The Day A Baby Pranked A Whole City
Monday, November 23, 2015
This is good. Even I used to have this imaginary friend long time ago. Her name was Magdalene. My friendship with Maggie came to an abrupt end the day my father found me alone in the room, talking to her. It ended very badly.
So this baby, we are told, was just minding her own business that Wednesday afternoon near a busy road when she saw a ‘big snake’ leap out of a nearby pond. Before she could scream SNAKE, the reptile ‘snatched’ (ya phamola) another child before disappearing again into the same filthy pond. This is the official version, the version that was even confirmed by the area police chief. I refused to believe the story, from the word go. That a snake, never mind its size, snatched a child was, for me, the very first red flag! It couldn’t be. Snakes don’t have limbs and are incapable of ‘snatching’ anything, never mind a seven year old kicking and screaming child! I have watched several wildlife documentaries before, not once have I ever come across that spectacle. But then again, this is Botswana. Strange things happen around here. So for a while I really gave this child the benefit of the doubt. It doesn’t help that the nation was still jittery while recovering from the terrible student tragedy.
Botswana for the longest time was known for her virulent peace with family being an enviable institution.As the media, we are also scared to be incessantly reporting on these bloody scenes where women are brutally murdered and worse, sometimes in front of their children and loved ones. Yes, we have reported cases where men were also brutally murdered by their loved ones, but such cases are a drop in the ocean.For the past two weeks, Botswana was...