I became my mother’s caregiver when I was just four years old.

My mother was from Opuwo, in the Kunene region of Namibia. When I was four, she became very ill. In our area, people strongly believed in witchcraft. They thought her sickness was caused by something supernatural, something that hospitals and doctors could not fix. She was stuck in bed for weeks, and she grew weaker every day.

One day, one of my mother’s nephews came to our village for a funeral. He saw how sick she was and knew she needed more than just medicine from a doctor. He suggested to my grandfather that he take my mother to live with him so she could get traditional treatment. My grandfather agreed, and the nephew said he would come back for her later.

Even after starting the traditional treatments, my mother’s health did not get better. On her good days, when she felt a little stronger, she would wash her clothes or give me a bath—things no one else would do for me. But those good days were rare.

The Journey to Find Help

One day, my mother decided we had to leave. She was very weak, but she took me with her to hitchhike to another village. This was where her own mother was from, and it was closer to the main road to Outjo, which made it easier to find a ride. We had no money, so we relied on the kindness of people we did not know.

We stayed in that village for a few days, waiting for a free ride. I remember one very hard day when my mother was so dizzy she could not stand. She asked me to cook porridge, a huge task for a four-year-old. As I struggled with the pot over the fire, an ostrich suddenly appeared and tried to eat our food. I was so scared that I ran into the house. When I looked back, the pot had tipped over, spilling our only meal. I cried from hunger and frustration.

Our luck changed when we were waiting near some stores. A woman who knew my mother came over and gave her N$10, which was a lot of money for us at the time. While they were talking, a car stopped.
The woman knew the driver and asked if he could give us a ride, explaining that we had no money. To
our surprise, he said yes.

Midnight in a Strange Town

The driver took us past Outjo all the way to Okakarara, the town nearest to where my mother’s nephew lived. We arrived at one in the morning with no place to sleep. The kind driver let us sleep in an old canopy outside his house. It was not much, but it kept us safe.

Early the next morning, we waited for the man to wake up. When he did, he asked my mother what we planned to do. She told him she was looking for her nephew who worked in the town. The man helped us find him, and soon my mother’s nephew came to take us to his home. At his house, we met another woman from my mother’s village. She was also there for traditional treatment for an illness. When she saw that my mother was much sicker than she was, this kind woman

washed our clothes and blankets and gave me a bath. I had not had one in days. She also cooked food for us. Our last meal had been breakfast the day before. Hunger was a constant part of our lives. Whenever I told my mother I was hungry, she would tell me, “Drink water” We accepted this without complaining.

The price of help

After three days, my mother’s nephew called the relative we were supposed to stay with, and that man came to get us. That was when our real struggle began. I now see it as a kind of modern slavery.

Even though my mother was sick, she was expected to do all the housework: laundry, cleaning, and cooking for her nephew and his family. The nephew did take her to a doctor and paid for her treatment, but in return, my mother had to work for him for free, with no end in sight.

The doctor found that my mother could not eat maize meal, the main food in our region. She could only have pasta, rice, meat, or milk. But the nephew said he would not regularly buy these more expensive foods. If there was no milk, she just did not eat. When there was milk, she would pour all of it into my porridge, leaving nothing for herself.

As my mother grew sicker from the hard work and lack of good food, I had to do even more. By the time I was six, I was washing her clothes and cooking for both of us.

School and Separation

When I turned seven, it was time for me to start school. My mother and I were sent to Okakarara to stay with her nephew’s son, who was the principal of the primary school I would attend.

Because my mother could not read or write, the only work she could find was as a domestic worker. She needed money for my school fees, so she took a job cleaning houses and looking after the children for one of my teachers. Her first full paycheck all went toward my education.

To earn more money and pay for the small outside room we lived in – which had only a toilet and no bathroom – my mother took on extra jobs. I helped by raking yards, and she washed clothes on weekends while working her main job during the week. We did all this just to have one meal a day and a roof over our heads. I slept on the floor of our little room and often got sick with the flu during the cold winters.

A Friend’s Kindness

I had a friend whose mother was also a teacher at my school. One day after school, she came home with me. When she saw how we lived, she told her mother. Her mother came to talk to me and asked if I would like to stay with their family on school days and come back to my mother on weekends. My mother agreed, hoping I would have a proper bed and regular meals. This only lasted for a month before the owner of our room became unhappy with the arrangement, and I had to go back to sleeping on the floor.

There were other small hurts, too. The principal, my mother’s nephew’s son, drove to school every morning with his wife and their two children. But he always left me behind. I had to take the bus to the very school where he was in charge. Even as a child, I wondered why he would not give me a ride, but I knew not to ask an adult such a question. This was our routine until the school year ended.

The Final Separation

During the December holidays, my mother’s nephew bought a farm and planned to move there in January. When the time came, they moved to the farm, and my mother went with them to continue her unpaid work. But there was no place for me there.

That is how I ended up being sent to boarding school, separated from the mother I had cared for since I was four years old.

To read Jasana’s emotional and inspiring story about her experiences at boarding school, click on the following link:

Growing Up In A Boarding School By Jasana Uandia

By: Jasana

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The Pain of Miscarrying the seed you looked forward to seeing
Miscarriage, you are a thief
Miscarriage, you are cruel
Miscarriage, you are a restless wanderer, searching for the warriors of this earth whom you can attack.
I am talking about our mothers, our women, our birthers
Miscarriage, you never consider, but do as you please
I am enough of you.

It is our young mothers who have a choice to terminate if they want to.
It is our young child carriers who decide if they will keep or destroy the innocent seed, but little do they know the pain of losing,
Only if they knew how it feels when you, I mean, you Miscarriage when you arrive and destroy.
The tears, the pain, the sorrow, the fights.
Miscarriage, you are cruel.
Miscarriage, you are a restless wanderer, searching for the warriors of this earth whom you can attack.

Blessed is the womb.
Blessed is the woman.
Blessed is the process of giving birth.
I am talking about our mothers, our women, our birthers
Miscarriage, you never consider, but do as you please
I am enough of you.

Miscarriage, please take a step back.
Let go and let nature take its course
Let loose and allow people to multiply in numbers
Let go and stop the pain and tears dripping from our sisters and mothers of this country.
Let you be and allow joy and fresh souls around.
The Pain of Miscarrying the seed you looked forward to seeing
Miscarriage, you are a thief
Miscarriage, you are cruel
Miscarriage, you are a restless wanderer, searching for the warriors of this earth whom you can attack.

May the spirit of Miscarriage fade off!!!

By: Nonny Vee

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Mama feared the river for what it took; I loved it for what it carried away.

The river knows my name. It has whispered it since I was a child, its voice curling through the reeds, dancing over the rocks, and sinking into the depths where secrets sleep. The current has seen me grow, mirrored my tears, and carried away the echoes of my mother’s sighs.

Mama never liked the river. She said it swallowed dreams. She said it reminded her of things she wanted to forget. But I loved it—how it moved, refused to be trapped, and could be gentle and fierce all at once. I wanted to be like that. But I was never the river.

I was the stillness before the storm, the quiet weight of unshed tears, the emptiness left by things unspoken. I carried Mama’s scars like a birthright and felt Papa’s absence like a ghost at my shoulder. I spent years trying to understand what it meant to be whole when parts of you were missing when memories of love came wrapped in sorrow.

Tonight, the river reflects the setting sun, a golden wound stretched across its surface. The wind is thick with the scent of rain. I stand at the edge, toes sinking into the damp earth, and listen. There are whispers in the water—whispers of the past. I close my eyes and let them come.

The first time I heard Mama cry, I was seven. It was deep in the night, and the house was wrapped in darkness, the kind that seeped into your bones, heavy and full of secrets. I had woken up to the sound of the wind rattling our tin roof, but it wasn’t the storm outside that unsettled me—it was the storm inside.

Her sobs were as if she was trying to hold them back, trying to swallow them whole. But pain has a way of finding cracks to slip through. I crept to her door, my tiny fingers grazing the wood, unsure whether to knock or turn back. “Go back to bed, child.” Her voice was hoarse, thick with the weight of things she never said. I obeyed, but sleep never found me again that night.

Years later, I would come to understand what those tears meant. I would see the faded bruises on her skin, which she tried to hide beneath long sleeves and quiet smiles. I would piece together the truth in hushed conversations between the women in the village, their voices laced with pity and anger. “That man was never good for her.” ,”He left her broken before he left for good.” Absent Papa. The man whose name I carried but whose presence I never felt. A ghost who lived in the spaces between my mother’s sorrow and my longing.

I used to imagine him as a hero, a traveler who had been called on some grand adventure, someone who would return one day, eyes full of stories and arms ready to hold me. But as I grew older, the illusion faded, replaced by the reality of his absence. And Mama never spoke of him, not directly—just warnings wrapped in bitter wisdom.

“Don’t go looking for ghosts, my child. You’ll only find emptiness.” But some ghosts never needed to be found. They lived inside you, shaping the way you loved, the way you feared, the way you learned to endure. The river was the only place I could breathe. When the weight of the house became too much, when Mama’s silence pressed too heavy on my chest, I would come here. I would sit on the rocks, legs dangling over the water, and let the wind tangle its fingers in my hair.

The river did not ask me to be strong. It did not demand explanations. It simply existed, moving forward, always forward. I envied that. I wanted to move forward, too, to leave behind the scars I had inherited, the unanswered questions, and the ache of never quite belonging to anyone. But moving on is never as easy as the river makes it seem. Because scars do not fade as you wish them to.

The first time I ran away, I was thirteen. It wasn’t a planned escape—just a sudden, desperate need to disappear. Mama had been distant that week, her face drawn tight, her eyes clouded with something I couldn’t name. I had tried to help, to ease the burden, but my efforts were met with a tired sigh and a weary glance. “You’re just a child,” she had whispered. But I wasn’t. Not really. Not any more. So I left.

I followed the river, tracing its winding path into the unknown. The forest swallowed me, its shadows stretching long in the fading light. I walked until my legs ached, until the trees blurred together, and I could no longer hear the voices of the village. It was the first time I truly felt alone.

The darkness was different here—not the familiar, suffocating kind of home, but something wilder, something ancient. The wind carried whispers, the rustling leaves forming words I could not understand. I sat beneath a tree, wrapping my arms around my knees, and listened. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called. The river murmured secrets I was not yet ready to hear. And then—I cried.

I cried for the things I did not say, for the love I had not felt, for the weight of a fatherless childhood and a mother who could not let go of her pain long enough to see me. By the time the first light of dawn stretched across the sky, I had made a decision. I would not be like Mama. I would not let pain define me. I would not let loss anchor me in place. I would be the river. Moving forward, always forward. I returned home that morning barefoot and covered in dirt.

Mama was waiting at the door, her face unreadable. She did not ask where I had been and did not scold or punish me. Instead, she opened her arms. And for the first time in years, I allowed to be held. She smelled of wood smoke and rain, of something both familiar and distant. “I thought I lost you,” she whispered into my hair.

I wanted to tell her that she had lost me a long time ago, that I had been slipping away for years. But instead, I just closed my eyes and let the moment be enough. Because one day, I would leave for real. Not out of anger or sorrow, but because I had to. There was a world beyond this river, Mama’s sadness, and the echoes of an absent father. One day, I would find it. But for now, I stayed. For now, the river still knew my name. And I wasn’t ready to let it forget.

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