Mookane To Produce Next Mahotella Queens Singers
Correspondent | Monday October 31, 2016 16:43
When performing at Setlalekgosi’s monster Bot50 P1 million party in Mookane, Mahotella Queen’s band leader, 74-year-old Hilda Tloubatla made a public passionate plea to the woman popularly known as ‘Ausi Pinkie’ to ensure that the next Mahotella Queens member comes from Botswana where the band leader said the group had made a name in their early years.
The band has started the process of rejuvenating themselves by replacing one of the founding trio, Mildred Mangxola by the youthful Amanda Nkosi.
On Friday at her annual prize giving ceremony at Mookane village, where she adopted the local primary school, Setlalekgosi, who has also ensured that the arts at that school thrived in recent years, announced that she had reached an agreement with the Mahotella Queens that two youngsters from Botswana will be integrated into the group, provided they both came from Mookane. To spice up her announcement Setlalekgosi told multitudes at Mookane Primary School that the two Botswana members of Mahotella Queens will come from the primary school’s famed Sarafina dance club especially from the group that is completing their primary school education this year.
Setlalekgosi encouraged parents to view the performing arts as a career that puts bread on the table which should be cultivated amongst the pupils from an early age. Setlalekgosi, who was moved to tears when the Sarafina club made their presentation at the prize giving event, further made a pledge that she was working on the modalities of bringing the original performer of Sarafina, Leleti Khumalo to Mookane to appreciate the pupils’ works and motivate them on the opportunities such a concept could open for the dance club. “I really wish we can bring her here for these kids, if we can afford her fees,” ‘Ausi Pinkie’ told her audience.
Setlalekgosi also invited the primary school leaving students to join her when she celebrated her 70th birthday in 7 years time, wherever she would choose to celebrate the anniversary.
During her motivational speech to both the parents and the pupils Setlalekgosi emphasised that teaching a child to have a sense of responsibility is an invaluable form of education that can be used to survive against all odds later in life. She said she was taught responsibility from an early age, something that she carried into motherhood as she took the responsibility of fending for her family on her shoulders. According to her it is the same level of responsibility that would later distinguish her from her peers when she applied herself as a sales person at DHL and later at her company Speed Couriers. “As individuals we should shoulder responsibility to be able to transform our environment, our lives,” she said, adding that even at Sprint Couriers today, there are certain responsibilities that she will not delegate. “I continue to apply myself with the same zeal that I’m known for. I have never slowed down. We will be hitting 10 years in November but I have not taken my foot off the pedal. Our rivals and customers know me as a hard worker,” she explained.
Setlalekgosi said knowing your responsibility and showing commitment to your cause can make a difference. However, she has observed that most Batswana do not apply themselves, whether they are employed or not. She said she has observed the never-ending attitude of knocking off early, wasting time with endless gossip mongering.
She said such lazy attitude could change if people were committed to their areas of responsibility.
Setlalekgosi said she recently shocked one of her clients, the ministry of education, after her company had won the tender for distribution of examination papers. “They did not know me very well and they seemed to doubt our capacity to deliver timely the distribution of examination papers to over 800 primary schools including in rural areas. They wondered how long it would take us to do such a mammoth task, but I threw the question back to them, ‘how long do you expect such a job to take’”.
They looked at me and said 14 days, as if it was something they believed we couldn’t match. I looked at them and told them, we would need only three days to have finished the delivery, including rural areas. They thought I was crazy, but Sprint Couriers managed to complete their 14 days job within just three days, and we did it again this year. I’m saying this to you to show you that you don’t sleep, you don’t play in life, take your responsibilities, even the little ones, very seriously, and people will take you seriously.”