WINDHOEK – Thirty-eight-year old Albertus Hanse and fifty-nine-year old Salmon Afrikaner are two homeless men who wander around Hosea Kutako International Airport situated about 45 kilometres east of Windhoek.
The two men sleep in the open outside a house belonging to the Namibia Airports Company (NAC).
Like the birds of the sky they are never guaranteed where their next meal will come from as they depend on stale dustbin food, the goodwill of good Samaritans and odd jobs to survive.
New Era caught up with them last week on Friday where they shared their story. Afrikaner and Hanse say they and two other men have been living at the airport for at least ten years.
“I do odd jobs such as cleaning people’s yards to make ends meet and I get paid N$100 or N$150,” said Hanse who suffers from a liver disease.
It is evident from his physique that his health is failing him.
“I was a heavy alcohol drinker and that caused damage to my liver so I depend on medication. I now just drink oshikundu (a traditional brew) and Oros,” he told New Era.
Although he has family in the south and at Kapps Farm, Hanse says he prefers to live on his own.
“I sleep in the open even during rainy and windy days,” he narrated.
Afrikaner is a tuberculosis sufferer.
“The doctors told me to stop smoking and drinking alcohol but I will stop if I get medicine that will help me to stop,” says Afrikaner who appears frail.
When he went to live at Hosea Kutako International Airport, it was in search of work. He claims he does not have any family as his wife and children have all died.
“My second wife also died. I will turn sixty next year in April then I will get my pension grant – maybe I will live much better than this because I will start my chicken farm and later I will expand to goats,” he says.
But he has not yet applied for the pension grant, he admits.
Afrikaner says his living condition does not bother him much because what matters is that he is alive.
“I don’t feel bad about the way I am. I allowed myself to be this way,” says Afrikaner.
He adds that he previously lived in Windhoek but he does not want to go back there.
“In Windhoek life is hard. If I live there I will just take people’s things and I will also be accused of stealing people’s things because I am new. At the house where I stayed people only welcomed me the first day when I had money. They would ask for money and when it finished they would complain of the prices of electricity and water. I don’t want to go back,” he says.
A man who did not want to be named said: “I feel sorry for the way these people live. They do not live like humans anymore but they are living among people. They depend on good Samaritans to give them food. I feel they should receive a social grant even if they are not yet pensioners because nobody will employ people like that. Good Samaritans should also help them with a shack house.”
The source said the men previously lived in a compound belonging to NCA.