Namibia Odyssey

The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo, Peter Orner, 2006

Jewish American volunteer finds himself teaching school at a remote desert school in forgotten African country of Namibia in this marvelous first novel. More a collection of vignettes of the teachers, students, and other characters encountered in this school, a failed farm left to the catholic church and now converted by the government into a school for poor boys.

Namibia School

Mavala Shikongo, the title character is a former SWAPO (revolutionary) soldier, beautiful, tall, mysterious, the only single woman at the school, surrounded by bachelor priest and teachers. Other characters are Theofilus, the anonymous albino handyman who single-handedly keeps the school running, assuring water and electric generator, as well as caring for the goats, chickens, and cows on the farm; Antoinette, wife of a teacher, maternal, quiet, but the real force keeping the school running; teachers Vilho, Pohamba, Obadiah, Festus and his wife Dikeledi; the nameless principal and step brother of Mavala, locked in a power struggle with the mostly absent nameless priest over who controls the farm-school; neighboring auntie, and her whelps, who steals whatever they want from the teachers; Prinsloo and his wife, old time Boer farmers who raise and sell vegetables to the school.

Herero Woman

Ever present as characters are the desert and the drought, threatening the continued existence of the school and farm. Occasional characters are children refugees from the fighting in neighboring Angola, who walk 800 km to attend the school. They don’t want shelter or food, only the privilege of attending classes.

Namibia Dunes

A very gentle, very humane work exploring the everyday lives of unforgettable, forgotten characters.
Also by Orner Underground America: Narratives of Undocumented Lives. See review at jtwine.