Joas Ekhandjo

* 1977

  • "Well, in Prague of course, you must have heard it from others, it was sugar! It snowed. When we got there, it was all snow, right? And consider that it was the first time in my life, I was still seven years old when I flew to Prague. And I saw snow for the first time, right? So, for me, snow didn't exist, but sugar did. Right? So, the doors of the plane just opened, I dumped all the clothes I had in my bag and got ready for the sugar." - "That you put it in your pocket, right?" - "Well, of course. Well, when the doors of the plane opened, there were two people who worked at the airport, they were already standing there, preventing us from getting to the snow. But it didn't help. I jumped into it normally. I normally jumped down those stairs onto the sugar. I poured it in there and you don't even feel it's cold. Right? Then they pulled me out of there and then I put it straight in my mouth, right? I was like, 'Man, it doesn't taste like sugar.' So that was my first experience with snow, right?"

  • "How would you describe that camp for the Czechs, who cannot imagine it?" - "That camp? A typical one, well. So. it was a camp, a typical camp. Like you just have tents there, because we had a lot of tents there. But with my mother, where we were, it was not a tent, it was wooden... there were many such wooden houses built there. And then a lot of tents, right? I would say a lot of people lived in tents. And then these wooden houses. But the clinic was a bit more modern back then, right? It was built out of brick and all that. There was a clinic and a school which we attended too. That was from brick. And then I also remember a prison. There was a small prison, yes, it was made of brick too. Well, it was also... well, but the village was deep in the forest, right? That was a deep forest, right? A normal person wouldn't find a way there, right? Because it's somewhere in the middle of the woods, right? I remember, we always went to that deep forest to pick up fruits just like that. And back home again in the evening. And they always yelled at us that we weren't allowed in the deep forest, but it was fun for us boys back then too. So, there was a lot of water, a lot of animals, right? There used to be a lot of pigs, right? We were there in that camp... pigs were bred a lot, like for meat, right? And there were cows and such... And lots of vegetables, right? We were in that camp in Zambia... I'll tell you, there was no hunger there. Back then. When there was a war. Even to this day I think the best food was at that camp, right? Especially vegetables over there in Zambia, right? That was absolutely divine, wasn't it? I still remember it to this day. And lots of fish. They ate a lot of fish there, fresh fish normally from the river, yeah, and stuff like that. And we grew up as children in that camp as simply brothers and sisters. I can say this because... And every elder there, every elder person there... we just took them as parents, right? Every elderly person was just like family to us. We took them all simply as our mothers or our fathers. And mostly they were all soldiers. But even we, as children, we were treated like little soldiers. But we were not like in the army, but we were like pioneers. Yeah? They always prepared us for the worst, right? Because of course, we were in a time of war. Zambia didn't have it easy either. Yeah? We were in Zambia as refugees, but there was a threat to Zambia again that the South Africans could also raid the camp, so they always gave us some sort of training there, right? We practiced every morning, they trained us. But we did not engage as if in a war. But they were preparing us for the worst. And it was a blast for us boys. That was a blast! Because it was an experience for us, right? We experienced it as children and it was really nice, right?'

  • "It was surprise after surprise. Or I call it horror after horror. Because first of all, I saw so many white people in one room. So... We understood that white people were enemies. Because of course the South Africans who occupied Namibia were white. And as we were trained to recognize the enemy, one of the characteristics was white skin. So, it was terrible. So, we were like, 'How is that possible?' It just didn't feel right to us, did it? So, it didn't feel right to me personally that week. But then in a fortnight I would say it got better. I got it... Hey, that was nice. Because I was afraid of those white teachers for a fortnight, right? Female teachers, they were all white there, weren't they? I was so afraid of them. Even the director was white. So, I said, 'They are the enemies. We're here, that's betrayal.' Yeah? Even when I was young, seven years old, I thought like that. Because that's how they trained us. But after a fortnight I understood that these white people were so nice, huh? They had a soft touch, right? We weren't getting that, were we? In that camp we didn't know what a gentle touch was. There was no one to touch you gently, we just didn't know that. And that voice too. That voice of theirs softened, they were so gentle. And I remember that they cried, the teachers, always. Right? And then I understood that it was emotional for them. Right? And then I found that I started to kind of trust them, yeah, and I also started to feel something that I've never known in my life. Right? It was just when one says... love, right? That was like a parent's love, right? We didn't know love, did we? Personally, I didn't know love because we only knew the principle. Yeah? Simply that this is done, that must not be done, that must be done. And I've always... And I've only ever known punishment, right? There was only punishment in the camp. Only punishment and no praise. Right? Because being praised in the camp, that didn't exist at all. Neither being praised as a team, right? It was just military, right? People have to understand that it was a military camp. Yeah? So... But here in the Czech Republic, in Czechoslovakia, in Bartošovice after a fortnight, I realized... That was a wonderful thing. It cannot be described.”

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They betrayed us. It was a huge disappointment

Joas Ekhandjo
Joas Ekhandjo
zdroj: Lukáš Houdek

Joas Ekhandjo was born on December 16, 1977 in Lubango, Angola, a camp for Namibian refugees. He spent his early childhood in Nyango Camp in Zambia. In 1985, he flew to Czechoslovakia as one of 54 Namibian children as part of international aid to the Marxist SWAPO movement, which at the time was fighting for Namibia‘s independence from the Republic of South Africa. The aim was to raise the children into the Namibian elite. Between 1985 and 1988 he lived in Bartošovice in Nový Jičín region, between 1988 and 1991 he was growing up in Prachatice. In 1991, together with other children, he was forcibly returned to Namibia, where he then lived with his mother. He last saw her as a small child in Zambia. In 2002, he returned to the Czech Republic for his education. He studied rehabilitation at the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. He later returned to Namibia and joined the president‘s office in the branch in the northern Namibian town of Ondangwa, where he was put in charge of disabled people‘s affairs. He was a leading figure of a group of Czechoslovak Namibian children, he was organizing a regular Czech festival.