In the Namibian refugee camp, out in Vingerskraal there are more than 5,000 people residing in tin shacks, 99% of which are carrying HIV/AIDS. The tin shacks are a result of black Namibians who were evicted from white territory.  In the early 90’s a war between black Namibians and black South Africans was fought in the service of the apartheid. In 1994 the war ended and the Namibian people gained their independence from South Africa. However, many of the Namibians were left there, and the government has placed them in Vingerskraal. The existence of the town is one piece of evidence that Africa is still trapped in the past of the apartheid.  To get to the town, or out of the town there is a six or so mile road that is terribly bumpy and almost impossible to reach the end, separating the people from anything beyond. As we drove down it, there were cars trying to leave, but not getting very far before they broke down.

This place was my favorite community to visit. There were colors in the leaves, plants, flowers, tree trunks, and earth that I had never seen before. Despite their sicknesses the children there play so freely, love each other so purely, and live so hopefully, and the parents demonstrate such an intense bliss to the simplicity of being alive.  The sinister South African government may have self-'righteously ordained these people as forgotten, condemning them to waste away under their tin homes in their sicknesses and “worthlessness,” but you must believe me when I say that these people are not that. Their identity is in being a child of a loving God that will never abandon them, and it is very evident that God has nourished their land and their spirits with his presence, and he has not forsaken them and he never will.

This is Betruce, he was such a special child to me in my time in Africa. I knew he was very sick, he just wanted to play but he was so tired so I carried him around on my shoulders and in my arms amongst the other children while we visited his home. The day he smiled I think my heart broke a little bit, and it still aches every time I see this picture or think of him trying to keep up with the other children. 

Beginning of their road