Sunday Times (Johannesburg) - December 16, 2007
Karolina Pieters

Lying in bed on the first night of our visit to Johannesburg last week, I said to myself: is this true? Can we really be here? Is this a dream come true?

I am a teacher and the chairman of the village council in Maltahohe in the dry Hardap region of southern Namibia at the entrance to the Namib desert.

Long before I became a councillor I started a home for abandoned children.

There is a high rate of alcoholism

and gender violence where I came from. This is made worse by a high rate of HIV and Aids. There are 382 children in the home that I started out of a village of 4,000.

Six years ago my colleague Simon Anton and I started a culture group called Ama Buruxa, Nama for "Simply Amazing", for the children. Last year, I met the director of Gender Links, Colleen Lowe Morna, when she came to Maltahohe to conduct research on gender and local government. She asked me

what I would most want for my children. I said: "I would like them to perform in Johannesburg!" So here we are, and I can only say that this is a dream come true. While we have been here, the children have performed with several other groups from around Johannesburg, including at Museum Africa and at the Constitutional Court.

We got a tour of the court and a history of South Africa from apartheid to the present. The children from South Africa and Namibia did an exercise on past, present and future. Then they wrote and performed a song together. We got to go and see Umoja (the South African musical that took London by storm). What an experience for the children of Ama Buruxa to watch those South African dancers who "dance like demons". I believe in dance and song as a form of healing. What a healing experience this has been. In the evenings, we sat in a circle and talked about our experiences, here and in

Namibia. For the first time, I got to say "I am sorry" to Johannes* about something that has been paining me these few months.

In October, we were performing

at an old-age home in Maltahohe. Suddenly I noticed tears flowing down Johannes's cheeks. His voice was quivering. Johannes's brother Peter is the drummer of Ama Bruxa. Later that day I learnt that the boys' mother had just died of Aids-related causes. I could not forgive myself for having allowed them to perform that day. But they told me that they wanted to; that performing is what gives them strength. Their mother was a domestic worker whom both boys cared for lovingly before she died. They do not know their father. Peter is now doing the last two years of his secondary school in Rehoboth. He needs just over R2 000 a year to finish his school. Where can I get bursaries from to help the children? Then there is Rachel*, whose stepmother died a year ago, also of Aids-related causes, leaving behind a two-month-old baby. She has six brothers and sisters. Her father is disabled as a result of an accident while he was a construction worker. We are not sure if he and the baby are HIV-positive as they have not gone for tests. I had to tell Rachel that I could not take care of the baby; I just do not have the capacity to take care of the really small ones.

These things are so painful. But here in Johannesburg we have been able to talk. At one stage Rachel's father wanted me to adopt her. But I said that was not the right thing to do. She must never be disconnected from her family. My duty is to make sure that she gets an education, so that she can uplift the rest of the family. Aletta* also lost her parents to HIV and Aids. After caring for both of them, she wants to be a doctor. There is Ruth*, who narrowly escaped being raped twice. I had to send her to live with my older daughter in Windhoek, to get away from it all.

Yes, my work can be very depressing, but it can also be so rewarding. I have trained as a counsellor, to help the children, and to help myself.

I have learnt that when children lose their parents, they become introverted and withdrawn. Our job is to inspire them, fill them with hope, make them realise what they are capable of, make them know that they are, after all, "simply amazing".

I lie awake in Johannesburg, and the sounds of Umoja, the spirit of togetherness, run through my mind. I am thinking of new dance routines for Ama Buruxa. I am thinking of how to raise money for school fees so that every one of my children can finish their education. I am inspired. I am ready to soldier on.

* Names of the children have been changed to protect their identity. This story is part of the Gender Links Opinion and Commentary Service. To make a donation to Ama Buruxa go to www.genderlinks.org.za

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