Gaborone Main Mall still a hive of activity

GOTHATAONE MOENG
Correspondent | Friday December 17, 2010 00:00

 

Planned in 1963 in preparation for Botswana's independence, it is the oldest mall in the city, and is tucked in between the Civic Centre and the National Assembly. Defying the dire predictions, the Main Mall continues to be a bustling centre of business, with ongoing renovations and revamping of old buildings giving the mall a more modernised look.

Despite the facelift the Main Mall, unlike other malls whose cleanliness and orderliness border on blandness, remains a colourful, and noisy, hive of activity where you just never know what you are going to see, whether it's a preacher cautioning passersby of the perils of sin, or a government department celebrating its wellness day. The Main Mall gives its patrons a unique experience of an increasingly dichotomous city, with, on the one hand, modern-day trappings and aspirations of a developing nation keen to catch up to Western ways and on the other, a willful traditional Botswana.

Take the fashion sector, for example. As patrons walk into the mall from the side of the National Assembly, they are flanked first by the British High Commission offices and Debswana house, then clothing stores stocking a variety of the latest in men and women's fashion as prescribed by international and local magazines. These are Cash Bazaar and Top Line on the left side, and Mafia Soul, a successful Botswana-owned clothing store, and a Chinese-owned clothing shop on the right. Chinese-owned clothing shops have caught on in the whole city, the seven in the Main Mall have helped to fill the void left when other shops relocated to other malls. Deep in their mind's dredges, some patrons may remember that what is now the Chinese shop opposite Cash Bazaar used to be Woolworths.

Chinese shop owners have caught on to Batswana women's attachment to dresses made from leteise; further than the mannequins that greet one at the door dressed in jumpsuits and bubble dresses, they also have a mannequin wearing an elaborate dress made from material similar to leteise. The dress is brown and tiered at the bottom and has deep-golden satiny hems to match the elaborate satiny headscarf tied on the mannequin's head.

Batswana women would be proud to wear the dress at a wedding this festive season, and may be tempted by the prices to resort to this, rather than a traditional leteise. The more elaborate dresses in the shop go for P230, while the simpler ones with white embroidery around the chest area go for P159. These prices are much lower than those for the traditional mateise found in the stalls in the Main Mall, where dresses are sold at P550, and skirts at P415.

In front of the Chinese shop is stationed an informal vendor whose table of wares is crowded with ethnic-inspired earrings made from wooden beads, coloured feathers, coloured glass beads and even recycled materials, under a tree not far from her is a young man whose table boasts funky sunglasses in various coloured frames. Further down the mall-walkway lovers of the latest in fashion are satiated by South African chain stores such as Pep, Dunns, DFX and Jet, and boutiques like Fay's, while the lover of traditional Tswana clothing has a wide variety of stalls to choose from for German-print skirts and dresses.

Molefhe Furs, a Mochudi-based company, sells leather made handbags, briefcases and men's wallets, but is even more famous in the Main Mall for the display of leather sandals, some decorated with fur while some are dyed colourfully in pinks and yellows to appeal to the modern shopper. Regina Moeketsi, Molefhe Furs salesperson says that she has been selling from the Main Mall since 1982. It comes as no surprise to Moeketsi that despite the mushrooming of stalls selling imported sneakers, their sandals continue to do well as they make them with leather that has been treated until it's soft and suede-like.

A walk along the mall's pedestrian only walkway shows vendors from all sectors, from the ubiquitous airtime vendors in their colourful aprons to a recording company selling music CDs and DVDs under a tree. The walk shows a wide range of products from curios and utilitarian ornaments such as walking sticks, Botswana's famous woven baskets, soapstone sculptures, wooden masks, children's games, animal ornaments, from crocodiles to frogs, made from material ranging from wood to wire and coloured beads to wedding invitation cards, Christian literature and music, mini marimbas and wooden thumb-pianos.

The remaining Polaroid photographers are invariably found with their background screens propped against shop walls with the hope that a customer may speedily need a passport-size photo, while shops advertise the latest cellphones with applications ranging from 2.4 megapixel cameras to Internet on the go. A tree next to Jet stores has become the unofficial meeting place for, strangely, mostly men, who discuss everything from football to politics.

Like some of the curios sold here, the Main Mall is a strange mix of nostalgic and utilitarian. People have tea and drinks at the revamped President Hotel, remembering that it is one of the oldest hotels in the city, and as people go in and out of the banks, some may remember that the FNB used to be the old Capitol Cinema.

'I remember when I was still in secondary school, we used to come to the Main Mall every other day, there was no where else to go,' Kgomotso Ndubiwa, 25, says, adding, 'Now, I don't understand why people come here, which is weird because the mall is always full.' Ndubiwa says she comes to the Main Mall to buy DVDs from a Chinese shop and for the hair salons, but that she does most of her shopping in either Game City or Riverwalk.

When it is lunchtime, the Main Mall once more reveals the battle for prominence between traditional Setswana ways and modern ways. Batswana informal vendors have caught on to the modern day Motswana's need for convenience when it comes to food.

Just between Cash Bazaar and Botswana Book Centre, there are four hot-dog vendors. On each of their sides, three old women sit with bags of maize cobs, boiled and with salt to taste, just as they are eaten in rural Botswana. One old woman also has packets of peanuts alongside her maize cobs.

The vendors face stiff competition from American originating fried-chicken franchise KFC as well as South African franchises Chicken Licken, Nandos and Hungry Lion. Vying with these is Melodi restaurant, which sells traditional food.

Integral in the Main Mall, too, are bomma-seapei or the lunch women who crop up over lunch with wholesome home cooked meals like dumplings, samp, beans and a selection of meat and vegetables, attracting workers from nearby Government enclaves and private workplaces in the Main Mall. For traditional food lovers who want uncooked food, there are the hawkers in front of supermarkets Spar and Payless, who sell (dried bean-leaf) morogo, dried sweet corn, black-eyed peas, lentils, pumpkin, beans and sour-milk.

It seems that, however many more malls Gaborone acquires, the unassuming traditional and modern charm of the Main Mall will always attract Batswana and tourists looking for their fix of goods both modern and traditional.