A Mile With… Chapumbo, The Team Leader

Chapumbo Sekin works as a team leader on the grape farms in Aussenkehr, at the banks of the Orange River in the South of Namibia. I passed the farms and the workers’ village next to it on a Saturday, when Sekin and his colleagues had a day off. The grapes grow especially well in this area, Sekin told me, and they ripe long before the grapes farther south in neighboring South Africa. A good part of the harvest, which starts around November, is exported to Europe. Sekin told me to have a good look at the living conditions of the workers there and think about them when eating grapes back home in Germany. He says that a seasonal worker earns about nine Euros per day picking grapes. Union representatives have long called for the farm owners to erect more suitable houses for their workers, but nothing has happened as of yet.