Don't Worry Baby, It's From My Thug Days

Today at school was more marking and invigilating for grade 8D. I have not had as much exposure to the Grade 8 learners and came across the greatest name so far - Happy Son. It just makes me smile to hear that name. There is also a learner that has no shoes, Jackson Paulus, and that made me sad. Many of the kids don’t have much and their clothing is in disrepair, but to not have even one pair of shoes to wear.

So, on Sunday in the bakki, John Delicious asked me if I had a marker pen. He wants a shirt that says John Delicious on it. I was hesitant, because I did not want to ruin one of his shirts. Again, he does not have much. But, he insisted that he has a shirt to write on. He said that it’s “too big” and that it is from his “thug days” and a “XXL” shirt. So, today after school I went over to Delicious’ with a Sharpie and made him a shirt. I assumed that he just wanted to have a shirt with his name on it, not that he was going to wear it. But, he did. He was so excited about the shirt. We took a bunch of pictures of him posing and showing it off. While I was making the shirt, Delicious was making food for himself, Soini and several others. But, again, he was struggling to cook – so Soini had to help him. They ended up making Pilcher’s canned fish with soup mix sauce and eating it with bread. I was reluctant to have the canned fish and was hoping that they would forget to save me some, since I was busy making the shirt. But, no, they saved some. So I felt obligated to at least eat a little bit. But, after tasting it, it wasn’t bad. I kind of liked it.

We spent the rest of the evening hanging out at a couple of the cuca shops in the village, with Delicious proudly sporting his new custom made shirt. It was Mutwa, Mr. Cash (Jonnah), Nangolo, O Seven, Johnson, Kaio and others and we were out until after 9pm. While hanging out in front of Max’s, I met a man, Charles Haindongo, who left Namibia for Cuba when he was 15. He returned to Namibia in 1988 just before the end of Apartheid. He was in Edundja to register at the Regional Councilors office for Veteran’s benefits, which means that he’ll get a pension from the government each month for the rest of his life. Johnson gave me a ride back to the homestead at the end of the night. It seemed that everyone was already in bed for the night, so I got ready for bed. Just after I turned out my lights and was in bed, Takataka knocked at the door, so I assume that he was in Kavari’s room watching tv and saw that I was home, but since I was already in bed, I didn’t answer the door.