An Old Culvert

Sandy Grant | Thursday July 20, 2017 15:56

 

I begin with an oddity. And thereby hangs a tale. Sometime in the 1960s I was driving from Mochudi to Pilane and was puzzled to see a hole in the road. Being in a hurry I didn’t stop. On my return, however, I was curious, stopped and wondered why there was just the one hole.

So, I found a decent sized rock and smashed it down on the road surface and lo, a second hole immediately appeared.

This was intriguing, so I tested out the road with another rock.

The result was another hole. By then, it was obvious that the road was horribly unsafe and for safety reasons, although that might seem odd, I, with the assistance of passers by, set about destroying it - my one and only experience of its kind!

The job was easily completed because it immediately became apparent that the metal of the culvert had corroded so that the road consisted of a thin skin with nothing underneath it. The next step was to place rocks on both sides of the old culvert to warn other drivers of the major hazard ahead. Destroying a major road?

Could this be done today without being arrested? I am not sure. But the times then were so very different and people did all manner of things that they would not think of doing today.

Take my friend, Vernon Gibberd who spent 30 or so years here at the Bangwato Development Association at Pilikwe, the Swaneng Farmers Brigade and the Mogobane Farm.

In those long ago days, Vernon came off the mail train at Pilane around midnight on his way to paying us a visit at the old Community Centre in Mochudi. There was no transport at the station so, nothing daunted, he set out on foot. Somewhere along the road, however, he felt tired and finding a culvert with nice warm sand, perhaps the same one in the photo, bedded himself contentedly down.

In the morning, he awoke when the first vehicle passed overhead, dusted himself down and started walking again, arriving at the Community Centre in time for breakfast. Vernon is, self evidently, a remarkable person who has, over the years, served this country with enormous commitment, industry and knowledge without ever being mentioned in dispatches.

Who else would have found it merely straightforward, obvious and sensible to use the warm sand inside a culvert for a cosy bed? But the country’s exceptional situation at that time attracted a number of exceptional people from abroad.

Today, even Vernon might hesitate before sleeping in a culvert not just because of safety concerns but because he would almost certainly be picked up as a vagrant!