Cold And Hungry in a Miserable Shack

Alvine Kapitako

27 July 2011

Groot Aub — Until he gets his pension grant next year, Ruben Naichab (59) has no choice but to depend on food handouts.

Barely knowing where his next meal will come from, more often than not neighbours and brother provide Naichab with some food. Not only is he short of food, he also he suffers from tuberculosis (TB). That makes life even more difficult for him. He has to take medication that requires him to eat because the drugs are too strong to be taken on an empty stomach.

“The only time I have a good meal is when I go to hospital to get my medicine for treatment,” he told New Era. He says he gets fed before he takes his medicine when he goes to hospital.

Ruben lives with his older brother Jan (86) in a tin shack that the brothers share with their sister in-law who is partially blind. “If there is no food, we don’t eat.” explains Lena Bok, a little upset.

For the past two years, her sight has become blurred and she can hardly see. She was forced to move in with her brother- in-law when her child died a few years ago.

Nothing much has changed since independence she says angrily, when asked on changes that have occurred in her community since independence. “I can’t see the difference,” she says firmly and in an obviously angry tone.

When things are really bad, she and her brothers- in-law have to scavenge for food from neighbours. This happens when their pension money runs out and that is when “neighbours have to chip in and take care of the three elders.

“I don’t know how much I get (pension) and it’s not enough,” says Bok, further complaining that she has a headache. She also suffers from high blood pressure. “I don’t know how to get to the hospital,” she adds and then stands up to frailly make her way to a pit latrine.

Basking in the sun in front of their shack, Jan moans about the cold winter nights.

“If someone could assist us even if it’s with new zinc sheets to rebuild our shack,” he says, while standing up to pose for a picture.

He can barely walk but bravely makes his way to the room while giggles from the neighbours’ children ring out as Jan walks.

Jan says the corrugated-zinc shack in which the trio live gets really cold. Anyone wishing to assist the three to enable them to build a new shack may contact them on their neighbour, Francina Gamchamus’ number – 0813639401.

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