Themba’s Raaswater

The settlement is informal in that most of the people there live in shacks constructed out of corrugated iron and bits of wood, even cardboard. It is formal in that most people have electricity and water, and roads are being laid and improved.

Growing up not far from Raaswater, Themba Masala, 45, never went to school and has no idea what he would be doing with his life now were it not for a visit he paid, in 1986, to an uncle living in the fishing port of Luderitz in southern Namibia.

With no education, no prospects and nothing but time on his hands, Themba was drawn to the Rossing Foundation’s college in the town, a free education centre funded by the uranium-mining giant. He stayed in Luderitz long enough to get some formal education, to learn reading and writing and – most importantly for his future – silkscreening and painting. One silkscreen print, of the baby Moses, Themba sold to a volunteer English teacher at the foundation. Then he sold another, of an eagle killing a snake, to another teacher. The idea began to form in his mind that perhaps he was good enough to make a living out of art.

Settling in Windhoek, Themba continued his art education. In 1992 he returned to Upington when his father fell ill. By this stage he had started to dabble in sculptures of caterpillars and lizards using his chosen materials of papier mache and wood. The Rossing Foundation – for whom he had worked briefly after completing his free education in Luderitz – continued to buy his work. Themba sold a few pieces at the Protea Hotel in Upington.

A diamond in the dust

While he was trying to eke out a precarious living, the Department of Arts and Culture which, says Themba, recognised “this diamond in the dust” came to his rescue. The department arranged for him to exhibit in Upington’s museum. Themba never looked back.

Today, 13 people work in and around Themba’s ramshackle home cum studio cum workshop in Raaswater. Joblessness is almost a given in Raaswater; the only alternative to unemployment and dire poverty being poorly-paid seasonal farming work.

On any given day, in the yards around his informal art centre and in the busy workshop full of gentle chatter, gorgeous papier mache and wooden items in various stages of production are lined up on benches or hanging out to dry. They include Christmas baubles, springbok heads and fantastic lizards. Most of the works of art are brightly but fetchingly painted fish and birds, the stock lines for which Themba and wife Nombulelo (the business manager) have carved out markets from the United States to Australia.

People relying on us

His French customers alone, Themba says, place enough business to keep him and his staff fully employed yet he is determined that soon there will be 20 people working at his business. Then 30... “We have to grow because so many people are relying on us. There are no jobs here, except on the farms,” says Themba. “This business is very important to the people of Raaswater.

“My dream for this business is to have a big formal art centre here in Raaswater. It will be a place that people will come from far to visit. They will come and see what we make and the people who make it. And then they will buy from us. I have this dream. I share it with TEP and I hope that they will help me realise this dream, for me and for the people here in Raaswater.”