A Meeting in the Location

On Friday when I was walking back from the Preschool graduation at the Lutheran church, I saw there was a gathering in the Location under the tree.  

The Location is a place near each settlement/village/town of Namibia which was established during Apartheid for the native Namibians.  They were required to live there by the white government as the white farmers accumulated the land the indigenous people had previously lived on, farmed or traveled with their animals as they migrated through out the seasons of the desert.  Although no longer required to live there, after many generations of living there, many people call it home.

The Coloured (mixed race) people who migrated to Namibia looking for work from South Africa were not allowed to own land.  Some rented places in the Location from the people there when they came to work for the white farmers.  Some lived on the property of the white farmers who employed them in migrant labor housing- barracks for the men (as is still done at the mines) or in barns or sheds with their families.  The church property was originally gifted to the church as a place for coloured workers in Kalkfeld to have a place to live with their families.

There had been a meeting with the residents and the social worker assigned to Kalkfeld who was visiting from Otjiwarango.  The meeting was almost over and was translated into several languages (Damara, Afrikaans, and Otjiherero none of which I could understand) so I just said hello to a few people and took pictures. 

One of the purposes of the meeting was to talk about the ongoing Drought Relief program and to distribute Mealie Miel (Corn meal).

Each family who signed up got a 20 lb bag from under the other tree in the soccer field.