The depressing news of his passing was broken just on the verge of the Mmegi newspaper early deadline last Wednesday ahead of the Easter Holidays. Area W or Dablaas, as his location is affectionately known and (his home of many years), will never be the same again. In his own backyard, Tsoo was very popular with the hoi polloi in particular. That’s the reason why in an area that isn't crime-free, he chose to proudly walk home and to work (under the bridge and crossing the railway line) instead of giving business to the local taxi operators. His daily route took him past the Francistown bus and taxi ranks and he was least tempted to utilise their services. For the longest time, Mosikare’s byline, which went missing from the two titles, fretted his inquisitive regular readers who even raised alarm, “Kante o kae Mosikare? (Where is Mosikare?)” they would ask.
We were all hopeful that the argumentative journo will be back. Mosikare had so many monikers, which included Tsoo, Festival, Law, and Mokgalajwe amongst others. The name Festival came about through Chakalisa Dube because of Mosikare’s love for merrymaking and fine things in life. Certainly, he loved his cold drinks. Dube had a penchant for calling the journo whose age made him his senior with all sorts of names including Mokgalajwe. To some, the Dube-Mosikare relationship depicted brotherhood in the workplace. The Matsiloje-born journalist was morbid for sometime until he succumbed to an illness that saw him admitted to the Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital before he was moved to the Jubilee Hospital where he further battled with a respiratory ailment or pulmonary condition as he coughed incessantly. To those in the know, Tsoo was indeed an indefatigable fighter who had indeed fought a good fight. Unfortunately, he couldn't fight forever. His passing came at a time when his colleagues at both Mmegi and The Monitor were hoping to reunite with him in no time. Their hopes were raised by a recent telephone call he had made through another Francistown-based colleague Lesedi Mkhutshwa’s mobile phone for the benefit of the newsroom. On the call, he sounded full of life and to him it was only a matter of days before he was discharged from the hospital and back to his place in the newsroom. In our earlier telephone conversation the same day, Mosikare was upbeat that he would never imbibe his best drink again without shedding more light on that decision.
