Local poets host Swedes

Kgomotso Molelekeng | Thursday December 12, 2013 16:59

Participants of the Petlo Poetry Karavan tour, as the programme is known, will visit Molepolole, Kanye and Manyana villages.  According to the Trust chairperson, Barolong Seboni, an eminent local writer and poet, as Karavan is a magazine focusing on the arts and culture in Norway and Sweden, it was decided to give the programme the name.  Seboni said that visitors would be taken to places of cultural interest.

“We are going to be taking them to Kgotlas and other places of significance, that contribute to our heritage and culture. We want them to see what our country was before it got developed,” he said.

The visitors will be taken to dikgotla in the three villages to learn of the art of Botswana traditional democracy. In Kanye, the Swedish will be taken to Mmakgodungwe dam while in Molepolole, the tour will take to Lekadiba dam.  In Manyane, the visitors will tour MmaKgosi cave and the Livingstone tree where Dr David Livingston used to hold church services before building the main church. They will also be taken to the Dinawe hills.  “The purpose is to make the visitors see and have a taste of Tswana heritage and experience our culture but mostly to understand it.

This way they will be able to sell our country as a destination for ethno tourism attraction,” he said.

Dikgosi of all the three villages would host the visitors at the Kgotla.  After a day in the villagers, an evening poetry festival hosting established local performers such as Seboni and Moroka Moreri will be held.  “There will be performances and poetry reading, the Swedish will also give us a glimpse of their poetry.

We will also be welcoming other poets from each village,” he said. Seboni said their hope is that the places they plan to take the visitors to will inspire them not only in tourism but also in poetry so that they can include them in their writings. Petlo Literary Arts Trust is a non-profit making organisation with the aim of promoting creative writing and literature in Botswana.  It was established in 2007 and has primarily been focused on developing novels and plays about prominent yet unsung historical figures of Botswana.