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, Artlife is serialising this autobiography each Friday.
As a child, I recall going to shoot birds with what we traditionally call eengumi, also known as a catapult or slingshot. This was common practice for boys my age back then. Traditionally, it is the art of hunting at a young age. In fact, this prepares you for the actual hunting once you are grown enough to hunt big animals.
In 1992, my mother made it clear she wanted her children to attend school in Windhoek. This idea was welcomed by the family and we were sent off to the city in early January. Not only were we eager to live in the city, but what sparked the excitement was a chance to go to live with our mother.
My mother had a shack in Okuryangava, an informal settlement on the outskirts of Windhoek. Motherly love is something most children cannot go without, me included.
My mother attended school up to Standard 6 (Grade 8) at Mandume Primary School in Windhoek. Like many other Namibians prior to independence, she dropped out of school for political reasons and left for exile in Zambia in 1974. Despite this, she wanted us to accomplish what she could not accomplish in her youth. In the meantime, my father had come back to try and sort things out with her. Even at that tender age, I could make out that he desperately wanted to revive their relationship. It is a pity my mother did not fall for it, though I honestly think this was the last time I saw the two of them sharing some happier times.
In Namibia January is always that time of the year when parents struggle to get their children into schools of their preference. Sadly for me, only Bruce, Magano and Ndiina landed schools in Windhoek. I had to go back to Onayena Combined School, back to Uncle Vilho’s house, without the company of my shield, Bruce, and my guardian angels, Magano and Ndiina. Despite being moved around most of our early years, we had never been separated. This upset me a lot and I was depressed for a while.
With Uncle Vilho, it was business as usual. Having noticed how much I had grown, he involved me more in the operations and duties at home and at the farm. I remember mastering the art of milking cattle during my school holidays. As time passed by, I was involved in all chores, including the castrating of cattle on the farm. During the rainy season, we had two plantations at home, one for our domestic needs and the other for commercial purposes. With all these family activities in agriculture, my uncle could maintain and grow his wealth while instilling the values of hard work and discipline in me, values that have greatly contributed to my achievements. In an infant Namibian music industry, I think these values have been the key to my success. If there’s anything I will not forget to pass on to my daughters, it’s the principles of discipline and hard work. I have come a long way to finally be able to relate to these valuable characteristics of my mother and her brother, Uncle Vilho.
Unlike my last schooling years at Augustineum Secondary School, my attitude and behaviour at Onayena Combined School never got me into trouble. I worked hard to complete my primary education. I still had not completely ruled out a chance of transferring to a school in Windhoek to be united with my family.
I was longing for the chance to live with my mother again, while my brother Bruce was not having the best of times with her. To put it straight, my mother stopped paying for his school fees, and it went as far as him being chased out of the house. “I was going through my puberty stage, man,” explains Bruce frankly. You must realise that at this stage, rock music among whites was the ‘in’ thing, and he was one of the few black kids in the area schooling at a German School. His behaviour was different from all the others boys in the neighbourhood. Being the music lover that he is, he got entangled into rock and all its strings, which meant wearing earrings and roughly torn jeans- something my mother did not approve of. Knowing her background ,this was really not a surprise. “Despite this, Mamma loved me man, you know the aspect of being a firstborn, I was schooling at the best schools and that made me the centre of attention,” argues Bruce.
My mother was a queen. She raised us and put us through school by herself. She was a firm believer in the idea of education, though she only attended school until standard 6 or Grade 8, before leaving for exile in the 1970s. She didn’t have a job, so we stayed in the Okuryangava informal settlement and her entrepreneurial skills provided bread. I was based in Onayena Village at the time and would come to Okuryangava in Windhoek from time to time. These were times I cherished. Our family revenue came in from the African dresses my mother made and the vetkoek we sold in our neighbourhood. The dressmaking and selling was really my mother’s own business and we, the children, made and sold vetkoek. Uncle Vilho says my late mother mastered the skill of dressmaking at home as one of the things women just had to perform in the household. My aunt, Eli Kalambi, still makes dresses and has taken the trade to another level. She is making wedding dresses and many other items which she sells.
Whenever I came to Windhoek for holidays, I joined the household chores and this was mostly through assisting Ndiina and Magano in the process of making vetkoek. My role was at the start of the production, as I had to mix baking powder with water to form the dough. In addition, I would add other ingredients such as sugar, etc. My sisters did the actual shaping and baking. When I say shaping, I mean we made fancy shapes that differed from the traditional round vetkoek everybody else was selling. We had star shapes, triangular shapes and so many others which were really appreciated by the customers. This I can testify to since I became heavily involved with the sales part as well. As a result of this trade, I made a lot of friends. You have to realise that my mother did not embrace the idea of children going out of the house often, so going out to sell vetkoek was the most reasonable excuse at the time. I really enjoyed selling vetkoek, but I also used it as an excuse to go play with the boys, and this had its misfortunes. While playing with my peers, some would find a way to steal from my merchandise, and this was not taken well by my mother. Being the lastborn, my mother truly loved me and despite my shortcomings, she never hit me. Whenever I did something wrong, I would cry and she was always the first to comfort me. She loved me so much and could not stand the sight of me crying.
Year 1996 marked my last schooling year at Onayena Combined School.
I was done with my Grade 5, and there was no way my family would let me continue high school in the village. Uncle Vilho orchestrated my move from Onayena to Windhoek, for good this time. In 1997, a high school in Windhoek by the name of Augustineum Secondary School opened its doors to me. This was the same school my Uncle Vilho attended back in the days, only that it was based in OKahandja during the sixties. (To be continued next Friday)