They learned
to lead Members of the Namibia Nine revisit Pacific Lutheran University
By Rachel Pritchett S
ome wore shoes for the first time as they boarded their flights in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. Under apartheid they had
received a rudimentary education, limited to reading and writing. But these eight students from Namibia (a ninth came later) had shown great academic promise. Rising above legions of other deserving Namibians, they joined a select 100 to receive a full-ride education to one of 29 Lutheran colleges and universities in the U.S. “We were just at the right place at
the right time,” Edwin Tjiramba told a crowd gathered Feb. 28 to cel- ebrate these students and Namibia
Seven members of the Namibia Nine were among the celebrants attending the Feb. 28 release of a documentary about their experiences as scholarship students at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Wash.
Nine, a documentary telling of their experiences at Pacific Lutheran Uni- versity (PLU), Tacoma, Wash. PLU students, under the direc-
tion of communications professor Joanne Lisosky, produced the hour- long Namibia Nine documentary (
www.facebook.com/namibia.nine. movie), traveling to Namibia in 2014 to interview the students. PLU was the far-flung destination
for these Namibian students. Show- ing up at any university was shock enough because black people had been barred from higher education in their country. But the big surprise for the new arrivals was that most of the other students on this leafy suburban campus were white. Some of the Namibians were
immediately embraced by newfound friends. Others found themselves doing homework alone. Communi-
English professor Barbara Temple Thurston (left), greets Emmy Tirambo, a former PLU student who is now a education leader in Namibia.
cations major Lahja Mbango Kan- dongo had to collar passing students to film her broadcast stand-ups, she said in Namibia Nine.
Determined to succeed Te Namibia Nine flourished in the classroom because a somber respon- sibility accompanied them. Tey were to return to lead their country in freedom. Namibia grasped its independence from South African rule in 1990. “And yes [we] did [flourish],” said
Tjiramba, one of seven Namibia Nine who attended the documen- tary screening. Despite having to ask passers-by
to run her camera at PLU, Kan- dongo returned to work her way up
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