I’m too cold to sleep. And I’m too worried. How close are the soldiers? I look up at the moon. It’s still high in the sky. I couldn’t have walked very far. I hope it’s far enough. I don’t like walking in the day. It’s too easy for someone to see me. But I’ll have to walk at first light. I must get some place safer.
As soon as the sun begins to lighten the sky, I know which way to go. I pick up my pouches and begin walking. My water pouch is very heavy. I try to take a small sip of water. I can’t. The water is frozen. I hang the pouch about my neck. It makes me very cold. I try not to think about it. I must take it with me. I don’t know when I’ll find more water. And later today, the sun will be hot again.
Sure enough, it gets hot. Very hot. I almost wish the water was ice again. The cold would feel good against my burning skin. I stop on a small rise and look out over the veld. I see no dust clouds. Good. I can rest. I sit in the shade of a camelthorn tree. I take a small drink from my pouch. The water is hot. It does little to wash away the dryness in my mouth. My belly wants food. But I don’t have any. I lie down. Sleep will help me forget my hunger. That is my hope.
Voices wake me. I lie very still, listening. It’s a Herero man and woman. They’re close to me. But they don’t see me. I quietly roll over so I can see them. Both of them are very skinny. The man has something shiny around his neck. It catches the sunlight and makes it brighter.
“Where are we going?” the woman asks him. “Our village is gone. Our family’s gone. No place is safe. We can’t just wander in the veld.”
“Why not? That’s what out ancestors did,” he says quietly. I have to open my ears and listen hard to hear him.
“But they had cattle to give them omaere. We have nothing,” his wife reminds him.
“We had cattle. The white people took them. We’ll take them back.” The man pulls at the shiny thing around his neck.
“It will be easier to find us if we have cows,” she says.
“So they’ll kill us. It’s better then dying slowly of hunger.”
“They could send us to a death camp.” She almost whispers.
“I escaped from there once,” the man says. “If they catch me again, they’ll have to kill me. I’m not going back to the camp.”
I stretch my legs a little bit. They hit some dry seed pods. The man jumps at the sound and looks over toward my tree. “Who’s there?” he calls. His voice is weak. He picks up his kirri. “Come out here where I can see you.”
I stand up and slowly walk toward the man and woman.
“Are you alone?” the man asks.
I nod my head.
He lowers the kirri. “Who are you?” he asks.
“I’m Jahohora, the daughter of Mutihu, the healer, and Tutejuva. From the big house of the Omukuatjivi clan. Do you know my family?”
The woman smiles at me. But she shakes her head. “What are you doing out here by yourself?” she asks me.
I tell her my story. The man looks at me in surprise. “You’ve been in the veld for two years? By yourself?” he asks me.
I shrug my shoulders. I don’t know “years.” “I’ve been by myself a long, long time,” I say.
“Where are you going?” his wife asks.
“To my village. I must find my family.”
She looks at me sadly. “There’s no village for you to go back to. There are no more Herero villages. The soldiers burned them all.”
“So where do the Herero live?” I ask.
“We hide in the veld. Or we die in the white people’s camps,” the man says. He touches the shiny thing around his neck. “There’s nothing else for the Herero.”
“I thought the big chief of the white people said all Herero had to leave the land or they would be killed,” I say.
The man laughs. It’s not a happy sound. “There aren’t many of us left, so the soldiers no longer kill us with their guns. And they’ve stopped pushing us into the desert to die. Now they send us to their camps,” he tells me.
“What are these camps?” I ask.
“They’re places they send us to die,” he says. “In Windhük, Swakopmund, and Lüderitz.”
I know of Windhük, but I’ve never heard Swakopmund or Lüderitz. “Where are those places, Uncle?”
“They are far from Hereroland – by the big river that you can’t see across. The camps are very, very bad places. Soldiers are there. They make the Herero work until they die. Every day – from before the sun wakes until long after it sleeps. It’s hard work. Pulling heavy wagons. Moving big rocks in the icy water of the big river to form new land. Carrying iron bars into the desert to make a path for the white people. Even the women and children must do this work. And there’s no food. Only a handful of uncooked rice.” The man’s face fills with pain. “If the Herero don’t work hard enough or fast enough, the soldiers beat them to death and leave their bodies for the vultures. Or they make other Herero throw them into the big river for the fish. Many, many, many Herero die every day in the camps.”
“It’s harder for the women and girls,” the woman says. “The soldiers lie with them at night. And then they have to work all day – even if they carry a soldier’s baby.”
“What happens to the men?” I ask.
The woman looks at her husband to see if he’s going to answer. He does. “The soldiers still kill the chiefs and any men they say made war on the white people. They buy the other ones. Or send them to the camps to die with the women. The men don’t live long in the camps. If they do anything to make a soldier angry, they are hanged. It could be a look, a hand movement, a question – anything. You never know what’s going to make a soldier angry.”
The man looks across the veld. But his eyes see the camps. “What’s worse is that the men in the camps have to watch the soldiers lie with their wives and sisters and daughters. There’s nothing they can do to stop it.”
I don’t want to think about a soldier lying on top of me. I ask another question. “You said the soldiers buy Herero men. How can they buy a person?”
The man looks down at the ground. He’s silent. Maybe he didn’t hear me. I start to ask the question again. The woman answers. “The soldiers pay some Herero men to find people like us who are starving in the veld. The bought men forget who they are. They forget what it is to be Herero. All they think about is feeding their own bellies. So they tell other Herero of missionary camps where they’ll be warm and safe. Where there’ll be lots of food and water. And medicine. They say there’ll be work so the Herero can earn money to feed their families. They say, ‘Bring your families. They will be taken care of.’”
“They’ll be taken care of all right,” the man says.
The woman ignores him. “The bought men take the Herero to the missionaries. But a few days later, the Herero are sent to the camps where they are made prisoners. There’s no food. No warmth. No medicine. Only death.”
The man speaks again. “If you don’t go with the Herero men who are bought by the soldiers, they’ll tie you and force you to go. That’s what happened to me. A man I called ‘Uncle’ since I was a boy put a chain around my neck and gave me to the soldiers. They gave him money for me.” His voice is flat. It holds no anger.
“You were at the camp?”
He nods. “That’s where I got this.” He pulls hard at the shiny thing around his neck. “The soldiers put these on everyone who comes to the camps to show they are Herero prisoners. I can’t break it off.” He swats at a black fly buzzing around his head. “I was one of the lucky ones. I escaped. But if a soldier sees this” – he pulls again at the shiny thing – “he will hang me. Prisoners aren’t supposed to escape. The white people don’t want them telling other Herero what the camps are really like.”
I look closely at the shiny thing. It has funny lines on it. I look at the woman to see if she has one.
“I wasn’t at the camp,” she says. “I got away when he was taken. We found each other again after he escaped.”
“What are you
going to do now?” I ask.
“Starve,” the man says. “I’d rather die wandering in the veld than work for a white person.” The sun is about to sleep. I need to find food. I tell the man and woman goodbye.
“It’s good that you walk alone,” the man tells me. “You’ll be safer. Just remember – you can’t trust anyone. Not even Herero.”
His words echo in my head as I walk into the veld.
HERERO HUNTERS
I was careful before. Now I’m even more careful. I have no village to go back to and no family to find. So I walk only when I have to find food and water. The rest of the time, I hide. From the wild animals. From the soldiers. And from the Herero who were bought by the soldiers. Since I don’t know who they are, I hide from all Herero.
The hunt for food and water gets harder and harder. The rains refuse to come. More waterholes dry up. And the earth is too thirsty for berries and uintjes. No grass grows to hide the whitened bones of the Herero and their cattle who died many yesterdays ago. I set my traps. The few animals I catch are as skinny as I am. Eating them is like eating bones.
I see more Herero. They are very skinny, too. And they seem to have little life. I watch them from my hiding places. I see the same people over and over again. They wander in small groups. They have no place to go, so they move in big circles over the veld. Some of them make small huts from branches. The weakest ones lie down in the middle of the veld and never get up.
The sun is about to sleep, so I leave my hiding place to hunt for food. It has been too long since I have had more than just a few drops of water and dried-up uintjes. I must find food and water. I stand on a large rock and look over the veld. I see a bunch of trees that are greener than the others. That’s a sign of a waterhole. I glance around again. I see no dust clouds or people. It’s safe. I slide down from the rock and walk toward the trees.
As I get close, I can almost smell the water. I’m so thirsty, I go to the waterhole without looking around again to make sure it’s still safe. I bend over the hole. It still has water. I lower the jar the snake hunter gave me into the hole and fill it up. I take a long slow drink from the jar. The water feels so good going down my throat. I fill the jar up again and then fill my water pouches.
I stand up and turn around to go back to my hiding place. I take one step and stop. Four Herero men stand in front of me. They are bought by the soldiers. I can tell by looking at them. All the other Herero I’ve seen are like shadows. But these men are well-fed. They must have been hiding. And waiting for someone to come for water.
I back up until I’m standing next to the waterhole. I hold my pouches close to my chest. As if they’ll protect me from these men.
The headman asks my name.
“I’m Jahohora ... the daughter of Mutihu ... and Tutejuva,” I say softly.
“Jahohora?” one of the men asks me.
I look at him closely. I don’t know him. But I know his voice. I think hard, trying to remember him.
“Where are your parents?” the headman asks kindly.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I lost my family.”
“Are you sure you’re not hiding them?” he asks. His voice isn’t as kind now. “Who are you getting all that water for?”
“It’s for me. I have a lot of walking to do,” I tell him. “And the waterholes are drying up.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t believe me. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.”
“Then why are you walking?” He stands close to me.
“I am keeping away from the soldiers. I know what they do to Herero girls.”
“You do? Then you should know they have camps where they give Herero lots of food and a hut. You don’t have to starve out here in the veld and worry about dry waterholes.” He puts his hand on my arm. “Come with us and we’ll take you to the camps. And everyone who’s with you.”
“I told you I’m alone. I don’t lie.” I pull my arm away from him and shake my head. “You’re not going to get money for me. I’m not going with you.”
The man puts his arm around my shoulders and holds me tight. “It’s for your own good,” he says. “You and everyone with you will die out here. You don’t want that.”
I stand as tall as I can. And try not to show how scared I am. “I would rather die out here than with a soldier on top of me.”
My fear suddenly goes away. I’m angry now. “You’re not Herero,” I tell the man holding me. “You’re worse than the white people.” I look at each of the men. “You’re cowards who give Herero a bad name.”
The headman tightens his hold on me. But two of the men lower their eyes. The man with the voice I know looks at the headman. “Leave her alone.”
“We will take her in. And we’ll find the others who are with her,” the headman says.
“There are no others,” the other man says. “Jahohora has been alone in the desert for two years.” He looks at me. I see sadness in his eyes. I know those eyes. It’s Ikuaterua!
“How do you know?” the headman asks him.
“She saved my life after I came out of the desert.”
“How could she survive in the desert by herself that long? She’s just a girl,” the headman says.
“She told you. She’s the daughter of Mutihu, the healer. He taught her well.” Ikuaterua looks at me. “Let her go.”
The other two men agree with Ikuaterua. “There are plenty of others,” one of them says.
“But the soldiers said we must bring every Herero to the camps,” the headman says.
“One girl living alone in the veld isn’t a threat to the soldiers. They won’t even know she’s here,” Ikuaterua tells him.
The headman lets me go. “This time,” he says. “But if I see you again, I’ll take you to the soldiers.”
I walk slowly away. My head held high. My back straight. A true Herero woman. Ikuaterua comes after me. “Here, take this.” He hands me a small bundle of food. “I’m sorry,” he says. Shame fills his face.
“Thank you.” I have no other words. I walk away, hoping the gathering darkness will hide my path. Just in case the headman decides to come after me.
I move on. I have to find a new waterhole and a new hiding place. A long way from here. I’m too weak to walk very far. So I stop often. The food Ikuaterua gave me helps. And I have enough water for a few days.
I’m more careful about where I hide and when I walk. I know others are hunting the Herero in the veld. Next time, Ikuaterua won’t be there to save me. I need more protection. I think about it as I walk. But I have no answers.
Each day, I eat only a little of the food Ikuaterua gave me. It’s soon gone. I look and look in the veld for uintjes or roots. They’re hard to find. But I see the medicine plant Tate showed me when the cow sickness came to Hereroland. I remember going into the veld with him to gather it for our cows. I wish Tate were here. He would know where I could find food. He always knew what to do. Like when he stopped me from touching the bad plant that looked a little like the medicine plant. Tate said if I touched it, I would get sores all over my body.
That gives me an idea. If I’m covered with sores, no one will come near me. Not the soldiers. And not the Herero men bought by the soldiers. I try to remember what the bad plant looked like. That was so long ago. I walk around the veld, looking at every plant. At last I find one that might be the bad plant. I tear a leaf off. It stings my hands. It must be the right plant.
I think about what I’m going to do. The plant might make me sick, but it could protect me. I pick more leaves and rub them all over my body. I feel like I’m on fire. I look down at my arms and legs. They’re covered with little bumps – like lots and lots of bug bites. I don’t want to put the leaves on my face, but I have to. I gently rub them up my neck and then on my cheeks, my chin, and my forehead. I’m careful not to let them touch my eyes. When I’m done, I itch so badly that I want to scratch my skin off. I know I can’t. I look for a hiding place. If I can sleep, I w
on’t think about the itching and stinging.
I dream that I’m lying in a hole in the ground. Tiny little bugs crawl all over my legs, eating my skin. I try to kick them off, but the bugs come back. Bigger than they were before. They crawl up my body until they’re eating my face. I scream and jump up, happy to be awake. But I can still feel the bugs crawling on me. I look at my arms and legs. It’s too dark to see anything. I touch my face. It’s covered with sticky pus. I wonder what it looks like.
In the morning, I’m too sick to walk. I pull my water jar up to my lips and try to drink. My lips hurt too much. But I have to drink. I force myself to take a small sip. My hand shakes as I close the jar. I look down at my hand. I can’t see it very well. My cheeks are so big they get in the way. I have to look straight down to see my hands. They’re covered with big open sores. I look at my legs and belly. The sores are all over my body. Good, I think. No one will want to touch me now.
The pain makes me sleep a lot. Every time I close my eyes, I have the same dream – of bugs crawling on me and eating my skin. One day I wake up and see that the dream is real. Tiny little maggots have crawled inside the sores, making them worse than they were before. I want to dig the maggots out. I can’t. There are too many.
I get weaker and weaker. If I want to live, I have to get more food and water. I pull myself up, using a tree branch. It hurts to touch anything. And when I stand, the earth moves as if I’m turning in circles. I almost fall. I grab the tree again to steady myself. I pick up a broken branch to use as a walking stick and walk – very, very slowly – toward a waterhole.
I can’t climb a tree or pull myself up on a rock to see if the waterhole is safe. As I come close to the waterhole, I hear the voices of Herero men. I hope the sores are enough to protect me. Leaning on the broken branch, I take the last few steps toward the water. The men look up at me. Their eyes get big when they see me. They back away as I go to the water.
Mama Namibia: Based on True Events Page 23