Life in Swapo camps was not only focused on how to defend ourselves from the attacks of the enemy, but there was an important aspect of social life, which is less talked about (never documented at all). 

That kept people together and happy, especially the young ones who do not know what the war was all about. 

That social aspect is entertainment activities. 

Mostly, these activities were performed by young people (pioneers) who were still too young to go to the battlefield. 

I was one of them. 

My name is Maxton Mwailepeni Shitilifa. 

I was born in 1972 in Senanga (in exile), Zambia. 

I came to Nyango in 1982. 

Nyango was a Swapo educational centre in the Western Province of Zambia. 

The centre was most ly populated by young people and women as well as a few military personnel (mostly air-defence unit). It was not a military base but an educational centre with comrade France Kapofi, as its director, and commissar Kalyati by that time. 

In early 1985, the war situation in Nyango worsened with the information that the enemy wanted to bomb the camp, so we had to leave the camp and go about 200 kilometres away in a situation called ‘ready’ (Oready). 

We spent the whole rainy season in the open bush of Zambia from December 1985 to May 1986, sharing trenches with people I was meeting for the first time. 

In May 1986 we returned back to the camp. 

It was during this time that we started to revive the Nyango school music band, which was formed in the early 1980s but collapsed when all the founders left Zambia for different countries. 

I was a lead singer together with two other supporting singers, namely Ngugumo, Ndimati and Tawendi Lipuwo, who was a very good instrumentalist (drum guy). 

We started to perform music in the camp and entertain the whole camp and the visitors (VIP) who came to see the camp. 

Early 1986 was the time that comrade Hage Geingob got so interested in our performance that he first invited us to perform at a big Swapo gathering in the Mulungushi Conference Centre in Lusaka, Zambia. 

This meeting was attended by so many people from the frontline states, including representatives of the Council of Churches of Namibia (CCN) from Namibia. 

We were dressed in blue, red and green (Swapo colours), and this is the first time I saw President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, who was seated next to comrade Geingob, crying, wiping his eyes uncontrollably, while comrade Geingob was so emotional until we finished our performance. 

After this emotional music performance from the Nyango Pioneers School band, we became very close to comrade Hage Geingob. 

He told us that, from then on, President Kaunda requested our band to be attending all his birthday celebrations. 

Truly, from 1986 until I left Zambia in mid-1988, comrade Geingob had been sending a bus from Lusaka to Nyango, which is around 670 kilometres, to enable us to go perform at different important events organised by him. 

He even made sure that while we were in Lusaka we were not accommodated at the Swapo overcrowded transit centre (Zimbabwe House). 

He took us to the Maxwell Hostel, which was the male hostel for the United Nations Institute for Namibia Students (UNIN) in the heart of Lusaka. 

Comrade President Hage Geingob has done a lot of positive things in the lives of many people that are not documented, especially in Zambia, for the children in exile during the liberation struggle who were in Nyango without parents. 

His love and care for the people were too much. 

May his soul continue to rest in peace.