NOTHING WRONG WITH DADA’S HOUSE BEING USED AS VACCINE SITE

Batswana are having a Dimpie Dimpopo moment when they should instead be getting their arm ready to be vaccinated against COVID- 19. In case you forgot, Dimpie Dimpopo is the South African comedian who caused a storm in a tea cup last year by doing an advert for the Botswana Power Corporation. “I ring lockdown virus mo ngwanehng …”, he said in a failed attempt to say “E reng lockdown virus mo ngwaneng.” Most people felt that BPC should instead have used a Motswana artist, especially that the lockdown had impoverished most of them. The irony of it all was that a South African artist was the most appropriate because everything else was also South African. With our own power supply being unreliable, our reliable supply is from South Africa’s Eskom and so, Dimpie Dimpopo was advertising a South African product. The “e reng” expression itself ( the most popular is “se reng stress mo ngwaneng”) and its variants, was coined by Bonang Matheba, a South African celebrity from Mahikeng. The latest Dimpie Dimpopo moment relates to some people complaining about a house owned by the Botswana Democratic Party’s treasurer- for- life, Satar Dada, being used as a COVID- 19 vaccination site. While a Botswana citizen, Dada’s roots are in India, the same India that not too long ago donated the COVID- 19 vaccine to Botswana. This was the very first consignment to arrive in Botswana. Let’s rewind: India donates the COVID- 19 vaccine to Botswana and a house owned by an Indian is used as a vaccination site. What the problem is?