WOMEN IN BUSINESS EDITION

28FEATURE

IF HER LIFE WAS A GAME OF NUMBERS THE ODDS WOULD BE AGAINST NATA-SHA BASSINGTH-WAIGHTE. One of seven children, possi-bly pregnant at twenty-one, bank balance 0. But. Someone with the commitment to play hockey for eighteen years tells the story of someone with in-

ner consistency who can topple the odds. Someone who at age eight and ten can de-cide to define herself, is the captain of her ship.

“He asked me to have his baby...” were my quiet thoughts. “Yes,” my thoughts lingered

on that possibility. “But. If I did it my life would be very different from what I planned

it to be. But maybe things would be okay.”

Looking back to when I was a child I realise memo-ries of early childhood are vague and some seem borrowed. There’s a vivid image of myself sitting on the floor between my aunt’s legs where she plats my hair neatly and tightly. It didn’t matter that we’d be late for school; what mattered was that we looked decent. I was like a daughter in their house and occasionally living with

them was good and conven-ient especially since it was so close to school.

In 1984 someone brought the news of my father’s death; I can see my mother’s intense sadness and my own seven-year old indifference as I did not know this man they spoke of. And yet his my brother told me I was his favourite child and his friends said I used to go just about everywhere with him. Did someone tell me or do I remember how he used to cook and look after me and my mother’s other children while she went to work? It was only years later when I learned about the details of his death: the dungeons of Angola.

M H Greeff Primary School saw me take my first steps into the world of learn-ing and I thrived. Excelling at school gave me a quiet confidence. As little as I can recall from my primary school days, three incidents stand out. Looking back, I recog-nise them as events that pro-vided me with opportunities

If I had YOUR BABY

by Vida de Voss Links • photograph Vida de Voss Links

www.sisternamibia.org SISTER NAMIBIA

to push back at life. I didn’t think of it in these terms, but as the older Natasha looking back on that scrawny kid, I see she had a firm sense of self and an independent mind right from the word go. But these are things you only recognise in hindsight. These revisions are different from the ones when you try to im-agine what you were thinking when you considered falling pregnant at age twenty-one.

I also remember being bullied at school for a short while. One day I had enough, so I put thorns between the two slices of bread I would not have the privilege of eating in any case. That break I had to run for my life but never again did I have to avert threats by giving up my lunch. Then there was the day the leader of the popular girls’ squat told me I couldn’t hang with them anymore unless I carried her bag. “Well, in that case, I see you are the kind of people I should not be spending my time with,” were my cheeky thoughts and ended that foundling friendship. This was 1983 and learners were still required to identify according to their ethnicity. The teach-ers added to the confusion regarding my race and soon I wasn’t dark enough for one group and too dark for the other, complicating life a little. That’s when I decided I will not allow anybody to define me based on their opinions of the world. If people did not want to be friends with me because of something like race it is their problem and I won’t even bother. But the truth is the question of race was a disturbing one to me for quite some time. In my mind it made no difference to know such a trivial fact about people.”

The country had just

turned independent when I got en route with high school. I was once again in a bubble of racelessness as our school had a mixed group of learn-ers, who interacted like one big happy family. Back then Concordia was considered as halfway to Rehoboth. There was no development out that way, no Tauben Glenn, no Pioneers Park Extension 1, neither Dorado Park, no Acacia, and no Rocky Crest on that side of town. Wind-hoek looked and was very different.

Until I came to Concordia, I did not think of myself as poor. And the reason for that may have been because eve-rybody who stayed around us were poorer than us. We lived in the Nama Location, and compared to our neighbours we had a TV and a tele-phone. There was no geyser, but boiling water was not a problem. So I never thought of us as being poor. I also never thought anything of my mother being a domestic worker. But I certainly devel-oped a consciousness of our social status when I got to Concordia. I never wanted for anything, or I can’t remember going to bed hungry or cold. But when I stayed in the hos-tel I realised you can actually have more than one pair of shoes, or a pair of shoes in addition to your school shoes and church shoes. And this realisation was wonderful for me. It opened me up to the possibilities that life held – not just materially, but also opportunity-wise and experience-wise. And though there were things I may have liked to have or things I needed I somehow just don’t clearly remember that. I don’t remember actually having had money but this thought is not accompanied by sad or bitter memories. When I

eventually got something it wasn’t quite what I wanted or it was the cheaper version. But I do remember someone once asked me if I was an only child, because to them I seemed to have had it all. Imagine! I had such a good laugh. The sense it left me with was that as much as my mother could not give me much or the best, she took care of me. So yes, there were difficult times. But all in all, I had good experiences at school and great teachers.

School was good for me and amidst the differ-ent races and social classes I was able to feel like an individual who can determine her own worth. I remember there was a time that when I had a N$30 outstanding on something. This caused great stress as my mother did not have that much money to give me. To my mind, my mother was thus struggling along to cover all my expenses at school. But in Grade 11 I was going to be a prefect and it was argued that you can only stand for election if your school fees were paid. So one teacher said mine was not paid and that is when another coun-tered it by saying, I was on “the” programme. This was new information to me. That day I learned of the head-master’s initiative that stu-dents with averages above a certain percentage, who were unable to afford their school fees, would be exempted from paying such. And this was the first time I learned I had not been paying school fees for all those years. I am ever grateful to Dr Barber. Such memories cause a fine cold sweat to break out when I think of how I, knowing the struggles, would have afford-ed my children’s school fees if I had the first at twenty-one.

I initially wanted to become a doctor. But then one of my brothers fell ill and was developing bedsores. My mom had to go in and treat them and I discovered I wanted to puke and not even gloves could get me to touch such things. The creeps I got from the smell alone exor-cised any fantacy of entering the medical field. I didn’t know about fields like geol-ogy or quantity surveying, let alone graphic designing or programming. The next op-tion was law.

University was tough for me. Not academically but for the many days I didn’t have money to buy food. There were days when I was angry because I was hungry. To top it off most of the students in my class were relatively well off. That was the first time I really had that sense of why life was so unfair? Why must I struggle like this? All I wanted was just to study but instead I was burdened and emo-tionally drained with worries over money and basics such as food. There were people whose families had money and on top of that they would get scholarships. So I wondered about the fairness of things. But there were people who helped and even these rich kids would buy us food at times. Also, for all my years at Unam, I was in the top five and this reduced the financial burden significantly, but there were living expens-es beyond the scholarships the university provided for top performers. I had a friend who stayed in the hostel and I would sometimes go to the dining hall with her or she would give me her card. Then a time came when I had to move out of my mother’s house because of domestic issues. All of this stressed me out tremendously and

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WOMEN IN BUSINESS EDITION

FEATURE INTERNATIONAL NEWS

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

ChinaXI JINPING, CHINESE PRESIDENT and general secretary of the Communist Party, launched an unprecedented campaign targeting Party, government, military and state-owned company officials suspected of corruption after he came to power in late 2012.

Since then, his probe has ensnared thousands, ranging from local officials taking bribes to the most powerful government officials.

According to Minxin Pei, senior associate from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Corruption poses one of the most lethal threats to China’s future economic development and political stability. Illicit activities such as bribery, kickbacks, theft, and misspending of public funds cost at least 3 percent of GDP. Corruption also undermines the legitimacy of the ruling Chinese Communist Party, fuels social unrest, contributes directly to the rise in socioeconomic inequality, and undermines China’s environmental security.(Sources: http://www.scmp.com/topics/xi-jinpings-anti-graft-campaignhttp://carnegieendowment.org/files/pb55_pei_china_corruption_final.pdf)

NigeriaSince assuming power in May, NIGERIAN PRESIDENT, MUHAMMADU BUHARI has vowed

to root out corruption. On 10 August he constituted a seven-member committee of academics to advise him on his plans to tackle corruption.

Private jets that used to crowd the airport in the capital have been grounded, Rolls-Royces, Range Rovers and Jaguars are gathering dust in showrooms and luxury villas are left unsold as the government is cracking down on corruption.

He has put many public projects on hold to review the contracts, and ordered many government ministries, departments and agencies to consolidate their bank accounts for closer monitoring of financial transactions, including the Ministry of Finance to explain the diversion of more than US$ 1 billion on railway projects. He has also been moving to retrieve stolen money.

High-profile figures have been arrested, making the message clear that the culture of impunity is over and the government is showing strong political will to prosecute. The message is clear that nobody is exempt from investigation and if caught, people will be prosecuted.(Sources: allAfrica News and NY Times)

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I couldn’t sleep at night. I went to live with my brother and his wife for a while but that was short-lived. At this time my friend with the generous dining hall card was employed full-time and lived on her own. She opened her home to me and I am infinitely grateful for her generosity during this time in my life. And in later years when she needed me I gladly took her in. So there was always someone in my life when things were tough and I needed help. This I remember clearly and with deep gratitude.

When I did my articles (the train-ing you do after your law degree, to be admitted as a lawyer) my salary used to last for only two weeks. After a few years I wanted a new challenge and my cousin advised I join the bar. During my pupilage (when you train to become an advocate) I was advised to resign my job and get an overdraft from the bank. Alas! I did not get the overdraft and things were tough. I was back to driving on fumes. And then I was admitted to the bar and still, there I was, an advo-cate driving on fumes during those early years, while people owed me hundreds and often tens of thousands of dol-lars. But even then... things worked out and somehow there were people who helped. I laugh when I think of these early beginnings. Things have since stabilised and those days are now long gone. I must confess, sometimes I pinch myself because I see that I don’t have to worry about money anymore, but I still think twice because I need to think of covering my monthly bills and all the family obligations I have. This includes taking family children in at times for years, having my sister and brother stay with me for years and covering most of the living expenses for a big household.

Would I have been able to provide for so many people if I had that baby? We dated since Grade 12. When he asked me to have his baby our relation-ship was rocky at the time. And yes, I considered it for a moment. To be exact, for three days. Because I did not want to lose him. Then it hit me, “Are you stu-pid? What makes you think a child will make a difference? Look around you. Kids don’t make men stay.”