By Frederick Philander TSES The family name Kruse has over the past four decades become synonymous with business in the sparsely populated community in and around the fast-growing Southern village of Tses, with 3ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 000 inhabitants. “My shop actually belonged to my late father and is run by my sister as a family venture now that I am on forced retirement,” said pioneering businessman, Friedel Kruse. The 61-year-old father of three, who has survived a heart attack, a leg amputation and a recent stroke, has been in the retail business for donkey’s years. “I started off as an assistant in my late father’s general dealer shop, the only one in Tses for a very long period of time. In between, I also did my civic duties as the-then secretary of the village council, and rubbish collector – duties I performed for free,” said Kruse, whose two daughters are fully anchored in the country’s education system as teachers. “One of my daughters is the principal of the secondary school in Tses and another is a department head at a school in Rundu. My youngest daughter studies marketing at the Polytechnic of Namibia,” Kruse, of German descent, said with pride. He still supervises the shop from his wheelchair in the absence of his sister, Else, who has to go regularly to the nearest big town, Keetmanshoop, to buy stocks. “When I arrived in Tses all those years ago, poverty was rife among the village’s less-than-100 inhabitants. Very few people had telephones and there were basically no cars. Only the missionaries had some sort of transport that was used to take sick people to Keetmanshoop, until a church hospital was set up. Today we have a clinic providing medical services,” he said. The whole village initially consisted of only corrugated-iron shacks, but the situation gradually changed. “Yes, I have been witness to many of the many positive changes that took place around here such as the tarring of the main road in the village and the first brick houses that were built then,” Kruse said of the town where well-known national politicians such as Asser Kapere, chairman of the National Council, Willem Konjore, former Speaker of the National Assembly and present minister of Environment and Tourism went to school. “I have been wheelchair-bound since last year when my leg was amputated because of diabetes and high blood pressure. However, I still get transported to my small livestock farm some 20 kilometres from Tses. As a communal farmer, I farm with goats, sheep and cattle at Waterval,” said Kruse, who has been patiently waiting for quite some time now for a specially-made artificial leg from South Africa. “I cannot wait for the artificial leg because I want to walk properly again, something I am dearly looking forward to,” said a determined Kruse, who has been looked after and cared for by his sister, Else.