‘Corpses Ti?’
So apparently, the University of Namibia (Unam) is out here respectfully begging for bodies.
Yes, you read that right, they need actual corpses. Cadavers. Not donations, not school shoes, not blood. Corpses for scientific study. For the noble cause of training medical students so they don’t accidentally remove your kidneys when you just had a sprained ankle.
The first Namibian who read that article went: “Corpses ti? Muatje otjiti!”
The problem here is that a dead person isn’t just a dead person in Namibia. Oh no. They can be the ancestral WhatsApp group admin. Witchcraft consultant. Healer. Hunted. Haunted. Respected. Feared. And now you want us to casually hand them over to be sliced up like onions in a biology class? Waarso?
Let’s just imagine, for a moment, the average Namibian family being approached for a body donation, and you will hear things like “The devil is a liar!” and “It’s not our culture”.
I did a quick survey on why Namibians will not donate their bodies, and here are the top seven reasons:
“My ancestors will be angry.”
If you’ve ever been in a Namibian household, you know ancestors are like spiritual landlords. They’re always watching, always demanding rituals, and allegedly quick to withdraw blessings when you skip the goat sacrifice. If they hear their great-grandson’s brain is chilling on a stainless steel pedestal, thunder will strike.
“What if they use it for witchcraft?”
Ah, the eternal Namibian plot twist: witchcraft. Everything is witchcraft. You fail a test? Witchcraft. You lose your job? Witchcraft. Your body ends up at Unam? Definitely witchcraft. There’s a deep paranoia that even the university’s anatomy department might have a side hustle in the occult.
“The Bible says … (insert whatever fits the argument).”
Look, no one actually knows which verse says you must be buried fully intact and in your Sunday best. But many Namibians will quote something vague, like “Our bodies are temples …” (which is fair), but then they jump to “… and no one must touch the temple after death except the pastor and the undertaker with Vaseline and cotton balls”.
“I need to be whole for resurrection.”
Because, obviously, when Jesus comes back, He needs to find all your parts in one place. If your brain is in Windhoek and your left thigh went to Ongwediva for further study, how are you supposed to reunite for the Rapture?
“People will talk.”
In Namibia, your reputation survives you. The fear is not death itself, but what people will say at your funeral. “Yoh, did you hear? They didn’t even bury him. Unam came and took him. Just like that, chommie. Like a chicken for biology practicals.”
“I want to be buried next to my family.”
Fair. Touching. Except we forget that half our graveyards are filled with folks who didn’t even like each other in life. Now you’re spending eternity next to the cousin who still owes you N$400. Ai.
“I’m not ready.”
Sir, you’re dead. You are either ready to be a feast for maggots, or to save your fellow humans through science.
But here’s why it’s important to donate our bodies to medical science:
We can’t keep outsourcing bodies from South Africa and Europe. Even corpses have visa problems these days.
We need the corpses of real sons and daughters of the soil. Namibia desperately needs more doctors. Doctors who know where your spleen is without checking Wikipedia. Doctors who’ve practised on real human bodies, not plastic mannequins that don’t have veins, fat, trauma or spiritual pressure.
Future surgeons need to understand what a real, lived-in, complicated Namibian body looks like. Not everything inside us looks like a textbook diagram. Some of us ate kapana for 43 years. There are layers, my friend.
If we want our doctors to stop diagnosing headaches as pregnancy and stop cutting off the wrong limbs, we might need to rethink what we do with our bodies after we leave them.
Yes, there are beliefs. Yes, there’s culture. But maybe, just maybe, we could question whether some of those beliefs still serve us today.
What if we tested them? What if we found out that our spirits don’t actually get trapped in a lab drawer?
What if donating your body could literally save hundreds of lives and teach hundreds more how to preserve others?
What if this is exactly where others wavered?
Right there and then when your country needed you the most. Every bit of you.
What if your final act of giving could be the most powerful legacy you leave behind?
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