they work for. In their turn farmers feel since the Government seems to champion the development of the San people, it must fully take responsibility for them even burying them.

Chief Clerk in the Gobabis Constituency Office, Sydney Mashebe, emphasis the point it is not possible to give each and every San person who cannot afford a coffin for free if the project has to sustain itself. But many a times the project has found itself in the difficult position of having to discount the coffins for N$300 from the usual N$500 it is supposed to sell. As a result the project has found itself without material to continue production. Only if there is some benefactor out there donating material to continue production could the project be in a position to help. But helping it has been helping but at a risk to the project.

He confirms that the project is currently on track thanks to a N$13,000 donation for material from the United Nations International Children Fund (UNICEF) with five coffins in stock at the time of the interview. He points out the need for the project to continue to support itself if only to be able to afford the upkeep of its staff.

Currently of the initial five only two people have remained on the project due to the problems it has been experiencing. The problems have also meant them having to rely on drought relief food for their upkeep with the project at times unable to afford each a mere N$250 monthly allowance. The two are currently only receiving N$150 each.

Mashebe says most of the problems that the project has been experiencing is because of the fact that coffins do not sell at the usual N$500-N$600 they are supposed to sell because of the need among the communities they serve.

He also testifies to councilor having been compelled many a times to dip in their own pockets to afford one or the other San person from their constituencies a coffin.

Back to Top