MAYARA – Ukwangali traditional leader, Hompa Eugene Siwombe Kudumo, has encouraged his subjects especially those in the villages to avoid going to cuca shops very early in the morning but rather to focus on working their crop fields which will in turn sustain their families.
“I just want to encourage my subjects and residents in my jurisdiction – I know they might be discouraged by the low rainfall panorama, some might be giving up already saying there is no rain and so on, but even in the past rainfall had sometimes started to fall favourably in February and so on, but people would still harvest crops. So those that haven’t touched their fields must get ready and work in their fields, we don’t want hunger,” the Hompa made the clarion call on Wednesday.
“Yes, people going early to drinking holes instead of going to work in their fields is not something new, we had such people in the past as well history has told us that they were there even in the 60s, but there were ways that they were forced to go to the field. You can’t go drinking instead of going ploughing while you have children to feed at home, that is a serious sickness we have,” he added.
Hompa Kudumo is optimistic that if all his subjects could prioritise working on their communal fields and stop wasting time in their favourite watering holes hunger could be eliminated. “Some people are saying, ‘government will bring us drought relief’ and that it’s not necessary for them to work in their crop fields but as a Kavango we are not lazy people, people in the past used to work hard to feed their family, what is stopping us (from doing so) now?” he asked. Some communal, subsistence farmers in Kavango West are busy ploughing, pinning their hopes on the fact there could be more rains in the coming weeks and they do not want to be caught napping.