Reflections of an indigenous languages champion

Gilson Saleshando remembers an incident that happened in the first days of his nascent schooling career. This was in the early 1950’s in Maun

“One day [at school] we were in a queue, and we were asked a question. ‘O mo kae?’ If you said ‘I am a Motswana,’ you were asked to step to one side. If you said ‘I am a Moyeyi,’ you were asked to step to another side.  Then all of us who had said we were Bayeyi were beaten up,” he says. “They said our fathers working in the South African mines called themselves Batswana, so why were we saying we were Bayeyi?”