The dying Tati River (Part II)
Ryder Gabathuse | Friday November 20, 2020 18:14
FRANCISTOWN: Dr. Veronica Makwinja becomes nostalgic when she reminisces about the river that was once a source of her livelihood, solace and entertainment many years ago.
Makwinja, 59, and her peers played house or mmantwane in the river that now is filthy and overgrown with vegetation (reds and others) and now a dumping site of all sorts of waste.
There would be a father, a mother and children. They would steal both cooked and uncooked food to prepare in cans/tins. Amongst others, they hosted weddings played school, front skipping, built homes and other traditional games all in the Tati River because it could accommodate it all.
When Makwinja, director of post-graduate studies at the Botswana Accountancy College (BAC) grew up at Bluetown, the river was a source of water, indigenous fruits (Mokgalo, morula, borokhu), and vegetables. It also provided firewood for cooking.
“We used letlhajwa plant to clean our teeth. My father who was a traditional doctor. He sometimes collected herbs around the river,” Makwinja reminisces some of the importance of the river.
Some people, she says, used it as a place of healing. It was used as a place of relief because a few people had pit latrines in their homes. Some buried their dead by the river. It was a place of prayer and baptism. The river was her place of comfort and solace especially when it was flowing. “It calmed my nerves and because of the quietness I could meditate and pray, especially after losing my mother at 14. I escaped to the river to think of her,” she says.
She remembers once when they swam despite the warnings from their parents. One notorious elderly man wasted no time but picked up their clothes and they had to walk naked home and got the worst beating of their young lives.
As a Girl Guide and scout member, Makwinja and her peers held picnics and retreats around the river especially towards what was known as the Coloured Stance area where the beauty of the river was unbelievable.This is where they were taught perseverance, discipline and endurance. The river was a battleground as young boys and girls fought in it. Those who accused others for various reasons beat them up on Fridays. The catalyst would hold sand in their hands and the accused and accuser would hit the sand off the hand to ensure that they were not afraid of one another or agree to the fight.
She quickly reminisces: “There would be two sides, one for each opponent and each team would cheer theirs to win. I never fought much because I was a bit of a coward. There were those notorious for bullying others at school or in the community. I was also lucky because my father was a traditional medicine man and so other children thought they would be bewitched if they fought with me and that saved me.”
The river was a place for the lovebirds. Those who had relationships were seen scattered around the river, breaking the tree branches and leaves as an expression of shyness or attempting to explain why they would or would not agree to proposals. As naughty young girls, Makwinja and her like-minded friends would hide behind trees and listen to others’ conversations and laugh about it.
In her view, given the current state of the river, “we are all responsible for the state of the river.”
Her strongest view is that, “we all watched people exploiting it (river) and kept mum. We are a very apathetic nation that allows things to go unnoticed when in actual fact we are aware of what is happening until things get out of control.”
She added: “The list of who is responsible for the slow but sure death of our river is too long.”
She blames modernisation and exploitation of the resources without sustainability strategies, big corporations, government institutions, and industries, elites who think they have a right to dump their waste into our rivers. She is adamant, “we all turned a blind eye towards the unfair policies on pollution and the rest and we waited and wondered who would arise from somewhere to help us-as usual.” In an endeavour to find a solution to the dying river, Makwinja suggests a need for the communities to deal with the vegetation encroachment.
She pleads with all the communities around the river to start removing the vegetation around their locations and hopes it works.
“Communities should be encouraged to start paying attention to what happens around them and look for entities that exploit the sand and take them to task,” she said and advocated for a willing, strong political commitment and social movement to save the rivers.
Trumpeter and founding member of the Kgwanyape Band, Masilonyana Radinoga grew up in Bluetown of yesteryear. He easily mingled with children from the Makwinja family, as they were just a stone’s throw away from their house.
To his family, before the river was polluted to the current levels, they fetched water for drinking from the Tati River, around the 1960s. It was even common for residents to dig for water in the belly of the river during summer season.
At what is commonly known as Riverside, there was a lot of human activity along the river promoted by Batswana of Zezuru or Shona descent who had backyard gardens drawing water from the river.
Masilonyana’s family kept goats, which were watered from the river as it was not illegal then to keep small stock around the then Francistown as a lot of areas around the city were simply thickets and grazing areas.
Perhaps, buoyed by the soft sand of the river and its flatness, around 1973/74, the young Masilonyana bought his first motor bike and raced with other bikers and competed with some from the then Rhodesia.
Motorbike racing along the river would become an entertainment to many in those years enhancing the importance of the river to the inhabitants. He also remembered activities like airboats being other major sporting attractions in the river.
“I was surprised when I later realised the river was choking with reeds and there was the worrying shallowness of the river as well. Sand had depleted badly,” remembered Masilonyana who is also a self-confessed nature lover.
From his observations, seeds of the reeds in the river originate from deep in the northeast where the river originates, which could make it difficult to easily get rid of them.
He has even at some forum suggested to the Francistown City Council FCC) authorities to make use of the reeds overgrown in the river by encouraging those with the requisite skills to make baskets for selling.
He feels strongly that ultimately, the reeds, which make the river filthy and impassable, might reduce or disappear for good.
He doubts whether it can be possible for the authorities to follow the entire course of the river and diametrically get rid of the reeds.
On the other hand, Masilonyana is hopeful that massive sand could naturally come en masse along the river course and bury the reeds and bring life back to the dying Tati River.
“Alternatively, the city authorities and stakeholders could come up with activities geared at saving the river from further depletion,” he said.
Meanwhile, Francistown-West legislator Ignatius Moswaane whose house sits opposite Bluetown and just across the river, has been holding conversations with his constituents and other stakeholders with a view to finding a long lasting solution to the troubles bedevilling the Tati River. In a recent interview, Moswaane acknowledged that the troubles of the Tati River are well documented and they are fighting tooth and nail to save the river from total depletion.
“Besides consulting my constituents, we are also talking potential sponsors who could fund this massive project of resuscitating the river from its imminent death,” Moswaane told Mmegi recently.