Lack of rain: is a miffed god spitting saliva?

PINI BOTHOKO
Correspondent | Monday November 12, 2012 00:00

It is November again and by now, Daniel Kootsene, a 65-year-old pensioner who is a well-known farmer in Borolong is forever looking at the skies hoping fervently for a few drops at least.

'E nnetse go kgwa mathe hela (It's spitting saliva only- a Tswana euphemism for a few drops of rain),' he says his forehead furrowing deeper in utter frustration. What pains him and gives him palpitations that he now fears could result in weakening his heart, is that he is entirely dependent on his piece of land to put food on the table for his family.

He is one of the farmers who are increasingly thinking that God is angry at the world. After all spitting of saliva could be a gesture of anger and God could be seriously miffed.  For the past two months, Kootsene  and other increasingly disillusioned farmers in Borolong have been preparing their fields for ploughing with the knowledge that these are the months when it is supposed to rain cats and dogs. But all they have today is hope.

Kootsene looks back with nostalgia to the year 2000 when he retired from the civil service and plunged headlong into arable farming. And the yields responded positively. He would plough only three hectares, and happiness and laughter would fill his home year in and year out.

However, he noticed a gradual decline as years went by until last year when God started spitting saliva. 'It seems like the state of the atmosphere is getting worse every year. Last year there was little rainfall, but it came well on time as is supposed to happen in Botswana,' says Kootsene.

He remembers 2010 season as the best. He had successful yields from the four hectares of maize and sweet reeds and raised P5,000. He made brisk business from sales at the Borolong Primary School and some in the markets of Francistown. 'I was left with eight sacks which we used for the family consumption.  'This season looks like it will be just too horrible because usually in November we would have started ploughing.

'I do not think I will plough at all this season. It seems like it is a bad year. No rainfall this time, ' he muses. He wasted his money buying seeds and feels sorry for himself as it looks like he will never have a chance to use them.

I do not know what I will give to my family this time as we survive by ploughing,' he despaired. Another farmer Kesentseng Sibanda 57, who has been tilling the soil since her teenage years back in 1978 says she is disappointed with the late rains.

She finds it strange that the rains have not yet started though, usually, by mid October, it starts raining in earnest.  'By that time, (Mid October) the leadership of our tribes declare Letsema, but it is surprising that up to now, they have not done so. It is scary you know,' she says fearfully.

She says last season though there was little rainfall, she ploughed seven and half hectares expecting good yields, but unfortunately nothing came out of that effort. She wonders, shaking her head forlornly,  if this year she will ever think of even a single hectare as by this time (November) crops would have already germinated.

Sibanda is a well-known farmer in Borolong. She raised her six children and 13 grandchildren single-handedly  through the yields she obtained from her fields and it is no wonder that she feels her family is going to starve this time around.

What makes her tremble with fear is that the Chibuku that she used to sell as an alternative means of sustenance for her family is now prohibited from being sold in homes.  But the bottom-line is that the farmers feel that God is spitting saliva out of anger and the only way to appease Him is through prayers.