Mosepele Wa Lerato - a dead love song that killed a tree
Thalefang Charles | Friday May 13, 2016 14:50
My first memory of Charma Gal’s song, Mosepele Wa Lerato, often mistakenly called Hard Rock, used to be a sight of Minister of Presidential Affairs Eric Molale dancing during the August 2015 Goodhope-Mabule primary election campaign.
It was a Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) launch and Charm Gal (real name Magdalene Lesole) was at her charming best dancing seductively with Molale on the Domkrag stage. She was touching him, stroking his belly, caressing his chin, pulling his red scarf like the way Playboy Mansion girls play with Hugh Hefner. He loved it, getting down to it, shaking to it as he happily hugged her the way Blessers hold their young girls in night clubs after many rounds of Moet. Although it was a charming sight, it was rather discomforting to a conservative society for an elder to be kicking off like that in front of dozens of people with a young sassy lady who had just divorced.
That awkward dance scene was encrusted on my memory. Every time the song dropped, as Charm Gal urged “Motho mang le mang a rapele” I saw Molale dancing. But I gave the song a thorough listen and that is when it got to me. It is a late love song glorifying a dead love relationship. It was a marriage that we all watched as it disintegrated publicly on newspaper pages. A break-up that affected not only two ex-lovers but saddened many fans too.
So it was rather ironic that at the end when their union was totally wrecked, Charma Gal released a song praising their love affair and how it would stay the test of time despite many doubts of people saying it is a fake marriage and would end in “three months”. It is unmistakable that the song was written when their love was on cloud nine and it was probably supposed to be a Culture Spears song.
Mosepele Wa Lerato is a tribute love letter about the journey that Charma Gal’s ex-husband, and former band mate, Kabelo Mogwe took to Lerala to ask for her hand in marriage. The song was released by Charma Gal’s new band called Ekentolo. It was meant to celebrate their love and marriage.
Even though I have nothing against the dancing skills of Molale or how Charma Gal was provocatively holding him (I know that it is only entertainment), I wanted to erase that from my memory. After meeting her ex-husband wearing a T-shirt printed Hard Rock at the Makgadikgadi Epic, I realised he too loves the song. So I wanted to follow Charma Gal’s honey, Hard Rock on his epic “Leeto le legolo” to Lerala and see Ga-Rammai next to that signboard announcing the visitors’ arrival in Lerala. I wanted to visit Mpeo ward and see that “kerekenyana” next to Morula tree.
So I loaded Ekentolo Vol. 6, the Sekuta Sa Ga Charma Gal album and embarked on a road trip to Lerala pressed “Mosepele Wa Lerato”. I arrived after sunset at “motse wa dithaka tse thataro, Lerala” and stopped briefly at the local tavern. I was hoping to see Charma Gal’s home fans like the pot-bellied and carefree girls I once met at a drinking joint in Mogoditshane imbibing wine they called “podi”. But the tavern was disappointedly deserted with just three men drinking beer. The music was some South African new kwaito. The bartenders gave me the directions to East Gate Guest Lodge where I stayed for the night.
In the morning I discovered that I was actually in the Mpeo ward and just a few houses away from where the famous Culture Spears wedding was held. But I also learnt that the song was not actually liked by everyone in the village. This came as a little shock because I could not understand how a song that inspires listeners to take a trip to a place is actually hated at that place.
The monument of this song’s hatred is a dead tree. It turns out that the people of “Kerekenyana” next to Morula tree abhor the demeaning description of their church in the song. “Ene o raya jang are kerekenyana? Ke lenyatso golo mo,” one elder member of the FGAC church voiced their protest against Charma Gal lyrics. The church, which is located at a junction leading to Charma Gal’s house, has since decided to get rid of the morula tree mentioned in the song because they felt the song was belittling their church. Apparently the tree was struck by lightning early this year. Although it survived, the church decided that it has to go so they cut it a nd burnt it down.
I am not a tree hugger and I have never felt sorry for a plant until the day I saw that morula tree. As it lied there, as lifeless logs in ashes, I felt a pain synonymous with a break-up. I was really moved by this dead morula tree even though I never saw it alive. But I felt like I knew this tree. Charma Gal introduced me to this tree. I have sung to this tree and I expected to meet it while standing tall over that “kerekenyana”.
I started to despise the church people that found the tree standing and they enjoyed its shade during scorching heat, but the moment it got famous after a mention in a hit song, they killed it. When I shared this bad news about the dead morula with a friend who loved Culture Spears group, she told me that she felt a similar pain when the group broke-up.
I began this trip looking for a fresh memory of this song. I was hoping for a feel good story, (like the feeling I get from a song), of how the village got light from a late love song. But instead I got ashes and a fallen tree as a new memory of Charma Gal’s song. Now I am torn between Molale’s awkward dancing moves and a grave sight of dead morula tree next to “kerekenyana”.