The Sunday News
Raisedon Baya
SO apart from a few mean people you find at the border, in some shops sprinkled around shopping malls and the cold-hearted young woman we found at the reception of the hotel we stayed in, Botswana is really a nice and hospitable place. Frankly speaking, I am yet to meet a Zimbabwean who has had a lovely experience at the Botswana border. Most of us have been treated like a nuisance.
In a number of shops around Francistown and even in Gaborone we were greeted with some serious attitude. If it had been left to some of the shop assistants we would not have been served anything and probably deported the minute they discovered we were Zimbabweans.
Our worst experience was getting to the hotel and the receptionist clicking a few buttons on her computer before telling us we had no booking there. Since we had no Mascom or Orange sim cards we asked if we could phone our hostess with the hotel phone. The answer was negative. We asked for Wi-Fi so we could just send an SOS text to our hostess. Again the answer was a firm NO.
We then asked if she knew anything about the event we had come to Botswana for. In response she had laughed and told us she didn’t care much about any events. And so to cut a long story short we ended up sleeping in the car, outside the hotel. In the morning we bought a local sim card and phoned our hostess who quickly phoned the hotel and spoke to the hotel supervisor and it turned out that we were actually booked at the hotel.
After that ordeal things turned for the better very quickly. The hotel staff became friendlier and the host of our first event, which was the Botswana Secondary Schools Drama Association (BOSSDA) was the total opposite of the people we had met at the border, in some shops and at the hotel reception. Mr Mphela, who is the vice-president of the association, was the personification of hospitality.
He drove to our hotel, took us to the schools competition and told us how he had waited the whole night for news of our travel. We never told him about our ordeal at the hotel, choosing just to tell him how we had failed to get a local sim card as we had travelled during the night.
During the event we also met the president of the association, a Mr Gasemodimo, who was also a jovial and warm-hearted host. We were treated well, almost like royalty. The purpose of our visit was simple. To network and see ways of collaborating with BOSSDA in terms of children’s performance. The bigger vision being the creation of a Sadc platform for children’s theatre.
The idea is simply to start with a few countries and expand as time goes on. Few countries were immediately thrown around. Botswana, Namibia, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. This is a noble idea that as Intwasa Arts Festival we are excited about and going to put all efforts to make it happen — especially for the young theatre enthusiasts whose dreams are in our hands.
The schools competition itself was a lively event that had children singing and supporting each other all day. At one point it was even difficult to think it was a competition. There was some kind of inspiring unity among the competitors — like they were just happy to be there and participating. Most of the presentations were very good.
Comparing them with what we have here, especially in Bulawayo, there is really no difference. And remember Bulawayo has the cream of student performances. We loved the simplicity, the focus on natural acting and singing, unlike here where the focus is slowly moving towards technique and the use of pre-recorded sounds and PA system.
We liked the total participation of the students. You could see their efforts in the presentation. And we were not surprised about the South African influence, especially in the music and even performance style. The same influence you will find here and not just in schools but in most of our art.
After the schools competition we then attended the Botswana Gospel Awards (Bogma) run by our dear sister Mrs Gloria Dzwikiti. Our Bogma hostesses were either phoning us every hour to find out whether we were OK, comfortable and had eaten something. We were in Gaborone simply because Mrs Gloria Dzwitiki had visited RoilBAA earlier this year and afterwards expressed a desire to build a partnership between the two award ceremonies. We have now started the process of building, networking and collaborating.
The beauty of it all is we are starting closer at home, with our neighbours. Soon Bossda and Intwasa will be sending children across the border to share performance spaces and celebrate the diversity of the region. Soon Bogma and BAA will be sharing artistes and learning from each other. As we conclude the article we are already expecting to be hosting the top school in terms of drama and some officials from Bossda this coming Intwasa while we prepare to host a delegation from Bogma for the 4th edition of RoilBAA in 2010.
