Reminiscing from TH
Thalefang Charles | Friday September 18, 2015 16:16
The sunset still looks great from here. The clear sky is slowly transforming from bright orange to dull sepia as the sun dips over Palamaokuwe.
The crows fly past, silhouetted and singing, cackling melodies as they head to their nests.
The evening smoke from the homesteads that used to come from fires that cooked dinner and provided warmth in the open-air tharesetala (hedge variety) kitchens (setaagana) no longer billow up to cloud and blur the sky.
But the panoramic view from Tshwaragano Hotel or ‘TH’ as we affectionately call it, still looks awesome. TH is situated on the western side of the Serowe Hill.
Serowe Hill is the heart and soul of the village. It shelters the Bangwato main kgotla like a giant natural castle. It is on this hill that the Bangwato royals, Khama III, Sekgoma, Tshekedi, Seretse, and their queens’ remains are buried. It is also the spot that Bangwato chose to mount the life-size bronze mould of their favourite son and kgosi, Sir Seretse Khama, the first president of Botswana.
The radio and telecommunications transmitters towers that connect the village to the rest of the world are also mounted on top of this hill.
It is thus also fitting that one of Serowe’s proudest landmarks is situated on this hill. TH is a treasured attraction that is a testament to unity, community cooperation, self-reliance and visionary entrepreneurship. For others it is also a monument of ‘liquor liberation’ in the whole of Bangwato territory.
Sheila Bagnall, former principal of Swaneng Hill School noted in her ‘Letters From Botswana’ that ‘Co-op Hotel’ was Patrick Van Rensburg’s brainchild.
“While in Tanzania, Pat had a vision of a co-op hotel in Serowe,” Bagnall wrote in her diary in 1969.
She added that the ‘cheering thought’ of Van Rensburg’s hotel idea was that its restaurant would have a ‘liquor licence’ – a much sought-after permission in a village with a history of rulers that abhorred alcohol.
From Khama III to Tshekedi Khama and the current Ian Khama.
Tshekedi was even nicknamed ‘Ragonkgang’ (Mr-What’s Smelling) for his hatred of alcohol. It is popular Serowe legend that the young flamboyant regent travelled around the village literally sniffing out the illegal brewing of alcohol.
It was the white people in Serowe that helped the legalisation of alcohol in the village. Some even say Seretse Khama was beloved because of his tolerance for the ‘whiteman’s drink’. But by the late 1970s many locals were freely shooting the breeze at the Co-op Hotel Restaurant drinking the whiteman’s drinks.
Growing up in the 1980s, I got the story of TH second-hand from grown up folks who frequented the place. Most stories were about the steep stairs towards the bar. There are a number of people in Serowe that lost their teeth from falling down those stairs. As a child, I could only imagine how hard it was for the grown-ups that rarely walked a in straight line after drinks.
As I tour the fire-wrecked rooms at TH, two men, Lawrence Kaan, 50, and Legora Lore, 47, from Ramasuga and Konyana wards respectively, come up to assess the damage at their once ‘glorious drinking spot’. They join me in the nostalgic journey to TH’s better days.
According to the two men, their first experiences with liquor were at TH. They remember The Breakers Band performing live from TH.
“This was a community hotel so most commoners converged here rather than at the privately owned Serowe Hotel,” said Lore.
“I recall there was a band called ‘De Breakers’ that used to play live here. We also used to come here just to enjoy the view of the village,” recalled Kaan.
Lore and Kaan believe TH will rise from the ashes and get back to its former glory.
The closest I came to TH during the 1980s was at the Co-op butchery on the foothill. Like most children who stayed nearby, I used to be sent there to buy ‘Khondeme’ – which was the best-cooked meat even through from supposedly condemned supplies.
It was delicious and we never really bothered about its rather foul name.
Eventually I became of legal drinking age and joined the trek up the steps to the hotel bar. I am a sucker for sunsets and landscape views from elevated places, so the panoramic view of Serowe and its sunsets felt better, especially when I started to enjoy them while quenching the thirst built up from climbing the steps.
I frequented TH for the experience. It is the experience I recommended to every visitor of Serowe.
Today, the sunset still looks amazing, but the view downstairs has drastically changed. There are more concrete buildings and less tharesetala, and the legendary ‘dithoa’ that gave Serowe the pet name ‘ko Dithoweng’ are not visible anymore.
Serowe Mall has grown bigger and buildings are taller. There used to be few distinct landmarks down below. There was the London Missionary Society (LMS) Church simply known as ‘Lontone’ rising majestically at Ramasuga ward with its brown stonewalls and big shining tower as well as the Rural Administrations Centre (RAC) known as ‘Diofisi Tse Dinala’.
Nowadays, the Central District Council Chamber’s dull looking dome on the foothill dwarfs the RAC, while Serowe Library’s three-storey building next to Sebina ward almost steals the show from the vintage LMS church.
At night Serowe lights up brighter than ever. The streetlights and buildings from the mall light up the sky producing a beautiful mini-town show for those sitting at TH.
From this balcony the village night view gives me hope that the future is still bright for TH. The hotel will emerge from the ashes and I believe this December when the homeboys go home to ‘eat Christmas’ they will still climb the steps and watch the fireworks on New Year’s Day.