Last time, I wrote about friendships that help us navigate life and their different phases. I must say, the way many people received it reminded me that there are still communities of people who are fully willing to carry each other – friends who show up, friends who hold space, friends who do not scatter...
Author: Frieda Mukufa (Frieda Mukufa )
Mavutu Conversations – GBV a national disaster
A few days ago, I changed my profile picture to purple, and almost instantly, my inbox filled with questions. People wanted to know what I thought that simple act would change. One message stood out. A man asked me if I truly believed that changing my profile picture to that colour would somehow make men...
Mavutu Conversations – The circles that carry us
Last time, I wrote about the kind of sisterhood that helps carry us through different stages of our lives. That article received a lot of feedback, not just because people agreed with it, but because so many of us are craving that kind of community. In this fast, ever-changing world, it has become clear that...
Mavutu Conversations – The beauty of sisterhood
As the year is nearing its end, I want to talk about something that not many people talk about, especially in spaces where it’s not really celebrated out loud: ‘Sisterhood’. I may be speaking for all of us when I say this, but many of the phases I faced this year and even in the...
Mavutu Conversations – In my mother’s house
I recently saw a post that “All African mothers are siblings, and we all live in the same house”. I laughed because it is true. Whether you are in Katutura, Okalongo or Ondangwa, our mothers all seem to move the same. They refuse to sit still. Whenever I go home for the holidays, my mother...
Mavutu Conversations – Best of both
Within the spaces where women are expected to excel, there’s a certain expectation that follow many Namibian women as they grow, study, and move into new spaces. Often, we are encouraged to go out into the world and make something of ourselves. Yet, somewhere between the village and the city, we are also expected to...
Mavutu Conversations – The cost of feminism in Namibia
In Namibia, feminism does not always look like protests, posters or loud debates with random men at shebeens or in a cab. Sometimes, it is a woman choosing not to laugh when her boss makes a “harmless” sexist joke or when her male friends finally say something that reminds her that he is a man...
Mavutu Conversations – Second mother
We often say, “It takes a village to raise a child,” but what happens when the village consists of women who are barely getting by themselves? I’m talking about women who care for other people’s children – nannies and domestic workers who often step in and act as mothers when the real ones are away....
Mavutu Conversations – No, she’s not c**kblocking you
There’s this idea that a lot of men believe, especially in Namibia. They have someone they do not like; that one friend, usually the one they’re not trying to talk to, is always “blocking” them from getting close to a woman. Some even say she’s jealous or that she “wants attention.” But the truth is...
Mavutu Conversations – Will there be ‘manonas’? …The casual culture that silences women
In Namibia, there’s a phrase that slips into our conversations so casually that most people don’t even stop to think about what it really means. When men are invited to a gathering, a braai, or even just a chill, the first thing some of them ask is, ‘Will there be manonas?’ At first, it might...




