Ewe-Retu Institution was conceived in a deep soul meant to endure forever. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and everything which is in existence. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. This was powerfully and perfectly created according to His own thoughts and will.
I would love to tell a short experience of myself before revealing the Ewe-Retu Community Project Conception.
Sometime in the late 2000, I took a guest of mine with his wife and two boys ages 5 and 8 on a tour to my village Ovinjuru in Epukiro Constituency in Omaheke Region to show them how and where we live. Of course, they knew about where I’d been in Germany and what I had achieved in the meantime. To cut a long story short. When we arrived at my premises in our village, Ovinjuru, he got out of the car, took his young boy on his shoulders, and walked passed by my hut, the one I was going to show him. I built this hut the previous year with my wife and children. This was in fact the shelter I was going to show him. As I called him back wanting to proudly show him my house, he turned back surprised.
Then he lowered his boy from his shoulders on the ground and asked me. “Floyd, do you mean, you went from Windhoek to Cologne, came back to Windhoek, and from there to here (Ovinjuru), this is what you mean and call it your home?” Only at that moment, I knew that there is no better way to make one understand my experience better. I told him at that moment, “If you don’t know where you are from, then you will not know where you are going”. With reference to this; I shortly narrate my story of how I got expelled from school the very first day of my school career. Having been free all the time as a boy and never been exposed to any formal educational system or facility, the day came when school started in January and all the children (newcomers and older learners) were put together in a room for the first day of orientation at school.
Naturally before the first day of school, I used to live with my Great-Grand Mother in a village named Kalpan in Epukiro and I had my traditional attire which was light and easy on me to handle. When nature called, things were a lot easier to finish because I could move the leather piece that covered my manhood on the side and pee wherever and it was the same which I did with the bigger business if need be. All this was accomplished during any time of the activities. That’s what I called freedom.
When nature calls and you are restrained from doing what you normally used to do, e.g. peeing while running herding the goats or finishing your number two behind a bush and proceed. “It is no more freedom”. That is what happened on that first day of school. Nature called and this time not outside but behind four walls in an enclosed classroom, at a formal educational institution in Omawezonjanda, Epukiro Post 3 village.
In this instance, I had to ask my elder uncle George who happened to be in the same classroom, what to do in my situation at that moment and he directed me to the principal who was standing outside behind the classroom and talking to his colleague, to ask for permission to go to the restroom. Imagine where on earth did I ever have to ask for something like that. I mean permission to go to the restroom. I was regarded as ill-mannered by the principal for intervening in a conversation and then he threatened me that he would swallow me up alive. That was the end of the story and no need to go peeing because all the fluids were released from my body parts, e.g. nose, eyes, mouth, and down underneath (peeing).
I cried because I did not want to be devoured by this giant of a teacher and the cultural shock on that day in the classroom. On that day I graduated in simultaneously multi-tasking activities like mentioned above and hence was sent home by the principal. The message to my parents accompanied me with my uncle that I was not prepared for school and therefore had to come back the following year. PREPARED FOR SCHOOL!!! Where does one do this preparation?
This meant that coming straight from home herding goats and doing everything but nothing related to school would definitely cause these types of frustrations and embarrassment. At least that question posed above by my traveling guest paved the way to where I am heading. The concept of the Ewe-Retu Community Project is meant to prepare the child for school readiness in the same environment where more than 50 years ago I was expelled from school on the very first day.