From Namibia with love

After its success at last year’s premiere, the film ‘From Namibia with love’ was shown again at the Goethe Centre on Tuesday.
The film is about a Finnish-Namibian couple, Salatiel and Anita Ailonga. Anita left Finland and came to Tanzania as a missionary and fell in love with a Namibian man. The couple ends up being part of the Namibian liberation struggle, a situation that changes their lives for ever.
The film portrays how the couple were part of the fight for freedom from South African white apartheid oppressors. Viewers are taken on a journey from Namibia, through to Zambia, Finland and Tanzania where the couple got married. When the couple arrives in Namibia their relationship receives a lot of opposition and they become a target for the white oppressors.
The film also shows how in the 1970s the couple assisted the Namibian Liberation Movement SWAPO which was then fighting for the freedom of Namibia. During the struggle for independence the couple had to make two difficult decisions in order to survive and were even deported from Zambia because of the work they were doing for the Namibian refugees. The film also tells the viewer how Salatiel fell victim to SWAPO and the Zambian government and was removed from his post as a priest and even forced to leave his home which the church had provided for him, something that made him so heartbroken he got a stroke.
To date Salatiel is denied his pension, nevertheless he looks at his situation with a positive attitude and even said “its not about the money, I’m happy at least Namibia got its independence”.
Filmed in Ovamboland, the film shows the viewer how after more than 30 years after fighting  in the liberation struggle, the couple is still haunted by what they witnessed and what they went through. Nevertheless they couple shows that they are strong and wont let anyone or anything bring them down.They manage to settle down in a village in the north of Namibia and become part of its community.
Anita kept the viewers in stitches with her humour and charisma; she showed how she has truly blended in with the community and her love for the animals on the couples’ farm is like that of a mother for her children.
The film shows the couples’ emotions and devotion to one another and to the nation of Namibia. Though sad, the film shows that love helps one overcome anything and makes one laugh and cry and also appreciate the little things in life.