Mma V, my comrade from the days when the Botswana Orientation Centre helped expatriate Aid workers acclimatise to the new Botswana environment. Charming lady, Mma V whatever the warts she spots on her derring-do face. We aren’t comrades due to the same party membership, where members call each other ‘comrade,’ we are comrades because both of us are familiar with international relations and we’ve both served our neighbours - South Africans. Me, helped them attain freedom; she, by holding them by hand fresh from the bush, to help them learn the ABC of civil government, learning to walk in the path of black emancipation.
When we met in Cape Town, not by appointment, while I was visiting my former home of 15 years, she informed me she was serving notice and preparing to return to Botswana the following year to muddy her hands in local politics. I congratulated her patriotism and good neigbourliness, traits we evidently shared. The traits shouldn’t make one less patriotic or unpatriotic! The cement of patriotism runs deep and concretises our comradeship. When we meet in the streets of Gaborone or the winding dusty footpaths of villages, we salute each other with smile and ‘Hi comrade!’ Domkrag or Kganetso can go hang, we are Batswana first, party colours, last!
