My first time to descend on Kgalagadi was about 30 years ago when I was assigned to an area that later became my second home. Like others who had just completed form 5, I couldn’t wait for an opportunity to earn “something” every month and have a bit of freedom. Some participants had served in my home village of Sefophe and I had always wished for my turn to enjoy a bit of independence and move away from under the parental wing. They had their own homes and were getting something every month. That something, if my memory serves me well, was about P 96. This was enough to take care of basics and a bit of entertainment. We stayed at the University of Botswana for our Tirelo Sechaba Orientation. The orientation was in two folds; “an introduction to an independent lifestyle” and what to expect in the field. We then moved to Tsabong where we stayed for about a week before being dispersed to different areas of Kgalagadi. The very weekend when we arrived in Tsabong, the former president, Rra Gaone was in the village to open a secondary school. I wished I could jump into the army chopper transporting him and fly back to civilization. Security issues aside, I was now stuck here and had to adapt. The people here called Gaborone and the part of the country, Botswana. This really made me feel so far from the rest of the country and made me home sick. It was not difficult to know why they felt like they were not part of the country. Honestly, I did not look forward to being posted to Kgalagadi. Little did I know that I would fall in love with this place and its lovely people.
The terrain was quite tough and hard to travel in. We travelled through the sandy roads in open trucks. It was a challenge if another vehicle was to come from the opposite direction or you wanted to overtake. There was no electricity. There were no telephones. Communication with the outside world was through letters and walkie-talkie. This was a huge task to the romantically involved ones. They had the huge task of interacting regularly with the post office, lest they got fired or rebuked if they did not keep in touch. The weekly trips from Middlepits to Khawa on the Land Cruiser ambulance over the sand dunes were a challenge. You could feel for the vehicle.
Middle-pits was the biggest village in the area and Kolonkwane, the village I was based in, got most of its services from Middlepits. The post office was there, the junior secondary school which had just been opened was there, the Community Development Officer was also based there. We had to choose three areas or places where you could serve. I chose the health-post in Kolonkwane which fell under Middlepits clinic, the primary school and community development office.
In one of the visits to Tsabong, the District Headquarters, I came across a Botswana National Front (BNF) rally which I covered and filed a story from for Mmegi newspaper. I was a stringer, a freelance reporter if you like and this helped my cash-flow. I could at times after getting my pay cheque take my boys out for a good time under the shades, hope you get my drift.
A week ago I went to Tsabong to visit our party structures. Of course I have been to this area on several occasions after I left the National Service, or Tirelo Sechaba in vernacular. The family I stayed with took good care of me and so whenever I get an opportunity, I visit. Well this time I didn’t not but I am sure I will visit soon as we will be going to Tsabong for the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC)/ Botswana Congress Party (BCP) March against State Media abuse by BDP, high unemployment levels, declining education standards and the Electronic Voting Machine.
There is no denial that there has been huge and I mean huge transformation in the area. The haves can connect power to their houses. There are tarred roads all over, telephones, and other forms of infrastructural development that you can think of. Rra Gaone would say, re tsere lehatshe le le mo legweeleleng. But there is a travesty. These developments haven’t rubbed off into the people’s lives just like it is the case in the rest of the country. The BNF had always argued that first you have to develop the person so that this developed individual will develop his/her surroundings. But the BDP has done it the other way round. Shame! But Let us be fair to them. That’s the best they could do. We all have limitations.
Most of Batswana cannot access these facilities because they are poor. They can’t connect electricity to their homes, they can’t afford to connect a telephone line, they can’t find employment. If some manage to access these services, they fail to pay the bills because they are poor. They also lack survival skills. Yes the infrastructure is there, but can they eat it? Who has really benefitted from the development of these massive infrastructure? Its mostly foreigners and a few locals. The Locals are spectators, the foreigners the actors and the country the theatre in this mumbo-jumbo. The Billions of pula that go towards these projects enrich a few and deepen the gap between the rich and the poor.
Kgalagadi is rich in natural resources like the rest of the country. The poverty that we have is of transformative leadership, poverty of a leadership that has a vision; one that is self less. A leadership that wants to change the living standards of its people from being Ipelegeng workers. There is abundance of this leadership in the opposition and there is no doubt that as the curtain falls on the current play in 2019, a sense of hope will unravel. Botswana will become a great nation. We were not condemned to be a nation of spectators. Smile and be cheerful for 2019 is bringing a new chapter in the life of this nation. But we should not forget that we are the masters of our destiny. We made mistakes and 2019 gives us an opportunity to correct those mistakes.
