Monica Veneteve Sheetekela was born in 1962 in Enyana, a village in Northern Namibia. During the war in 1976, her family went with to one of the refugees Namibian settlements in Angola. She came back home to Namibia in 1989. Monica V. Sheetekela worked as a teacher and has been encouraged to write poems during the ’Integrated Teacher Training Programme’. His first poem was published in the ITTP magazine in 1991.
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If you get there before I do...
[published in RN 04 in March 1992, unpublished original text in English]
If you get there before I do
Please tell all my friends
That I am coming too.
I am a seed
planted in the dry season
you know my reason
you are my witness.
I am a seed
planted in the dry season
in bitter conditions
But the fence was built
and the land watered
By every nationalist
And the seed grew.
I am a seed
planted in the dry season
you know the reason
you have seen all over
on every hand
death of the land
But if bodies are dead
Hearts are still alive
to explain my history.
Remember me
In our free land
spirit together
In the beauty, glad.
Who am I ? What is my name ?
Answer my questions !
Don’t forget me !
Monica Sheetekela
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