Life in the kotoisi
Ryder Gabathuse | Monday October 2, 2023 06:00
Hopping between the spaces where I was raised at Boikago ward in Palapye and the kotoisi just a stone’s throw away from Lotsane River was an exciting experience that had already made the Palapye railway station my second home.
The railway compound, kotoisi, was a must visit place partly because the space was available to my grandmother who plied the trade brewing traditional concoction otherwise known as mokuru.
I still wonder how that was possible that my uncle gave away the place to her mother and chose to stay at his house at the far end of Palapye at Thomadithotse ward and allow his place of work to be used as a traditional brewery.
One compelling reason for always joining the grandmother at the railways compound was not to watch the trains as they passed, but to enjoy the taste of dintshe,or the lees or sediments of traditional beer-very palatable and irresistible snack for the young ones. Just before the traditional beer is fermented, there is another traditional brewing stage known as mogetlo, the porridge-like stuff to which water and malt are added in beer brewing-very appetising as well.
The grandmother, whose focus was his traditional brewery trade, was hardly bothered by what else we did when we had paid her a visit at the brewing spot. She would allow us to interact with our peers provided we returned home before dusk. It was also common that we played street soccer at the kotoisi, which was every boy’s dream.
This also kept us away from closely interacting with the elderly when imbibing the traditional concoction as sometimes we were accused of chasing the usual customers by laughing at them as some were very waggish, to simply ignore.
On the way to the railway compound, we could not ignore the regular noise emanating from an old fixed telephone line that was strummed onto a scrap of a disused Bedford truck belonging to the village businessman, Otaata Shashane.
The phone hullabaloo was quite brash so much that it could be overheard from miles away. The set up was the only one of its kind in the village and it left some of us awestruck just to marvel at technological advancement at the time, in the early 1970s. In fact, to have a home fixed line at the time was associated with a sturdy financial muscle.
Before Palapye acquired its current state of the art bus and taxi terminus, the area in between Shashane’s yard at Fitase (some vast yard that could literally accommodate a football pitch) and the railway station, was a dusty, open bus and taxi rank that was patronised mostly by buses and trucks that transported people in and out of Palapye and other villages. There were also long distance buses in the mix. The dusty area was also a market place at large mainly for the farm produce originating from small villages in the vicinity of Palapye.
Wild fruits like mmopudu, mogwagwa, mogorogorwana, moretlwa, mogwana and others were also in abundant supply. The area was also abuzz with activity mainly during the harvesting season.
The place was convenient as it also offered solutions to the jobless members of the community as they could sell just anything to make a living. Most of the boys in Palapye tried their luck by selling oranges at this place as a way of making money and most importantly testing their sales skills. Because of congestion at the kotoisi area, waste management was a daunting trial. There was an offensive smell regularly emanating from a viscous mixture of liquid and solid or sewage sludge if you like, which was always in motion. The sludge had now become a permanent feature in the area snaking its way from the area’s standpipes mainly, which also was accessed by the community in Palapye. The sludge also attracted rodents along its path. It raised a lot of questions about waste management in the area.
The kotoisi area was more like a market place as traditional brews were in abundant supply. Some cooked fat cakes and meat, papa amongst others to feed the appetite of people who needed the services. Food was sold from almost every homestead just like it was the case with various traditional concoctions. Sometimes humans were caught up in the conflict of odour emanating from the exposed waste and cooked food in the neighbourhood. After all, life had to go on. The unpalatable odour however, always won any competition against the smell of food.
The railway compound at the time was more like the current SADC community as there were residents who had pioneered at the then National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) the precursor of the Botswana Railways (BR). They were from Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Angola, South Africa and other areas with some having naturalised as citizens. We would later be told that some of them were in fact refugees from the neighbouring countries.
The eastern gate at the kotoisi led straight to the railway station, which was the land of opportunities for boys and girls of our times. At the break of dawn (on a good day), we combed the whole area for coins along the railway track and outside. In our escapades, we would not go back home empty handed. The railways security considered us a menace and would chase us once they saw us scratching the ground. It was a challenge we were prepared to face.
At the time, reports of people killed by the train as they attempted to cross the railway track were galore, prompting the police to engage on a massive campaign to keep people away from the busy track, as they feared some simply committed suicide.
The police carried their campaigns to primary schools and the village kgotla carrying enlarged black and white pictures of people run down by the trains. It was scary, but people hardly complied, as the recurrence of such incidents was a worrying phenomenon.
In the period before Botswana acquired the pula and thebe as the local currency, it was common that we pulled a magnet on the ground to quickly pick the South African coins, in which we mostly succeeded. Before acquiring her currency, Botswana was part of the Rand Monetary Union (RMU) and the Rand was our currency.
I remember vividly, one Saturday morning in 1976, in company of my grandmother, when we excitedly went to the then agency of the Standard Chartered Bank, which operated from a small office in the area around the railway line. It was my first ever time, closest to a commercial bank. I saw her quickly emptying a small bag from her breast and counted a few South African Rand notes, which yielded some new Botswana bank notes and coins.
It was a thrilling twinkling. Money did not make much sense to me, as I was still a child contingent upon the parents for everything. I however, knew that if you needed a few coins to buy candies that coloured our tongues and the black Wilson, brown sugar and other childish essentials, the railway station provided an opportunity to pick coins without disquieting anyone.
Day and night the informal sector operators vending all sorts of wares, pursued people itinerant by train. The railway station was in deed a place of hope to those gripped by bleakness of finding jobs.
But, there was a catch. There was always a reality we had to contend with in our endeavours to pick our coins. The Palapye railway station like most railway stations in the country then had a problem of dumping of raw sewage on to the train tracks and sometimes we were caught in between picking the coins and cursing the waste for piling upon our targets (coins). However, there was no time we ever picked the coins buried onto the human waste. It was simply duff.
When we were tired of the train buzzers, our destination was the Lotsane River just a stone’s throw from the railways compound. Here, the chirruping of a flock of birds that fed on a variety of naturally growing foods from the green plants thwarting the river and watering from the thriving natural source was another marvel. We also attempted fishing, which was not really my thing for I feared water as few homeboys had drowned in the waters trying to catch fish or swim.
The gaggle or school of birds provided thrilling scenery along the river that naturally separated the village as it snakes its way to further destinations. One major attraction along the river was not limited to the high railway bridge standing along the path of the river as it gathers momentum on its journey to meet other rivers.
Lotsane River, according to journals, flows roughly eastwards passing close to Serowe and through Palapye and flanking the feet of the Tswapong Hills on the northern side near Maunatlala. It finally, joins the left bank of the Limpopo River at the border with South Africa. The river’s origins are traceable to the farming area of Sandveld at the eastern fringes of the Kalahari Desert.
In the years of yore, about a kilometre north of the railway bridge, just along the river, there was another wonder, a man-made waterfall popularly known as three because of its shape. It was created in the colonial era to generate hydro electricity for the railways property. This was another marvel albeit, the facility is now dilapidated and quite rickety due to the current state of the river.
Since the advent of the 1996 flash floods that saw the Lotsane River spewing its waters into the village, destroying properties along its wake and sweeping away human lives, some of whom were never recovered. Since, this natural disaster and troubles associated with climate change, the Lotsane River has become a shadow of itself. Vegetation and sediment are competing for attention in killing the beauty of the river.
Besides threats of bilharzia in the waters of the river back then, as signage to that effect was loud and clear, the site of the river provided a perfect hunting ground for a variety of birds which was the boys’ prized relish. Armed with our slingshots, it was uncommon for one to return home empty handed. As we finally return to the kotoisi after a long day’s trial sometimes, at least there will be something to take home.