Six years on, Covid shelter is still home

Six years is a long time to wait for a place to call home. It is long enough for a child to begin school, for another to enter adolescence and for a pensioner to wonder whether tomorrow will be any different from yesterday.

Yet, in a yard in Katutura, Windhoek, close to a youth complex, more than 150 people have spent those years living in shelters made from plastic sheeting, without reliable access to clean water, electricity, toilets or adequate food.

What began on 14 March 2020, as Namibia confronted its first Covid-19 cases, has become an existence defined by uncertainty.

The pandemic has faded from the headlines, but the people who sought shelter at the complex have remained.

Their makeshift homes have endured years of scorching sun and changing weather, leaving some plastic sheets worn and damaged.

Life has nevertheless continued. Children play, families prepare meals over fires and adults try to make each day resemble something close to ordinary life.

During a recent visit by Namibian Sun, children were seen playing around the settlement while residents tended fires.

Containers of stored water stand nearby, with flies gathering around some of them, a troubling sight in a community where access to clean water remains one of the greatest difficulties.

Residents previously paid N$10 for water, but that arrangement reportedly ended as the number of people at the complex increased. They now depend on water they collect and store, making everyday activities such as cooking, washing clothes and keeping children clean a constant challenge.

Food is another worry, particularly in households with little or no income. Children were seen eating porridge during the visit, while pensioner Gerhard Tjambiru said some frequently suffered from diarrhoea and vomiting after eating the food available to them.

According to Tjambiru, residents receive no government food assistance and must make do with whatever they can find.

Although some pensioners receive social grants, residents say most people at the complex have no dependable financial support.

One resident, who has lived there for more than three years, said some children do not have necessary identification documentation, complicating their access to education, healthcare and other essential services.

These are the quieter consequences of living in uncertainty. A damaged shelter can be patched and a fire can be lit, but childhood does not wait until adults have found answers about housing and basic services.

Some children may know no other home than the plastic shelters in which they are growing up.

When citizenship feels distant

Tjambiru has spent enough time at the settlement to question what it means to belong to a country when the most basic comforts remain beyond reach.

“You can say I’m Namibian, but for me I’m not,” he said.

His words reflect the frustration of someone who has watched years pass without seeing a lasting improvement in his circumstances. The struggle is no longer simply about finding food or water, but also about whether the people living at the complex have been forgotten.

“We shall live here until we all die since the government can’t give us an answer,” Tjambiru said.

It is a bleak prediction from someone who has already spent many years waiting. Residents remain uncertain about when they might leave the complex or whether a lasting solution will ever be found.

Personal safety is another concern. A resident who requested anonymity said people sometimes enter the settlement at night looking for trouble, adding to the anxiety of families raising children in structures that offer little security.

Six very long years

Perhaps the most striking thing about the settlement is not simply that people are living beneath plastic sheeting, but that they have been doing so for six years.

Temporary arrangements can become permanent when nobody knows what should happen next. Families learn to adapt to their surroundings, children find places to play and neighbours become accustomed to sharing hardships.

Such adaptation may look like resilience, but it raises an uncomfortable question: how long should people be expected to survive without basic services or a clear future?

Six years after the pandemic brought them to the complex, families are still collecting water, preparing meals over fires and sleeping beneath weathered plastic roofs.

The rest of the country has largely moved beyond the disruptions of 2020, but this group’s lives remain tied to that moment.

As another year approaches, the question is no longer how they have managed to survive for so long, but how much longer they will be expected to wait.