Gated Community

The mission where I live is, in many senses, a gated community in Namibia. Seriously. It’s not easy to get in here at night, as I have found out when trying to sneak back in ‘after hours,’ and people here are very fond of locking up everything behind closed doors.

I first realized just how ‘gated’ this place is when I came back from a brai (barbecue) the second week of school. We had been out rather late and I arrived back at the mission around 10:30, half an hour after the kids’ bedtime. My friend Jona dropped me off on the gravel road that was the entrance to the mission. The gate for the road was locked up, so I had to climb it to get onto the mission grounds. No big deal; the gate is only four feet high and it has been climbed so many times that the footholds are obvious.

After jumping the front gate, I walked in the dark to the boys hostel, which is enclosed in an 8-foot tall mesh fence. Both the boys and the girls hostel areas have tall fences around them, and they are locked at night, presumably to prevent boys and girls from sneaking out at night to fornicate. Anyway, I had to climb this fence too. Once I was perched at the top and ready to jump down, one of the hostel dogs woke up and sat herself right on my landing point. We stared at each other for a good ten minutes until she got bored and walked away, giving me a chance to jump down. The next day, I made sure to get a key for the boys’ compound!

The obsession with security and keys is, unfortunately, probably quite well founded. Two volunteers I know have had their houses broken into, and there has been a spate of computer thefts from government offices around the country. Even on the mission, Robin and Nicola noticed one boy, whom they invited into their home to listen to music, stealing small items like soap and lotion. As a result, there are keys for everything, and any room with something valuable in it has both a metal door with a regular lock and a door made of thick steel bars which is secured with a padlock. The mission has a security guard at night as well, armed with a bow and arrow. In the early evenings, I usually see him in the boys’ hall, watching television. In the early mornings when I go running, sometimes I see him huddled over a small fire in the center of the mission. I always wave so he knows I’m a teacher, not a thief.

The problem with the keys is that there is usually just one key for any given room, even though many people need to use it legitimately. The room where I keep my food, for example, is locked and the key hangs on a wall near my bedroom door. That room also stores snacks for the disabled children’s home, so sometimes Gotard takes the key to feed the kids and forgets to put it back. I end up wandering around looking for Gotard when I want to eat, and he apologizes profusely for forgetting to return the key. I myself have walked away with it on several occasions too! Likewise, learners are frequently sent to track down keys for the laboratory, computer lab, secretary’s office, library, etc.

Living in such a community has advantages and disadvantages. I feel very safe here at the mission (knock wood). Nothing has been stolen (again, knock wood). Now, after getting to know the students, I feel comfortable inviting some of them into my room even though there is a wide array of tasty goodies to steal (iPod, computer, camera, flashlight, etc.). On the other hand, there is a sense that I’m not living in the ‘real’ Namibia. The kids at the mission are mostly all middle-class, and free from serious want. What would it be like, I wonder, to live in a poorer community, where my food, my blankets, and my clothes would be more coveted by learners? What would it be like to have to worry about security a bit? It’s not that I want to have those concerns, but I would like to know what it’s like to live in a typical Namibian community, not a gated one.