She is the eldest daughter among five children of refugee parents who fled apartheid South Africa. She says her mother and father, who were active Pan African Congress (PAC) activists, had to flee their motherland to escape the clutches of the apartheid regime.They crossed the border and settled in Lobatse. She admits that despite the circumstances that drove them into Botswana, her life was not bad. She was comfortable and did not have the insecurities of being a child of refugee parentage as her father, a geologist, amicably known as 'Ben' Marengwa, was employed at the government of Department of Geological Services in Lobatse. Professor Moahi says it was because of her young cousin and friends who were forced into exile by the Soweto uprising of 1976 that she began to appreciate and feel the effects of apartheid and being a person living in exile ."I spent a lot of time with them. They had been forced into exile as students and had left their parents behind. With my experience, it was a mind-boggling experience, that so young a people could run away from their homes because of their political beliefs fearing arrest or being killed by government security agents. It led me to an appreciation of life; that people react differently under pressure. But even then, it wasn't that 'alien' to me because of the way I came to Botswana," she said.
She said that it was touching that though her cousin and friends were aged between 17 and 19 in a foreign land, they had to look for normalcy in this confusion, find a home and fend for themselves.She said that their lives opened her eyes and gave her the resolve to look for independence whilst still a child. "It took me out of my cocoon; that life can take any direction, hence there is a need to be independent. As a child I never bothered about the politics, but since then I became aware of what was going on in South Africa," said Moahi, whose first degree was in Political Science and Public Administration.She said her father was influential in encouraging her to be independent. He impressed upon his daughter to pursue education and use it as a springboard to her dreams of living a better life.
