Kadi Seisa: Botswana�s untold story
Patricia Edwin | Friday May 9, 2014 13:42
This is a home that is steeped in rich history, which goes all the way back to Lesotho and to the Bangwato royalty (A book on this is in its manuscript form).
The home is along the main artery that connects Tutume to Sebina in Magapatona ward and the nonagenarian is so well known that one can walk up blindfolded to any person on the street and he will point directly at the yard.
Both the spacious yard and the stately zinc-roofed house carry the story of a people that has never been told. The house is large, with a wide veranda, which kind of gives it an apt sense of a country dwelling, both historically and now. It (the house) is certainly a throwback to yonder days when such structures used to be in vogue.
A plump tomcat relaxes luxuriously under the eaves of the house as young children prance about the expansive yard. Here, even before stepping into the house, serenity, peace and comfort, immediately engulfs you.
At the appointed time the now gaunt 93 year-old man with seven children and about 27 grandchildren is not home along with his son, well-known Mmegi satirical cartoonist, Simon Seisa also known as Selefu.
Seisa junior has taken the sage into the village for some undisclosed errand. But it is not very long after that and the duo arrives, with the son Simon, in the lead they immediately sit down and heartily welcome us into the house.
The interview is like a rollercoaster ride down memory lane with the old man narrating his life story from being a teacher who later on decides to take the classroom directly to the people as their counsellor and mentor.
He founded, or planted (in their lingua franca), the St Apostolic Faith Mission Church branch in Tutume, where he now carries the title of ‘Bishop’.
Seisa senior definitely has had an impact on many people’s lives, not only through preaching and talking to them, but also composing therapeutic songs for the congregants and other villagers.
Diminutive in stature, with a little hump owing to old age and suave in a grey suit, Seisa walks unaided and his intellect and memory are still unremittingly sharp. He is a little bit hard of hearing, but his response to questions is amazingly spot-on.
We settle down in the sitting room while he readies himself for the interview. His attention to detail and meticulousness is unparalleled for a man of his age.
The story of Seisa’s life starts unfolding by way of pictures hanging on the walls.
Noticeable are pictures of him in his blue and white priestly robes flanked by numerous other photographs, apparently those of his children.
Seisa was born in Nekati in the vicinity of Nata in 1921 to Simeon Tobane Selefu Seisa and Mosepele Seisa.
The family is however originally from Lesotho where the father to Selefu is the eighth generation descendant of a legendary Lesotho King by the name of Morena Kadi Letsholo.
Seisa says his father was the best friend and confidante to Prince Sekgoma Khama.
Though this might be subject to controversy, according to the manuscripts of the book mentioned above, Simeon was the official interpreter of ‘Khama The Great’ during the latter’s interaction with of the British Monarch in 1895.
The Bangwato royal, together with his companions, Sechele of Bakwena and Bathoen of Bangwaketsi took the historic odyssey to Britain to appeal a threatened acquisition of Bechuanaland by Cecil John Rhodes’s British South Africa Company (BSAC).
The delegation returned to Botswana triumphant after successfully fending off the BSAC.
It was in 1925 that Seisa’s parents settled in Tutume at Magapatona ward where they presently reside. In 1930 he started primary school at Mabingwi Primary School where all they did was read what he called ‘sepelete’.
Simon attempts to explain what the old man meant was to say ‘spelling book’.
Seisa senior argues that his passion for learning at the school saw him skipping a few grades, as they were not challenging to him at all.
“People were amazed at how I was skipping grades but it was because I was clever and passing. My parents were the ones who were teaching us. Others of course complained that I skipped grades because my parents were the teachers but it was not so. I was just intelligent,” he beams.
He wrote his examinations in 1937, but that was the year his father also died and he was left with a terrible sense of loss.
A couple of years before that Bangwato arrived at the family home for two reasons. One was to ask Selefu to help at BB1 Kgotla in Sebina village with cases where another royal, Rasebolai Kgamane was tasked with taking care of the border fence.
Apparently, some marauding white people were encroaching into the place and vandalising the fence at the same time. Bangwato were not amused.
He says that the assignment was to change how things had been operating because before, all court cases from Tutume were heard at Moalosong in Serowe, which would entail going to Serowe.
Apparently Kgosi Tshekedi Khama wanted to change this and have the cases heard and finalised in Tutume.
He further says that when his father passed away, his mother sent him to live with an aunt in Serowe.
“I had finished grade six so I took a bicycle from Tutume to Tonota and then cycled all the way to Serowe. When I got there I quickly enrolled for an Elementary Teachers’ Course,” he says.
But after finishing the course, he found himself in a rut because though he had passed he had no money to go anywhere or do anything further.
“I was struggling,” he says a shadow temporarily clouding his countenance.
His decision to go to Shoshong where his mother was visiting his uncles was exactly what the doctor ordered.
“When I arrived I was donning a hat. My mother suggested I give it to my uncle. I did not know why, but after I did, my uncle immediately gave me a cow and told me to go to the cattle post to collect it,” he says laughing.
Being weighed down heavily by the fact that he did not have money to buy books so that he could further his teaching studies, came to a stop. His final resort after failing to find the money was to sell the beast that his uncle had given him.
“I then acquired a government bursary to study at Adams College in Natal, South Africa where my father had also studied,” he says.
When he completed his studies, Seisa started working as a teacher in Matsiloje. But because he was passionate about teaching, Seisa did not limit himself to Botswana, as he would from time-to-time ‘freelance’ across the border in the then Rhodesia (modern day Zimbabwe) to fulfil his duty as an educator.
Seisa says that after two years he relocated to Rhodesia and continued his passion for teaching at Dombodema village.
“After four years I came back home and went back to Matsiloje where I continued to teach and this was in 1952. I retired after the four years and came back home,” he adds.
Because he was passionate about his profession when he returned to Tutume he was employed on contract and taught at Central Primary School. He would later become deputy headteacher at Selolwane Primary School where he stayed for about eight years.
Seisa once worked for a company called RST that was prospecting for copper around an area that is now Selebi Phikwe. RST was the precursor to the modern BCL.
But it was for only a short time as later he retraced his steps back to his passion, teaching.
When he was in Matsiloje he says that he attended Spiritual Healing Church, but he would later become a lay preacher at St John Apostolic in Francistown, which he later planted in Tutume and is now the bishop.
“I continued as a church planter and when I arrived home in Tutume and retired as a teacher, I continued with my work for God and I was also then composing music,” he says.
Seisa studied music at Adams College and where he says that it was his favourite subject. To prove to Mmegi, he started recounting several songs he composed including Wena Bethelehema Ha O Mmotlana Ka Gope and Tshetlha, which he says was inspired by the late Spiritual Healing Church leader, Bishop Mokaleng Motswasele.
Other songs he composed are Ko Lesotho Madimo A Ja Batho, Morubisi, Gae Kwa Matsiloje, and Dombodema.
It is clear that when he talks about his music, based on events in his life and that of his father he becomes quite nostalgic.
To soothe his heart, he would from time-to-time sing along with his son, 62-year-old Simon a few of the songs he composed while in his prime.
He says that when he retired he devoted time to just working for God coupled with tilling the soil and rearing cattle. He was unlike other retired individuals in the village whom Seisa says are drawn either to politics or village committees.
“I am a person who is just committed to the work of God because I had a calling. I really wanted to help young people who were troubled. Most of them have since made it in life because I would stay with them and guide them through. Many of them are successful businessmen while others have become pastors,” he says.
He says that when he was planting the church, which is adjacent to his home, he literally built it with his own two hands with the help of his children and grandchildren.
“We carried sand and other building materials and water and we built it,” he states matter-of-factly.
Seisa says that he got his inspiration from his father who was passionate and dedicated to his work as a pioneering teacher and builder of Botswana.
He says his father was a hard worker and an intelligent man who influenced his life.
He says the people loved his father, which is why in the village of Manxotae there is a stream, which in Sesarwa is called Seisa Jwaa meaning ‘the Stream of Seisa’.
He says that the his father once worked as a manager for Francistown merchant, George Haskins who had shops all over northern Botswana. When Simeon Seisa died in 1937 he was buried in Goshwe where his tomb can still be found.