Thinking Aloud

There is a new decree by the vanguard of the Mokobi clan in Serowe that we all meet once a year outside the hustle and bustle of weddings, funerals, family hearings and social media networks such as Face Book, WhatsApp and Instagram. The one day meeting is set aside for nothing but a bonding session for a fast growing family and the venue is decidedly our ancestral home in Mhashwa, Serowe. Mhashwa is however,  the corrupted name given to the Ba-Kalanga ward during the well documented tumultuous reign of Bangwato Regent, Kgosi Tshekedi Khama. The proper name of the ward is Nswazwi, but that is a story for another day.

At our maiden get-together on Boxing Day last year, it was decided that rather than the occasion being a purely family pilgrimage, some other social good should be factored into the reunion. On this occasion the clan decided to clean up the graves of departed family members. Most of the descendants of the family patriarch, Rev. Hamilton, Lekgowe, Mokobi are buried at the Goo Rra Seretse cemetery outside Serowe where he was also laid to rest in 1980.

One of the striking features of the Goo Rra Seretse cemetery is its sorry state. The place is unkempt, with tall trees, bushes and grass predominant following the earlier rains. While there are graves covered with marble or granite slabs and elaborate headstones engraved with the names, dates of birth and death, and biographical data of the deceased, the majority of graves are marked with metal frames covered in shading nets. The shade nets are in most instances, old, sunburned and rain washed, tattered and an eyesore.

Discussions at the cemetery inevitably centred on the upkeep of this final resting place for the dead. The thrust of the discussion was establishing who between the families and local authorities was responsible for the maintenance of cemeteries. In the end it was concluded that while local authorities are to some extent responsible for the upkeep of communal parks and cemeteries, graves have been left to families and as in all aspects of human endeavour, there are those families that make an effort to maintain the graves of their fallen members and those that, quite frankly, do not care.

 Apart from the unsightly state of the cemetery, the shreds of shade netting and scraps of weather beaten plastic flowers, there is no order in the arrangement of graves at this cemetery. Graves are dug haphazardly as families clamour to bury their loved ones around the grave of a favoured forebear and livestock roams the cemetery grazing on the tall grass and budding shoots of the lush bushes.  How families continue to find space for new deposits at this cemetery eludes me.

“You wouldn’t sleep in filth would you!? So how then do you expect our dearly departed to rest in such?” asks one of my concerned cousins.      

The blight of neglected graves is however, not confined to this cemetery. I have observed this sorry state of affairs across the country whenever I have had the misfortune of attending the burial of family members, friends, colleagues and acquaintances. One finds hideous shreds of shading nets, pieces of sun-baked plastic flowers and other cultural and religious artefacts lying all over the graves. Cattle, goats and donkey’s graze here and the village juveniles smoke weed under the shades of trees in the cemetery while lovers have brazenly turned the place into their rendezvous.   

Being in the midst of the dead got me thinking. Assuming that when I die, my family will get the opportunity to bury me, we all know that this final rite of passage is not always possible, I have discussed this matter with my wife, Tshego’ and my aunt, Rakgadi Mma Tjabo, (Margaret Balule) and made it clear that when the time ultimately comes and I exit this world, if I’m not getting a headstone, I will not mind a metal frame to mark my grave but I do not want tacky shading nets or plastic flowers on my grave.