Kuru Festival: 'Alcohol-free' doesn't mean 'free alcohol'

| Friday August 27, 2010 00:00

'Alcohol-free,' says the Kuru website promoting one of Botswana's greatest cultural events, Kuru Dance Festival 2010.  

The advert also informs the public of the P200 entrance fee, P1,000 camera fee, and additional info regarding camera restrictions, voluntary HIV/AIDS testing, places from where to get tickets and identifies Dqae Qare Game Farm near D'kar as the venue.

But it was two words - 'Alcohol-free' - that persuaded me to travel over 1,200 kilometres return journey to enjoy the display of San culture with 'free' alcohol. But alas, it was all misinterpretation.

The notion of free alcohol for two days while watching the Basarwa traditional dances on a remote farm promised to be an awesome adventure.

Ahead of the show, I even felt the P200 per day entrance fee represented the true entertainment value of the event.

I dismissed the Btv news report that said alcohol would not be allowed at the event, reckoning it was just a presidential relations trick by the organisers to appease President Khama whose aversion to alcohol is legendary because it is simply inconceivable traditional beer can be barred from such a colourful affair on a remote private farm.

The first gate into Dqae Qare Game Farm off the Ghanzi-Maun Road is an alcohol check point. A black and white poster welcomes us to the San dance festival while red and white one boldly announces: 'NO ALCOHOL.'

But I do not despair because I am convinced that a cultural dance festival without alcohol is implausible. 'We don't allow alcohol inside,' the security guard repeats the unbelievable message on the poster. 'E le go re e mokuru fela ne ntate?,'

I want to know for sure. 'No,' comes the emphatic answer from another guard in a rich local accent. 'Ga go nowe bojalwa.' I am thrown into confusion.

We are at the second gate 10 minutes later. It is a check point. We are a mere three minutes from the main event.

After a brief exchange with the organisers who wanted to bar journalists because we do not have our invitation letters on us, we are finally ushered in. I am with colleague Gasebalwe Seretse and Ghantsi local authorities, who have offered us a ride from Ghantsi to the farm.

Tonight is the healing and ritual dances. Over 20 San dance groups will perform spiritual songs around the fire until late into the night. It promises to be a great show. I scan the surroundings for alcohol, hoping that those guards were wrong.

All I see are more guards on the lookout for smuggled cameras and, as they later told me, for unruly drunk spectators. So it is true! Only then does it occur to me that  the 'Alcohol-free' poster is like the info on those purportedly 100% 'Preservative-free' fruit juice drink cans.

Nevertheless, the show goes on, the dancers do their thing and the spectators show genuine appreciation. But as we get deeper into this Friday night, travel fatigue and airlock start to wear me down. Time to retire to the campsite.

After the official opening by the Minister of the Environment, Wildlife and Tourism, Kitso Mokaila, the next day, the festival hots up.

It is rhythmic and instrumental music all day long. It is a battle across the of the age groups here, the elders with age defying acrobatics, the teenage girls with their bare breasts and the young children with their amazing dance steps.

The crowd is particularly thrilled by the toddlers from Paula Zanichillis Prep School.

About 10 hours in the sands of the Kalahari Desert, watching one group after another dancing to what sounded like one endlessly mesmerising song, 'Uuwee, uuwee', I conclude that this cultural festival, which has the potential to become a major tourist attraction for Botswana, is immensely underestimated.

There are few international tourists present here today, and only a smattering of native Batswana from other parts of the country.

Maybe the organisers are constrained by Botswana Tourism Organisation's strategy of high value, low volume policy that is extolled praised by Western environmentalists and tree huggers.

But why ban even traditional beer - bojalwa - from such a great cultural festival? According to Kuru official, Rosina Masilo-Rakgoasi, alcohol was banned from the event because of fears that it could lead to boisterous behaviour among spectators and disrupt the show.

'We also wanted to play our little part in the anti-alcohol campaign,' Masilo-Rakgoasi says. 

I find it unfortunate that traditional beer should be disregarded as part and parcel of culture when it is at once a symbol of celebration, recreation, and relaxation.

This is the drink that survived outlawing by Khama III of the Bangwato, the beer that Batswapong in the eastern Botswana still use to pay tribute to their gods, the beer that Balete are rendered more mournful when it is not available for drowning their sorrows after a funeral, and the beer that elderly folks enjoy at the traditional weddings and use to toast a variety of Setswana cultural occasions whereever there are Batswana.

It is made from sorghum, that multi-purpose source of staple food among Batswana that adorns the country's Coat of Arms.

Russians are proud of their vodka, the Irish and Scots are passionate about their whiskey, the Mexicans promote their tequila and the French advance their wine, while in Botswana, cultural activists scorn scorn bojalwa and banish it from their festival menus.

Across the border, it was the phafana, the golden goblet or calabash from which men - and women - across the Bantu world have traditionally taken their drink of bojalwa, that inspired the architectural masterpiece that is Soccer City, the stadium that served as the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

Significantly, the world's biggest sporting and cultural event itself was not 'alcohol-free', regardless of the throngs of humanity  - often in excess of 80,000 in one sitting - it attracts from around the world, among them its worst hooligans. Not the Kuru Dance Festival!

Yet this wonderful event could become even more enriching if the fare included the full traditional cuisine, including the traditional beverages.