Frolicking in the rain
Ryder Gabathuse | Friday February 21, 2025 13:17
It was the frosty light mizzles in the early stages of the rainy season that particularly sent boys and girls of our times into an alluring whirl, boogying and chanting as an appreciation for the genesis of the rainy season. It was a moment to treasure for a generation that was also not so blessed with recreational facilities. The mugginess was an exciting adventure that we cherished so much. In most cases, the rain was friendly and it entertained our appetite to joyfully dance and sing without fear of being washed away by the flash floods.
In exception of the year 1995 when my home town Palapye experienced the worst flash floods that horrified people destroying roads, houses, killing animals and sweeping away some people some of whom were never found till today. A disheartening report was of a woman whose child fell from her back into the fierce water and never to recover her again. This incident is till fresh in the minds of many villagers some of whom never recovered the remains of their loved ones even to this hour. There were unconfirmed reports were precipitated by the village authorities who had gone to the Tswapong Hills and gotten some boulders when constructing the kgotla then without the blessing of the Tswapong ancestors, so Palapye had to pay the price.
There was a song that we particularly dedicated to this season. We sang it energetically as we crazily stomped the ground barefooted. We defied the cold temperatures that came with the rain sometimes kitted in our heavily patched khaki trousers from our old and torn school uniform, which could only match the poor man’s coat of many colours.
We would sing, “Pula nna nna ke tla gola gola leng! (Roughly translated, this suggested that blessings of the rain would help young ones to grow). We were told the rainwater would indeed make us stronger and cleaner pure as it dropped on our small bodies. The song was sung with such gusto and zest often times with out-of-tune voices just out of exhilaration.
It was a moment parents in the neighbourhood allowed their children to dance and sing together without stricter controls as long as the young ones were within the vicinity.
Interestingly, the euphoria of singing in the rain was mostly short-lived. This moment was reminiscent to other games like hide and seek or dinkunku wee, tlang gae, which parents never restricted their children from mingling with their peers in the night.
When we were fed up with the incessant downpours, it would be time to sing another song we learnt from school: “Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day!” In most cases, it would be just wishful thinking, as the rain will continue anyway.
For the boys, frolicking in the rain was a treasured moment that separated weaklings from their sturdy peers. And in the days and weeks to come, the occurrence would conceitedly become a topical issue.
For the past two weeks in Gaborone and across the country, the rain glimmered nostalgic flashes of decades of the past. Playing in the rain was more like a ritual. In front of their sisters, boys would want to display their prowess, sometimes overzealously plopping the muddy waters to the loathing of their peers. This was amusement par excellence.
But, Gaborone recent downpours were rather brutal, destructive and posed a threat to human lives and property with motor vehicles washed away by floods whilst some immovable property succumbed to the flash floods as well.
Some rooftops are on the road, blown away by the storm leaving many occupants stranded. Thunderstorms were also conditions not conducive to our games, as parents would not allow their children to be exposed to danger. We had isolated incidents in which some of our young schoolmates were fatally hit by lightening.
Our interactions in the cloudbursts were sometimes restricted to the four corners of our homesteads or at least just in front of the yard as we were warned not to go too far lest we fell victims of flooded culvers and the village main river as some stubborn boys who defied stringent instructions often times never retuned from the river alive after their efforts to beat a few strokes turned horrible.
Out there at the Lotsane River, which meanders through the village splitting Palapye into half, it was a no go area as it was for the longest time infested with bilharzia. Once flooded, it was strictly out of bounds and it was even punishable to disregard the elderly people’s commands. But, manmade falls in a three-shape format were an attraction that the majority of our peers could not resist marvelling at in the rain. It was these falls that the pioneering National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) used to produce thermal electricity for the railways property.
The only time we were allowed to get closer to the river was when we were out to collect clay that we used to mould a hodgepodge of toys from cows, sleighs, cars and others. This was almost a boys only adventure where abundant talent was in display.
Signboards were positioned all over cautioning people to stay away from the polluted waters of the Lotsane River. But, there were still some of the boys in particular who defied the health warning and the lurking danger by taking turns to swim in the infested water. At best, some of us will just watch from a distance, the scum of the water and the pitter-patter or the swoosh of a flooded river.
These are stories of yesteryear and have built boys and girls of the mid 1960s to stronger men and women of today.
The rules of playing in the rain were unwritten, but like the traditional Setswana culture, boys tested their sturdiness through playing in the rain, but sometimes the unexpected happened, as some boys would catch flu amongst other misfortunes.