Son Of The Soil Makes Great Come back

Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Monday March 6, 2017 15:13

This year's SOTS brought people together to celebrate Setswana culture in the form of fashion, food, traditional games, dikhwaere, music and poetry. PIC: THALEFANG CHARLES

This comes after the cultural event turned out to be a great disappointment to revellers, who felt it did not meet their expectations in the previous year. Last year, attendees were complaining of a number of things such as eating late, shortage of food and lack of entertainment amongst others.

However, in their quest to mend their mistakes, Bana ba Mmala (SOTS organisers) decided to give catering services to independent companies and therefore reduced the entrance fees by P50.

They also treated the audience to endless entertainment from local artists and poets. Some of the artists who treated the audience to beautiful performances were Solly Sebotso who sings Pidipidi, the energetic Mafitlhakgosi traditional group, Kalahari and Dr Vom whose most loved dikhwaere song Tsaya thobane got the audience off their feet. Being the crowd-puller, Dr Vom as usual got the groove on with his beautiful dikhwaere songs.

In poetry, some of reknowned poets like Tsiki famed for his phrase Tshiki Tshiki ke a Gotela , Khumagadi ya Ngwao and others treated the audience to beautiful and rich setswana poems.

The beauty of Setswana culture could not only be seen, but was also felt as it had painted the venue. Participants were playing different games ranging from mmehele, koi, dibeke, morabaraba, saife and others.

SOTS could have not been complete without traditional beer and drinks. The participants were treated to free traditional beer where they drank as much as they wanted.

There is no cultural event that can be complete without traditional attire. The audience looked amazing in their beautifully tailored traditional wears. The women painted SOTS with elegant and colourful attire ranging from dresses, shorts, pants, jump suits and others.

Each one of them had their own specially designed attire suiting their personality.

As for the men, they also looked gorgeous in outfits ranging from animal print, leather, safari and tailored attires. There was also a fashion competition for the women, men and children.

Revellers participated in game competitions. Also there were traditional choir (dikhwaere) competitions where participants from the north and south took part in. The south won in the midst of everyone’s pleasure with this year’s SOTS.