Sakaria from Goreangab carries the scars of wars he never started

At 03:00, while much of Windhoek sleeps beneath warm blankets and electric heaters, Sakaria Sakaria wakes up inside a freezing shack deep beyond the low hills of Goreangab.

Cold air drifts through loose, thin zinc sheets and settles across the room where his wife sleeps beside their three children. Near the wall, two orphaned nieces left behind by his late brother lie curled tightly together beneath blankets that no longer hold enough warmth against winter nights.

Sakaria rises quietly, his stiff bones resisting, and places a small kettle over the blue flame of a gas stove.

Because there are no tea bags or sugar left, the hot water is meant only to warm the stomach before the long walk to Okapare begins.

Outside, Goreangab still belongs to shadows while barking dogs move between rubbish dumps.

The footpaths slowly fill with silhouettes of workers emerging from narrow passages between shacks, their heavy steps carrying the tiredness of people who have spent too many years surviving instead of living.

Nobody walks with urgency anymore because uncertainty has slowly numbed people into weary acceptance.

Faces carry the exhausted look of men and women who no longer make plans too far ahead because life keeps changing faster than they can prepare for.

Near Okapare, Sakaria joins a growing cluster of workers waiting for taxis, company trucks and lifts into town.

A quiet surrender hangs over the crowd after news of another fuel price increase.

The same quiet surrender as when people first heard about fighting in some distant country linked to oil and power and wars they can't summon the energy to find out more about.

Sakaria does not understand the politics behind any of it. His colleague Petrus talks about Trump, Iran and Israel, sometimes showing him cellphone videos of missiles tearing through dark skies while world leaders speak angrily on television screens. But as far as Sakaria remembers, there has always been fighting somewhere in the world. Wars that have nothing to do with him or Goreangab, yet somehow always find their way there in the end.

Yesterday, while travelling home inside the rattling company van, Sakaria saw long queues at service stations stretching into the road. It had happened before. Petrus had quietly announced that fuel prices would rise again at midnight Thursday, his voice cutting through the shaking metal noise of the old security truck.

Resting from worry

The others only turned tired eyes toward him before looking away again, carrying the same defeated expression of people who already knew what the coming month would feel like.

asking for petrol, yet somehow the troubles in those faraway countries still find their way into his shack beyond the hills of Goreangab.

Seven years ago, when Sakaria last received a salary increase, the money could be stretched out to last for a month. There was never luxury, but there was enough dignity for his wife not to stand too long inside the small Okapare cuca shops, calculating which necessities could wait another week.

Now, the salary dwindles to nothing long before the month ends.

At 04:30, he climbs into a company lorry converted for transporting security guards.

The overloaded truck groans beneath the weight of tired men and women, worn boots and bodies already exhausted before sunrise.

Inside, almost nobody speaks. Some stare blankly through cracked windows while others sit with folded arms and closed eyes, not sleeping but resting from worry.

One security guard repeatedly checks his nearly empty wallet before quietly sliding it back into his pocket. Another wears boots, the soles of which have opened near the front, exposing grey socks to the cold morning air.

Bare shopping bags

Last month, Sakaria’s wife slowly unpacked groceries before quietly searching through the plastic bag's contents again.

Then she looked up at him. “Where is the cooking oil?”

Sakaria looked away before answering softly that maybe they would buy it next month, although both of them already understood that “next month” had become another way of saying never.

At work, Sakaria spends long hours guarding buildings he could never afford to enter as a customer while expensive vehicles glide through the gate and disappear into air-conditioned offices.

Outside the gate, however, men like Sakaria continue to carry the invisible weight of conflicts, decisions and battles happening in parts of the world they do not know and have nothing to do with.

Somewhere, powerful, unimaginably wealthy people argue and fight over things ordinary workers will never see, yet somehow the consequences always arrive first inside poor homes like his.

Tomorrow morning, long before sunrise beyond the low hills of Goreangab, Sakaria will wake again and continue carrying burdens created by a world that does not know his name.

*This is a work of fiction inspired by real life.