Shashe

 It always leaves an unpleasant taste, I am sure, in the mouth of a President when he/she is forced by the speech writers to refer to a former President as such, in a speech. I recall when President Bill Clinton sent former President Carter to some country in South America as his (Clinton's) emissary on some mission. When addressing the nation, President Clinton did not say "I have sent former President Carter..." Instead, he said "I have sent President Carter..." This sounded not only good but correct, in my view. While to every other American, Mr. Carter was former President, to the US President, he was and still is, President Carter. This is simple Presidential decorum. Not only that, as a US citizen, then President Clinton had every right to have someone/some people that he too can call "President". I don't know how my President, Mokgweetsi Masisi refers to former President Khama, if he ever refers to him at all. I hope that his speech writers ...

 Today my fairly new radio receiver, equipped with something called an accumulator, actually managed to tune into a Botswana broadcasting station. Before it randomly cut off again, I listened to a government Covid-19 representative present a priority list of how the government is going to roll out its Covid-19 vaccination program. As expected, the top priority is that of medical providers. I cannot remember who else was in the list, apart from some category he called "essential service providers". He mentioned three categories all together. I am at a loss as to whom he has in mind as essential service provider. Surely Covid-19 vaccination should not be subject to the same priority as was exemption from lockdown when the latter was declared at the beginning of the outbreak last year? Then, it was understandable and acceptable that drivers of the Government fleet, Police, Government spies, bank workers, all be exempted from lockdown as they were all essential service providers,...

 I recently read a line or two of an article in one of the newspapers, about Mochudi residents wanting to have a modern hospital built for them to replace the old Deborah Retief Memorial Hospital. Even if Gaborone (and its numerous hospitals) did not exist just 50 Km south of Mochudi, the people of Mochudi would be better off than the people of Nata currently are, because Mahalapye Hospital is nearer to Mochudi than Nyangabwe Hospital in Francistown or Maun Hospital is to Nata.  It seems that Barwa simply can't understand that Botswana is not for them alone, such that whatever developments have taken place in GaMmangwato, have to be replicated in Kgatleng or Kweneng, or wherever else there is a "principal tribe" regardless of how congested such developments become, to the complete exclusion of other parts of the country. It is time all developments ceased in the notorious South East quadrant of the country until those developments have been replicated in the other three q...

 On 29 November last year I posted under the heading "Who are the Ialians?", that I speculated that the French were responsible for skinning animals. If they are indeed the workgroup that skinned animals, then they are Baganda, a tribal group found mainly in Uganda. You see, the Kalanga word for hide/skin/leather is "ganda". You could write a book on the word "ganda" because like most Kalanga words, it can be split further into its components - gaa, meaning "ice" and "nda", whose meaning I am not too sure about. But that is a topic for another day.  In leather processing there is something called "fleshing". In Kalanga this would be "ku pala". The effect of Sumerian language influence on the Kalanga language resulted in the letter "l" transitioning to the letter "r". The Shona language spoken in Zimbabwe, is just such a metamorphosed form of Kalanga. And so the Kalanga "ku pala" becomes ...

 In view of the promised constitutional review, it has been necessary to assess the British definition of the word "tribe". The Tribal Territories Act of 1933 (TT Act) does not actually define a tribe. It "separately" defines Bamangwato tribe, Bakwena tribe etc, as "the tribe of which Khama (iii) is the chief, the tribe of which Sechele is the chief, etc. respectively. What I would like those who understand the law to clarify is this: Since the TT Act does not prescribe how a succession if any, from chief Khama (iii) or from chief Sechele should occur, and since those chiefs and all the people of whom they were chiefs are now dead, is the TT Act still operative? On what "tribes" is our current constitution based, now that the people used to define "tribes" in the 1933 Act are dead? 

 In the distant past I posted that Germans are Badusi , meaning "those who take out", or extractors. I stated that what they were responsible for extracting was blocks of pyramid stones. While they may well have engaged in pyramid building exercise in Egypt, ( Ka Mabunde ), I now believe that their name emanates from metal smelting and/or general metal works at Mapungubwe, the craddle of humanity. What they extracted was hot molten or semi molten metal from furnaces and smelters. I now believe that originally the workgroup's name was Badusi. This is the name by which the Germans (Deutsh) and the east African Tutsis (WaTutsi) call themselves. Subsequently the group morphed into Bathuli and BaHerero as the gods refined the group's skills to that of blacksmiths. In Kalanga "Bathuli" means blacksmiths, as does the Spanish name Herero. Let us first look at the Herero. In Kalanga they are "derogatively" referred to as "BaTamma". The real name i...

 One of the most heartwarming moments of this season was triggered by a 3 minutes tail end of a TV program last Sunday when two descendants of the German general LothaVon Trotha met the Herero chief Maherero to talk about, among other things, the German conducted genocide of the Herero people in Namibia. What made the moment so heartwarming is the fact that Germans are Hereros, after all.  Yes, just as Russians are Bakhurutshe, so Germans are Baherero. Forget the color difference; the two belong to the same Anunnaki workgroup - Bathuli!