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Namibia: 'Pool People' Resettled on Farm
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The Namibian (Windhoek)
28 April 2008
Posted to the web 28 April 2008
Tanja Bause
Windhoek
ABOUT 300 San people from the Okahandja district - including those who had lived at the Okahandja swimming pool for the past couple of years - have been resettled on the farm Uitkomst in the Hochfeld area.
Government has provided them with tents to serve as temporary housing, and they also receive mealie meal from Government and meat from the local farming community.
The San people have been on the farm for a month now, waiting for farming equipment and seeds to arrive so that they can start gardening and supplementing their diet with fresh vegetables.
The construction of their permanent housing is expected to start soon.
Local farmers are supporting the San with meat and other goods, and are sharing their farming knowledge and helping out the San until the equipment arrives and they can start farming themselves.
There are plans for a mutually beneficial arrangement between the farming community and the San people, in terms of which trophy hunters will be allowed to hunt on Uitkomst and the San will receive the meat and payment.
The San children are attending school at Otjozondu and Okondjatu and a kindergarten has been established on the farm for the younger children.
Woman's Action for Development (WAD) has given the San a free three-week training course in bread and cake baking, needlework and knitting.
All the materials used were sponsored by WAD. "The people are very eager to learn and the classes are very well attended and always full.
They are like sponges, just soaking up all the information we give them" said trainer Schernon Arlow.
"We are very happy here and cannot wait to start farming," said former swimming pool resident Piet Aoat.
Hauke Eichhoff, a neighbouring farmer who is sharing his farming experience with the San, said they would need a soccer field to occupy the teenagers while they wait for the farming implements to arrive.
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Eichhoff also takes the children to school about 24 km away and collects them again at the end of the week and for school holidays.
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