Dithubaruba WEE, A Feast Of Culture
Thursday, May 05, 2016
The event was held under the theme Maruping goa boelwa and attracted guests from as far as the United States of America for cultural exchange. The Bakwena from Phokeng in South Africa and Namibia also graced the event.
While the cultural festival aims to celebrate cultural elements like dress, food, language and rite of passage, music and dance dominated most of the proceedings. The crowd was treated to an overabundance of cultural activities, ranging from poetry, traditional music and dance. However before the music, traditional choirs, poetry and dance, Bakwena demonstrated the long abandoned traditional harvest festival called Dikgafela. The festival is meant to appease the heavens to liberate the rains. Elderly women from Maunatlala ward in Molepolole carried pots of harvest while Matsosangwao women carried the traditional beer on their heads for villagers to drink. Led by an elderly man shouting the phrase dikgafela tseo, the women took the harvest to the kgotla before finally taking it to Mohumagadi wa Bakwena Mma-Tumagole.
Acting Agriculture Minister, Edwin Dikoloti, is right in saying opening an export-ready facility whilst Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) is still spreading would risk getting the whole country blacklisted before a single carcass leaves the door.A ban like that would break the already stressed nation. So, the postponement, painful as it is, is the right thing to do. The local economy is being squeezed from both ends. FMD has already slammed the door...