WINDHOEK- Ovandu Vaupamba, Onjose and One Blood will be rocking the two coastal towns of Walvis Bay and Swakopmund  tonight and tomorrow night at the Duneside Combined School Hall and the Tamariskia Community Hall respectively. Entry is N$40 for each night.

The weekend after follows Ongoro Nomundu and Tura Horns for a big Oviritje extravaganza  in the harbour town next Saturday for N$50 entrance. Due limited space of the venue tickets are limited and only 50 tickets are available now with 100 already gone. Tickets in Windhoek are available from the Kahorere Music Shop near the Herero Mall in Clemence Kapuuo Street in Katutura while in Walvis Bay they are available at Namibia Radio.

Meanwhile, the Manager of the Onÿarata Concert Group, Urioukuao Kahorere, who is also the owner of the Kahorere Music Shop, a popular music shop in Katutura that sells Oviritje music among others, narrowly escaped death in Windhoek when his Nissan pick-up was involved in a collision with another vehicle in Windhoek last Monday. He spent two day in the hospital for treatment.

Monday was also an important day in the Oviritje genre as it was the first anniversary of the passing on of Esther Bessa, who was a singer and dancer for the Gobabis-based Omiramba Concert Group.  She passed on, on Friday June 17, 2011 in the Katutura Hospital after she had been in a coma since 30 April.

She was buried a week thereafter in Talismanus in the Otjombinÿe Constituency. The late Bessa’s hospitalisation and eventual death was mired in controversy with her family accusing the State health authorities, especially in Gobabis, of lack of good care and uncaring. Not only that  but the late Bessa had to be shuttled between health facilities in Gobabis and Windhoek while in a coma.

At one point her family found her missing from the Intensive Care Unit of the Katutura Hospital as she had apparently been transferred back to Gobabis on the instructions of one of the doctors without their knowledge. Her family and the Omiramba group leader Ithele Kambirongo could not understand how, in her state, she could have been transferred back to the Gobabis State Hospital that may not lay claim to better health facilities.

The Rutingee General Dealer in Katutura’s Maroela residential area was a hive of activities on Monday, April 30 as the Oviritje fraternity including the hordes of the genre’s fans, lovers and followers converged on this unofficial road shows mecca of the genre for a double bill to celebrate Pejamenua’s first birth day and to also fundraise for funds for her maintenance. Pejamenua is the daughter of Bessa.