One of Namibia’s leading Kwaito stars, Morocky Mbwaluh, aka The Dogg, recently published his autobiography titled,Ther Dogg: Untold Story. As part of the reading culture campaign launched by the New Era Publication Corporation (NEPC) in conjunction with the Minister of Education, Honourable Dawid Namwandi, is serialising parts of this autobiography each Friday.
FROM ZAMBIA
From Zambia, we went to live with Abraham Mbwaluh and Hileni Nghole Mbwaluh, my paternal grandparents, at Oshigambo village, more or less 60 km east of Ondangwa. My grandfather, Abraham, was quite old and blind. Considering I could only communicate in English, the need to master the local languages was imperative. I started off with Oshikwanyama, this is the first Namibian language I could speak, and then followed with Oshindongo, which I learnt after relocating to Onayena village.
My grandfather’s household, like most of the other households in the village, accommodated many relatives, most of whom I cannot remember at this stage. My stay there was was quite short, probably a few months, as I had to relocate to Onayena village after my grandfather’s death. An early memory I have of my stay at Oshigambo is a sad one I sincerely regret.
I guess trouble was a companion at this point. I was about five or six years old and we had just been in Namibia for about two months. Culturally, a homestead can have one or several households within it. Under normal circumstances, these households operate independently in their kitchens and respectively provide for themselves. My father’s households in this homestead comprised of me, Magano, my stepmother and her children, and of course my father as the breadwinner. A time when he had to go to look for a job in Windhoek. In his absence from home, my stepmother, Meme Irene, did not give us food. She would hide the food after cooking and we would find nothing after returning from the playgrounds. We had to look for food at my grandparent’s household during his absence.
This went on for about one week. From my observation, she didn’t really like us. She mothered two of my stepbrothers at this stage. One of my stepbrother’s names was Martin, and the younger one I cannot recall his name, in face he was a newborn at the time. I reported this mistreatment to my father upon his arrival from Windhoek and, being the man that he was, beatings were inevitable. I think I was my father’s favourite since I was well- behaved and, back then, not as talkative as I have become. He simple called her aside and started slapping her, without asking her for an explanation.
The result of this whole incident led to her drinking paraffin or some other liquid in an attempt to commit suicide. She had to be rushed off to the hospital. This is one incident I deeply regret and feel remorse for my actions. I pity the sight of her lying on the ground helplessly before being taken to the hospital. To make it worse, her firstborn, Martin, was also crying. A few days after her discharge from the hospital, we moved to Onayena village. Fate had it that this was the time I would lay eyes on Meme Irene and my two stepbrothers.
During the period of writing this book, in June 2007, I drove to Khomasdal with the intention of going to pick up my high school friend, Six Mashaba.
Six was inside the house, while I waited for him in the car parked outside in the street. Surprisingly, a woman I didn’t know called out to me. She was drunk and seated at a bar not too far away from where I was parked. I didn’t appreciate the manner in which she sought my attention by yelling, in the car instead until Six would come out. It so happened that Six was taking his time to come out of the house, and this mean t I had to endure the lady insisting I should go over to her. The calling changed into tones like, “Hey you come here! Do you think we don’t know you”. Their laughter was loud. At this point I decided to go, partly because I didn’t want them to cause an embarrassing scene. Unexpectedly, she started taking about my sisters, Magano and Ndiina.
I must say this amazed me and drew my attention. She went on to speak about my stepmother (Meme Irene) and daddy’s passing away. Seeing that she had knowledge about my stepmother, I asked how Martin and his younger brother ( my step brothers) were doing I had always been clueless about the whereabouts of my stepbrothers. It was well over a decade since I had seen them. She said to me that after the parents’ passing away, they went back to Zambia and are struggling to make ends meet.
At their age, they are lacking funds for basics such as food and are not in school owing to financial reasons. She wasn’t saying it directly but painted a picture of them being street kids. To this date, I am touched by the sad situation they are in.
They are in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia, and she knows someone who has knowledge of where they are. I asked to know who this someone was and she game me a contact number of this possible link to my brothers. I called this number but there was no answer. Regretfully, after sometime, I lost my cellphone and the contact number was in my phone. It was gone. I also regret I did not get the address or contact details of the lady. It saddened me greatly. To this day, I still wish to locate them and see if I can bring them here to Namibia.