THIRD EYE DON’T DONATE MASK – WEAR ONE
With COVID- 19 laws forcing us all to look like bank robbers, there has emerged a sub- genre of face- mask philanthropy across the country.
However, as a days- long circus at the Office of the President during the national lockdown reminds us, COVID- 19 philanthropy is not really about fighting COVID- 19. Then, a parade of businesspeople took turns making donations to fight COVID- 19 while failing to observe the most basic COVID- 19 health protocols to fight the disease: they wore masks as chin warmers and crowded behind the mock cheque being presented to the vice president.
The atrocity we witnessed on OP grounds has now spread nationwide, from Beetsha to Bokspits, Chadibe to Charleshill,
Dibete to D’Kar, Gamodubu to Gunotsoga, Hatsalatladi to Hukuntsi, Jamakata to Jackalas No. 2, Kalakamati to Karakubis, Lephephe to Lobatse, Maun to Mogobane, Parakarungu to Palapye, Radisele to Ranaka, Seronga to Sekoma, Toteng to Taung as well as to many other places whose names don’t have a first letter that matches that of any other in Botswana.
But there is a question with the most obvious answer: should maskless people be donating masks or wearing those same masks themselves? Feeling like donating a COVID- 19 anything? Then donate health - which is literally life is and the best gift ever.
HOW SECONDARY SCHOOL BECAME ‘ HIGH SCHOOL’
As a former British colony, Botswana officially uses British ( not American) English. That is why we have Gaborone Secondary School - not Gaborone High School. However, don’t underestimate the power of American television because American culture is now so pervasive in Botswana. Rightly, urban youth prancing around half- naked should be saying “my mistake” ( the British form) to apologise but over- consumption of American TV consistently leads them to “my bad.” They are also likelier to say “high school” than “secondary school.”
However, there is a peculiarity with regard to the latter.
There is an undeclared epidemic of drug use among senior secondary students and more than half the time, these students go to school high, take more drugs even at school to remain high, stay high for the entire duration of the school day and leave school still high. That is how secondary school became high school.
BAIA AND DI- CHILLAS REVELLERS SHOULD SIGN MOU
Every day you read a newspaper, some organisations are signing a memorandum of understanding, in order that they get on the same page and work better together.
However, there remains two parties that don’t have the same understanding on a very important issue but are doing nothing to get on the same page and work better together. Having lobbied hard for the partial re- opening of the liquor trade, the Botswana Alcohol Industry Association ( BAIA) is displeased with failure to comply by some liquor traders and consumers.
Resultantly, it has issued a “warning” that it will cease to do business with culprits.
That would be easy to do with traders whom it can - through the Kgalagadi Breweries Limited and wholesalers – refuse to sell alcohol.
However, its options with consumers ( namely those who participate in COVID- spreading events called dichillas) are severely limited. It can’t punish each and every reveller who participated in a chillas session that was hosted in Maun recently and came to public knowledge via a Facebook video.
Clearly BAIA and its di- chillas consumers don’t have the same understanding on how COVID- 19 spreads as well as on COVID- 19 law. This situation desperately calls for an MoU between the two parties.
DIPHOKO CAN’T REPRODUCE ON THEIR OWN
President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s decision to replace blankets with billy goats ( diphoko), as an item of presidential philanthropy is most welcome but could get problematic farther down the road. Each time three state helicopters ( including the presidential one) have flown to some rural area, only diphoko have been donated.
The diphoko philanthropy has only just begun and every indication is that by 2024, every person whose name is on the ( official) voters’ roll would have been given at least two diphoko.
Since its origins in the 1980s, Botswana’s presidential philanthropy has always been characterised by the donation of a single item. Sir
Ketumile Masire donated roast comedy at kgotla meetings; Festus Mogae limited his public dancing to a single dance style ( get- down) and to one song only – Shaoriako; Ian Khama carpeted Botswana with single- ply Made- in- China blankets; and we now have Masisi donating a single commodity – diphoko.
However, the problem with donating diphoko only is that they can’t reproduce on their own and it is just a matter of matter before the country is overrun with lustful male goats that outnumber female goats 100 to 1.
It is more than likely that these goats may decide to defray such lust on each other.
We really shouldn’t have to offer this heads- up because not only is the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security from Moshupa, he is also Masisi’s political heir.
However, some vital information is evidently missing from the briefings that officials from his ministry provide at OP. We understand that there could be fear that female goats might give birth aboard an air- borne helicopter but there is always the option of using the trucks that the Department of Immigration used to repatriate Zimbabweans pre- COVID – which have been lying idle for months now.