Dikhwaere Rules Son Of The Soil
Spira Tlhankane | Monday February 1, 2016 18:00
Prior to the competition, the cultural revellers had already shown their hunger for dikhwaere when they emerged from their seats as soon as the DJ played Shumba Ratshega’s Dumela.
The most appealing trait about the two choirs is that it appeared as a battle at first, but they merged to form an enormous choir. The DJ had to put the song on repeat mode until everyone was satisfied.
No matter how big the choir was, the dance steps were very organised and everyone tagged along. To top it all, Shumba’s lyrics ‘Rona Re Botsa Botsa Matsogo’ stuck to the moment. The choir was mostly dominated by women clad in different colours of the iconic khiba (German print). The varying styles and colours in the women’s dresses and skirts created a rainbow atmosphere within the cultural event. Though outnumbered, the men’s presence could be felt as they sang the hearts out carrying diphafana full of traditional beer.
The anticipation was over and the time for the choir competition arrived and everyone assembled into two choirs.
The boundary line of the Dibete was breached as the North battled South. The panel of five judges required the two choirs to sing four songs and the first song was a warm up ditty.
The two choirs assembled and they were given a short time to come up with songs. It was difficult because there were so many of them and there was little for organisation in terms of song choice.
Both the South and North choirs started their performance with a song called Re Simolotse to indicate that even though it was just a warm up, the mission had already started. At the time, it was difficult to identify who will emerge victorious because they sounded the same.
The first competitive song from the South was very unique and the lyrics, ‘Re tshola bana gore ba re boloke e seng gore bana ba re gatake’ was very relative to the cultural event. The North’s first competitive song was a repetition of the South choir’s practice song. After singing two songs, it was now up to the judges to choose the winner.
The South choir was crowned the champions and it didn’t come as a surprise because dikhwaere are predominantly in the southern part of Botswana.
Apart from the dikhwaere, there was a performance from Old Naledi traditional group Mafitlhakgosi and they did their best as usual. Dramaboi almost brought the house down when he came on stage. The Motswako rapper soothed his fans with his Setswana verses when he performed a song entitled Roma nna. He was joined by his sister Katlego to perform a wonderful duet, Sala Le Nna.
Attendants also had a chance to play traditional games such as koi, save, morabaraba, dikarata and mhele. The beverages for the day included traditional beer, khadi, ginger drink and Chibuku. The Setswana dishes also varied from morogo, letlhodi, seswaa, setampa, dinawa, mosutlhwane among others.