The most significant event I can recall near to the date of my father?s birth is the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924.
His prosecution of the Russian revolution in 1912 with Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky at his side changed the world. The revolution put a lid on Czardom, established a socialist model in one state, and liberated the colonised countries from perpetual obedience to bourgeois ideology and unquestioning servitude to capitalism.
Kenneth Koma was born in 1924, a few years after Seretse Khama. He is credited with bringing the enlightenment to Botswana, and then snuffing it out when the Botswana National Front, where he was the substantive leader throughout its significant life, was about to take power from the Botswana Democratic Party.
It is my mother, Patience Nompunzi Molefhe ? Sqongana was her Xhosa maiden surname ? who was born in 1933. The date sticks out in my mind because it marks the American economic depression which touched the lives of every citizen also smothering the vibrancy of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and its flourishing Jazz culture.
Deep in the recesses of my historical mind is embedded the miners strike of 1922 in South Africa when black workers protested against unequal pay for equal work with their white counterparts.
I am searching for the historical circumstances that might have influenced the global social mood that prevailed when my grandfather, Rampholo Binnock Molefhe and Nkuku, Miriam ?Mmamolebatsi?, parented Topo James Molefhe.
Family legend ? I have picked up only a handful ? has it that there was one brother before Topo, and that he was so named because the first one died. In Setswana, ?E ne e le topo ya Modimo ? God demanded? is the closest I can get to it in the Queen?s language.
The idea is somewhat comparable to Bogadi. Bogadi ? euphemistically referred to as ?bride-price? by westerners – is the gift that the prospective husband gives to the family of the bride so that their children should have a kind of life insurance should the father, who is usually the breadwinner, die.
The difference, of course, is that God takes as he chooses, whilst Bogadi is given according to culture.
I pray, if only for the credibility of the rest of this article, and my own unsteady standing in the family, that my impression about how my father?s name came about is a good approximation of the truth.
I should also warn that when I sat behind my computer to type these reminiscences, I did not consult my father about any part of his story, save for a quiet threat to my second senior sister, Wame, that I would write.
Of one thing I am certain, my father and mother were born in Mafikeng, the place of huge rocks, then spelt Mafeking by the white settlers.
Rampholo, born a chief ? or at least a community leader of sorts – in Shoshong, adjacent to the Mosinyi household in 1886, must have believed that the capital of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, later Botswana, would forever remain in Mafikeng.
I do have evidence of my grandfather?s royal status. MmaBoijane in Tonota told me so. So did MmaDitsapelo. And King of Kings, Professor Mogomela. I also went to find out at Goo-Tholo kgotla on an excavatory visit with one Seitshiro a few years ago.
He led me to this banker brother whose father was the reigning monarch at Goo-Tholo.
Perceiving me to be a threat to his ascendancy to the chieftainship at the ward, he directed me to seek my seat at Makaleng. I suspect that the whiskey offered by my brother-in-law Katse Sparks Pillar, whose birthday party my father and I were celebrating, had arrived at the root of his nervous system.
I know that the BaNgwato, who presumably sent a regent to Tonota to administer the kgotla when the rightful Kgosi of the BaKhurutshe had lost his mind, played a part in meddling with the history of the Babina-phofu, who are, in any case, their genealogical seniors.
The ?Bogosi? was also corrupted when some tribesmen bartered with Cecil John Rhodes to give up sovereignty of the path where his rail line would pass in exchange for protection of their claim to the BaKhurutshe throne if they signed off the land as if they were the real Kings.
I am curious to find out what really happened at Tonota from a proper Motswana historian.
My father must have refused the Bogosi if there was any on offer. He tells me that he also declined Seretse Khama?s invitation to have him run for a parliamentary seat at Tonota because he had been away for a long time and the people did not know him.
He, instead, opted for a civil service career though he did not get his full pension on retirement because it was judged that Moeng College, where he taught, was not a government school when he was there. That he did not tell me.
At Moeng, he taught English and served as boarding master, mischievously nicknamed ?Dickets? by his students due to the limp in his leg. Among them were Aubuti Gontebanye Mogae, about whom former MP Maitshwarelo Dabutha spilled a few scoops in confidence.
There was the scout and pioneer lawyer, David Magang, soccerites Bashi Ikitseng and Keboemetse Bareki, the Baitsile twins, Aubuti Bakwena and more. They feasted on my mother?s scones.
Their other entertainment ? I would have been too young to take notice of their fiddling with the girls ? was my dancing when my father played the piano or Miriam Makeba?s ?Pata-Pata? and King Kong on his mono playing gramophone.
T.J, as his peers call him, rejoined his Fort Hare colleagues, Archie Mogwe and Gaositwe Chiepe at the district council ?education? offices in Serowe in the early 1960s.
We lived at ?Palamaokuwe?, a black suburb of Serowe made up of about five families on top of an incline on the way to Seretse?s mansion situated at the edge of the village going to Rakops. The Kraai?s manned the clinic and were renowned herbalists. Their family founded the Community Center.
The Mogwe?s and the Molefhe?s were joined by the Johnson?s who were really Zulus and not to be confused with the expatriate police officer who lived closest to the District Commissioner.
One of my favourite chores was fetching milk from the Palmer?s or Patrick van Rensburg?s brigades because I could then ride my father?s Raleigh bike which now and then spilled Mpho Lesolle and myself though we dared not break the milk bottle.
Mpho visited from Mahalapye where everybody thought that they were Michael Schumacher, Cool Hand Luke or some kind of magician.
The Mogwe?s spoke the Queen?s English. Apparently they were not pretending; they had actually visited overseas.
During the South African and Rhodesian school holidays, we would be blessed with a viewing of the Steinbeck boy, Leon, who kept company with Ian Khama when he was around, speeding past on horseback on the dusty road disappearing into the sunset.
Between themselves, the Steinbeck?s, Palmer?s and Blackbeard?s owned every thing that was worth owning in Serowe.
That is, until Smith flew in with a private ?flying-machine? to build a one stop grocery shop next to the ?tlhare-setala? stadium where the Miscellaneous and Motherwell football teams clashed every other weekend. TTC always prevailed over Swaneng though Molema Motsemme was, in my view, a cut above Spokes between the posts. Spokes was probably a better mimic of Elvis Presly.
I saved up all week for the ?lenyonyomane? or fat-cake that I bought at Phenyamere?s outlet on my way to the soccer games.
My father then moved to the Teacher Training College where, through him, I met Caleb and his family from Australia. Caleb?s brother showed me how to play chess and always beat me.
My mother and Rangwane (Uncle) Tholo taught at Tshekedi Memorial where I did my standard One or Two in MmaMasabase?s class. For some weird reason, she nicknamed me ?Bulldog?, which is probably why I was always at the tail end of the class when the results came at the end of the term.
I didn?t care. Playtime was my favourite class.
From the playgrounds and the red gravel road leading down to the school you could see a roundavel at the foot of the hillock overlooking Tshekedi Memorial. On the door was written: ?I am a dog?.
A strange coloured lady lived there and also taught at Tshekedi. She was Bessie Head, later to become a world famous author of books about Serowe, but really inspired by the pain she felt from being a discriminated and abused ?non-white? woman from apartheid South Africa.
I later had the honour of inviting her to talk to Peace Corps trainees when I was Director of In-Country training.
Her largeness ? hardly evident from her physical stature – dawned upon me even more deeply when I saw a portrait of this indescribably beautiful young woman on the walls of a theater in Johannesburg where writers met to unify authors? organisations that had split along political lines.
Her name and work seemed to appear on almost every documentary about literature from Botswana, South Africa or the continent.
When John Coltrane played Bessie?s Blues, I was reminded that she and another great Afro-American singer, Bessie Smith shared that name? and pain.
My father went to Bangkok to study how to teach teachers to teach art. For some reason, he moved the family to Gaositwe Chiepe?s house on the hill overlooking the London Missionary Society church where the prayers took as long as the trip from Palapye to Serowe on Jack D Wright?s bus.
It always took some choking and poking of the gear box to get the mighty snail moving after its habitual ?break-down? in the sand conveniently near a spot where the fellows would take a serious leak and then refill for the rest of the journey to Serowe.
Continued next Week
