From railway station to modern village

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Friday November 7, 2008 00:00

It is difficult to think that she is talking of events that took place almost 70 years ago. Segwabe says that her family was one of the first to arrive in Tati Siding in 1942. 'It was just a place ran by the Boers and it was called TC,' she says. The village lies about 15 kilometres south of Francistown. While Segwabe is from Serowe, her husband is from Tonota.

She says that at first they settled in the area now known as Ntshe in Francistown. The owners of the Ntshe land later moved them to Tati Siding. 'They said that they were still building ranches at Ntshe,' she says.

Segwabe says that when they first came to Tati Siding, they had to pay taxes to the Boers for keeping livestock and harvesting grass. 'They were people, Batswana who were hired by Rabosotho the white man to collect from us. We had to pay anywhere from P3 to P10 depending on how many cattle you had,' she states. Tati Siding was by then a train station or kotoise, as it was once known. Segwabe says it was the first president the late Sir Seretse Khama who saved them from the taxation by the Boers in 1963 or 1964 and made sure they got clean water. 'We were drinking dirty water from the rail road before Khama came and then we got stand pipes. We used to get water from very far but it was not much of a problem because then, we were not scared of being attacked by other people on the way like now,' she says.

Segwabe says that the day Khama arrived to introduce the BDP, they were picked up in cars to go and see him. 'Before he left he told us that we had to come together as people and talk about the village because at first there was no headman,' she says.

Today Tati Siding is one of the villages that many want to live in because of the modern facilities and probably its proximity to Francistown. Several people reside in Tati Siding but work in Francistown.

Kgosi Simon Nkgageng of Tati Siding says a major problem in his village is crime. 'We are dealing with that problem and we have reduced it,' he says. He says that crimes are committed by illegal immigrants with the help of Batswana youth in the village.

Nkgageng feels that people envy Tati Siding even though it is not yet a fully-fledged town.

'They see a lot of potential in a village that started as nothing but a train station,' he says.

Tati Siding is one of the few villages with tarred roads. Its residents have pre-paid water and electricity. Village elder and former member of the VDC, Themba Mguni said that the headman in Tati Siding is elected because there is no royal family. 'People here come from different parts of the country so all the leaders are elected.' He says that the people of Tati Siding lived near Monarch before the ranches were bought by Collen Berg. The village has five wards. Mguni says that residents are discussing the possibility of changing the name of the village. 'The village has grown and we feel that the name Tati Siding is not suitable enough. So we are talking about changing the name to something like Tati Village or Bodumatau because there used to be many lions in the area.' He says Tati Siding and surrounding villages want the area to be made a sub district. 'We have problems here, in Ditladi, Shashe Bridge, Shashe Mooke because for everything we want we have to go to Masunga and it is proving to be a burden. We think that Tati Siding is big enough,' he says. Tati Siding has three schools, a clinic and an RAC. It has lodges, shops and several general dealers.