In search of new horizons Pam and I took a bus from Johannesburg to Gaborone, Botswana for the 2nd edition of the SADC Poetry Festival. We landed a few days before because I have been wanted to visit the Bessie Head Museum in Serowe 315 km north of Gaborone. Since discovering that there is repository of her correspondence along with a recreation of her room somewhere in Botswana I’ve wanted to experience it for myself, especially to read the letters. I have convinced my friend Pam months before that this will be a trip of a life time, so in that spirit, off we went to the unknown.
We had an opportunity to present the project we started in June in Cape Town titled No Holy Cows which is, for a lack of a better way to describe this creative experiment, a poetic visual art performance meaning that it infuses these art forms in the simplest way, to avoid confusing ourselves and the public. Thus for us it was a case of hitting to bird with one stone.
Our journey started with a night in Gaborone and we met our host from the SADC Poetry Festival to discuss our contribution and generally introduce ourselves to each other. It was over a drink in a spot I assume was quite a popular drinking hole for the youthful in age and at heart. A very accommodating establishment so when they have to chase you out because they are closing they have the decency to provide take way cups for your drinks. They don’t lose their glasses and you as customers you take your drink with you.
The next morning we were lucky enough to get a lift for most of the 315 km to Serowe, up to Palapyne where we took a bus to the village of the rain wind as Bessie Head describes it and I will add a village that has grown to a small town.
Coming from Johannesburg you cannot miss the stillness in Serowe. The people seem to move quietly with an air of tranquillity hanging in the slow moving breeze and dust envelopes it all. We were immersed in a beige surreal reality. I kept asking myself whilst taking in the curious expressions in people faces and the empty shops and semi deserted street, can I live here, in this quietude which could be so suffocating?
We drank in the sunset and had a chat with a man who had sex in his mind the conversation never diverted far from where we staying, what we doing here and our general marital status and procreation abilities. I realise some things are so common and we connect in a very funny fashion.
We came in memory of Bessie Head we landed in a museum that housed both her memory and that of Kgosi Khama lll family history which tied to the history of Serowe. Bessie Head an outcast sharing a memorial space with the ‘father of the nation’ that is something to chew over. We didn’t get the chance to read as much of the content of the boxes and besides we didn’t have the permission from the government to go over such delicate research material, but it was worth the hours we spent in that surreal universe. We had a most gracious hostess with impeccable manners for visiting tourists.
When we arrive back in Gaborone to meet the rest of the poets and visual artists at the poetry festival I was nicely nourished with food for thought which I haven’t even began to decode its nutritional value.
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