Hage Geingob - Early Life

Early Life

Geingob was born in the Grootfontein District of Namibia. He received his early education at Otavi in Namibia under the Bantu Education System. He joined the Augustineum Training College in 1958 where most of today’s prominent political leaders of Namibia were educated. In 1960, he was expelled from Augustineum for having participated in a march to protest the poor quality of education. He was, however, re-admitted and was able to finish the teacher-training course in 1961. Subsequently, he took up a teaching position at the Tsumeb Primary School in Central Namibia but soon discovered that his thirst for knowledge was unlikely to be quenched in Namibia. As teacher, he also hated being an unwilling instrument in perpetuating the Bantu Education System.

Therefore, at the end of the school year, he left his job to seek knowledge and instruction that could help him change the system. He, with three of his colleagues, walked and hitch-hiked to Botswana to escape the system. From Botswana, he was scheduled to go to Dar es Salaam on a plane chartered by African National Congress (ANC). However, this plane was blown up by the South Africans when it was still on ground because the time bomb went off prematuarely. Subsequently, the apartheid regime also tightened up the "underground railway." As a result, Hage Geingob, stayed on in Botswana where he was appointed Assistant South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) Representative in Botswana (1963-64).