Edgar�s parents claim ignorance of his whereabouts
Mpho Mokwape | Thursday September 11, 2014 12:21
It is midday. The stone rugged streets of Ramotswa, which sits just across the border from South Africa ,are quite. Once every few second a vehicle lazily rolls by. We are looking for the Tsimane homestead and someone happily directs us to the roadside home. Two voices are coming from the smaller of the two houses in the yard. They are the voices of Edgar’s mother and older sister.
We knock. The sister opens the door, and in typical Setswana fashion welcomes us by offering us chairs. We introduce ourselves and the sister makes it clear she is not too happy to see us. However she agrees to call her parents. Edgar’s mother walks in just then. We greet her and she offers in typical Setswana culture, “Rona ga rea tsoga” meaning “we are not well”. She sighs and covers he face with her hand and looks down. She recovers composure and explains,
“Yesterday we had four people budging in here and rudely demanding that we tell them where Edgar was. We told them he was in Gaborone where he stays.”
Edgar’s father, way past his 70’s walks in and exchanges civilities. The old woman brings him to speed. He srutinises us for a moment and does not hide his suspicion about our credentials, “ You could claim you are journalists while you are colleagues of the rude people who came here yesterday.” He says as he continues to study us. The old woman, ever diplomatic calms his fears, and asks him to give us a chance.
“We last saw Edgar on August 29. He was here for the night as he would be attending the bogwera initiation ceremony in the morning. He went for the ceremony but did not come back. We simply assumed he had gone back to Gaborone, and were not worried as that would not be the first he did so,” said Tsimane senior.
The old woman chips in and explains they only got to know Edgar was not in Gaborone when the four “rude people” – three men and a woman, came and demanded that they produce Edgar.
“They claimed to be police officers but refused to produce identification. They were not wearing police uniform, and out of concern for our son we asked them why they wanted him. We were worried Edgar was dead or in some serious trouble. They simply told us they wanted him for writing lies in the newspaper he works for. They then left.”
Edgar’s parents decided to call him on his mobile, but it was off. And so was his brother who apparently works for the DISS.
Several times the old man insists the family knows nothing about Edgar’s whereabouts. He is not willing to go further with the discussion about his son.
We ask him about his older son, if he knows where he works, and if he ever briefed them on what was happening.
“ All I know is that he works for government. He never discussed Edgar with us.”
It is apparent the elderly couple will not talk beyond the obvious. We knew as we went into their homestead that they would most likely have been drilled on what to say to anybody who enquired after their son. To some extent they keep to the instruction, except the old man is too eager to allay our fears they might have seen Edgar recently. That decodes the actual story around Edgar’s escape to South Africa. It is a story the family would rather keep to themselves, a story possibly shrouded in fear. It is a story that may never be told.