Violence is a thing of the.. Present

I started writing this post almost a month ago, but I have a new story now to add to the mix.

Last term, two hours before rugby practice, one of my most well-behaved learners brought me a note. It said, “Mis I cant attend the practise today. My aunt was steped [stabbed] by my uncle i have to go.” Obviously, I thought “JESUS what is going on?!” and said, “Of course honey, I hope everything is ok at your house.” The next day, he came in and told me, “Miss, my uncle stabbed my aunt seven times.” Concerned, I asked if she was ok (although how ok could you really be after something like that?) He responded, “Yes she is fine, but she is no longer with us.”

The last few nights at evening study, where we have the hostel learners return to school for an hour and a half of homework time, we've had some 'incidents.' There are three grade 8 boys who are really independent/aggressive/maybe potheads, and they don't respond well to very firm teachers who talk down to them and give them no freedom. The brothers being some of these teachers. They were scolded for something and chased out of study for the rest of the term by one brother, last week. Then they returned Monday night and were sitting quietly, but asked to leave again because they had been told not to attend. Rather than leaving quietly, they fought one brother, left the school, then started throwing stones at another brother and injured him! For this they were suspended from the school yesterday... but since they didn't leave until the evening train, they came BACK to study with knives and rocks and tried again.

Finally, About a month ago, one woman from Tses was out at the club late at night. An acquaintance escorted her from the club, raped her, murdered her, and left the body laying in a field. Although this particular man seemed to be a pretty stupid criminal (he left one of his shoes and one of her shoes at the scene of the crime… and brought home one of her shoes and one of his shoes) and was apprehended within 24 hours, this type of story is not uncommon in our area of Namibia.

Obviously this kind of violence (or worse) is also frequent in some parts of the US. First of all, it’s interesting to note that, with respect to geographical location, socioeconomic groupings are basically flipped here from how you would expect them to be. There are no “inner cities” in Namibia. Instead, the center of cities/towns tend to be very upscale and expensive, while the poor reside on the periphery. In many senses, this helps to keep the poor poorer, since these individuals frequently walk for hours or struggle just to afford transport in and out from the city.

It is also funny though, that “sleepy” villages like Tses (and in fact most small villages in the south) suffer from extreme violence. Even learners fight and stab during class, and fights and serious stabbings are extremely common in the clubs at night. As with basically every significant problem we see here, we tend to chalk it up to culture, general acceptance of the behaviour and poverty… but that still doesn’t help address the issue.