'All I want for Christmas is a job'
For the men on the street corners, Christmas was not a day of feasting.
For David Simon (42) and many others like him, Christmas Day was just another day standing in the hot sun on a pavement in an affluent Windhoek suburb hoping for a job.
While many Namibians celebrated the day by sharing gifts and enjoying large meals with family and friends, Simon and many others like him simply hoped for a small job to put food on the table.
“I am just looking for a job. We don't have anything,” Simon, who has stood on the side of the road in Olympia and similar Windhoek suburbs since 2012, told Namibian Sun on Christmas Day. It's a life marked by long stretches of waiting in the searing sun, dependent on a fickle and unstable income amongst fierce competition. Their dreams are built on the hope that they can one day leave this life behind, through permanent employment and a steady income.
“I would like a clean job, maybe in government. Sometimes you stand here for three to four days, with no job, no money to buy food. Seven days a week, you wait and wait,” Simon Stefanus Taupolo (31) told Namibian Sun. Since he moved to Windhoek from Okahao in 2009, Taupolo who says he has welding and electrician skills, has not been able to secure a permanent job.
Asked what he would say to President Hage Geingob if he could meet him, Simon says his message would be to listen and talk to people like him who have “lots of ideas” and skills but no chance to improve their lives through a permanent job.
“We vote, but they just talk and talk but don't do anything. I would like to tell them about our life. We are in trouble. There are no jobs. And when we don't have a job, we don't have a life.”
No sparkle this Christmas
Simon's three children, aged 12, 8 and one, did not receive presents on Monday.
Instead, if he is picked up for a job, the priority is to “buy some food, and clothes, for the kids,” Simon explained. On good days, the men can earn between N$150 to N$200 doing cleaning, weeding and other small jobs. But, often it is much less.
The men explained that the rates are fickle, and depend entirely on the type of person who hires them.
“It all depends on the person who picks us up. I cannot tell them how much I think my work is worth,” Simon explained.
The men said several days can go past without a job, and then hunger becomes a problem.
“I would like to tell people who pick us up, that they should think about giving us something to eat before putting us to work, which often consists of hard types of jobs. It's very difficult to work on an empty stomach. But people are very different. Some give you food, others do not. You learn that,” Taupolo remarked.
After travelling to the suburbs, by foot if there is no taxi money, one of the hardest things is the waiting game and the fierce heat on summer days like this past Christmas.
For Simon, apart from a reliable job, his hope rests on his children receiving a quality education and being able to exit the vicious circle of poverty and joblessness.
“I want my kids to be able to choose what they want to do, what they like to do. I hope they finish school, because this life is a struggle. And I don't want them to struggle like this.”
JANA-MARI SMITH
While many Namibians celebrated the day by sharing gifts and enjoying large meals with family and friends, Simon and many others like him simply hoped for a small job to put food on the table.
“I am just looking for a job. We don't have anything,” Simon, who has stood on the side of the road in Olympia and similar Windhoek suburbs since 2012, told Namibian Sun on Christmas Day. It's a life marked by long stretches of waiting in the searing sun, dependent on a fickle and unstable income amongst fierce competition. Their dreams are built on the hope that they can one day leave this life behind, through permanent employment and a steady income.
“I would like a clean job, maybe in government. Sometimes you stand here for three to four days, with no job, no money to buy food. Seven days a week, you wait and wait,” Simon Stefanus Taupolo (31) told Namibian Sun. Since he moved to Windhoek from Okahao in 2009, Taupolo who says he has welding and electrician skills, has not been able to secure a permanent job.
Asked what he would say to President Hage Geingob if he could meet him, Simon says his message would be to listen and talk to people like him who have “lots of ideas” and skills but no chance to improve their lives through a permanent job.
“We vote, but they just talk and talk but don't do anything. I would like to tell them about our life. We are in trouble. There are no jobs. And when we don't have a job, we don't have a life.”
No sparkle this Christmas
Simon's three children, aged 12, 8 and one, did not receive presents on Monday.
Instead, if he is picked up for a job, the priority is to “buy some food, and clothes, for the kids,” Simon explained. On good days, the men can earn between N$150 to N$200 doing cleaning, weeding and other small jobs. But, often it is much less.
The men explained that the rates are fickle, and depend entirely on the type of person who hires them.
“It all depends on the person who picks us up. I cannot tell them how much I think my work is worth,” Simon explained.
The men said several days can go past without a job, and then hunger becomes a problem.
“I would like to tell people who pick us up, that they should think about giving us something to eat before putting us to work, which often consists of hard types of jobs. It's very difficult to work on an empty stomach. But people are very different. Some give you food, others do not. You learn that,” Taupolo remarked.
After travelling to the suburbs, by foot if there is no taxi money, one of the hardest things is the waiting game and the fierce heat on summer days like this past Christmas.
For Simon, apart from a reliable job, his hope rests on his children receiving a quality education and being able to exit the vicious circle of poverty and joblessness.
“I want my kids to be able to choose what they want to do, what they like to do. I hope they finish school, because this life is a struggle. And I don't want them to struggle like this.”
JANA-MARI SMITH
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