Letter from Serowe

Serowe is a big village in Botswana’s Central District. It’s an important historical landmark, and a good halfway stop for anyone heading north. Leanne Rencken grew up there.

My two brothers and I went to boarding school in Pietersburg (now Polokwane), a good 350 km and a border crossing away. We only went home once every three months, along with a gaggle of cousins. Being away for so long, things were bound to change, and it was easy to feel adrift when I returned. To counteract this, I made mental lists of things that had stayed the same: the shop fronts we passed, the number of foot-and-mouth gates en route, the semausu (tuck shops)… These things rooted me to a sense of home.

Years later, as an adult living in Joburg, these rituals still exist when I head home to visit my parents. They start as soon as the Parr’s Halt border crossing. It’s important to stop the car on the single-lane bridge that spans the Limpopo River, to acknowledge its largesse. Whether I’m driving alone, or with my brothers, we always remark on how full the river is, even if it isn’t.

I sit still for a moment, windows rolled down, and recall the black-and-white photograph of my grandparents taken in the early 1950s. My grandpa has his back against a tree, while my granny is leaning up against him, holding my mom in her lap, looking down at the tiny baby she was, and shading her little face from the sun.

Their Bedford truck, steel-framed canvas chairs, G&Ts and other camping paraphernalia are just out of frame, but everything is there, in their sprawling campsite along the banks of the Limpopo.

Each time I go home, I notice how Serowe – the place where my Botswana-born grandfather moved to as a two-year-old in 1902 – has crept over itself and outgrown its borders. The “new” hospital is no longer on the edge of town; that temporary outline is now marked by something else, like a new school.

If it’s Christmas or Easter, there’s always a police presence under the mopane tree just before the road curves as you enter town. Stop. Check. Go.

I smile as I drive under the avenue of trees along the main road that my father had a hand in planting in the early 1990s: jacaranda, neem and flamboyant. The trees had to be coddled and caged during their slow but steady early growth, to prevent them from becoming goat fodder. Now they stand proud and they look as though they’ve always been there, the widening of the road a decade ago accommodating their presence.

I like to keep a few pula aside so I can stop at the Goodhope General Dealer to buy a bag of freshly fried manyonyomane –a type of vetkoek.

Somewhere near the Serowe Dam, I remember a place where a motswiri (leadwood) tree marked an early boundary point of the village, and an important meeting place for traders. My mom drove me down a dirt track to see it once, but now I don’t look too closely in case it’s no longer there.

Serowe came to be because the Bamangwato people, under the leadership of the Khama dynasty, settled here at the turn of the 20th century. As I drive past, I give a silent salute to the main kgotla (tribal court), the Royal Grave Site, and the statue of Sir Seretse Khama. These landmarks all hug the business side of Serowe Hill; my family home is in the valley on the other side. As a young girl, I’d run up the concrete road, past the hotel and up the hill. At the top, a nun would take us through a set of Tai Chi poses.

I wave to each of the family businesses – past and present – as I drive past: Billy Woodford’s fancy food shop, Dennis Service Station, my Auntie Pat’s shop Sunvalley, my granny and grandpa’s general dealer, my dad’s bar and my mom’s pre-schools.

When my mom was a child, my granny hosted Catholic church services and weddings on her stoep, and she coaxed priests from Ireland to visit and help out. Eventually a church was built between their house and Thataganyane Rock. The church is still there, as is the borehole that keeps our garden green when everything else turns to dust in winter. When I’m away for long periods of time, I call up the house on Google Earth just to feel closer to home.

It’s easy to spot because of all that green.

It’s important to stop the car on the single-lane bridge that spans the Limpopo River, to acknowledge its largesse.