Remembering Swaneng of late �80s, early �90s

Gasebalwe Seretse | Friday March 28, 2014 15:13

 

Students at Swaneng

His niece, Boitumelo Mosiakgabo (now Tema) and I were the stars of the group having passed our Primary School Leaving Exams (PSLE) with A’s in 1987.

As you can imagine, we were a tiny and noisy bunch.  Needless to say we were intimidated by the new ‘gigantic’ buildings around us, and all the ‘old’ people we were supposed to school with when we arrived at Swaneng.

I cannot recall the details of what happened on our arrival.  But as children from outside Serowe (although most of us had many relatives there), we had been admitted as boarding students.

One Kalanga chap called Cleopas took a liking to me and immediately announced that I was going to lodge in his room in a block at the far end of the boys’ hostels near the Serowe-Orapa road.

If my memory serves me well, the dormitory was in Block D.  Although Cleopas was a gentle giant with a friendly smile that could melt any heart, I stood there quaking next to him. After all I was this thin, little new arrival, or a mosela standing next to one of the most respected prefects in the whole school.

Here in Swaneng, I was away from my grandmother who had raised me with great love and protected me from any harm. I was also away from my people who revered my grandfather and namesake, Gasebalwe Seretse who had been their leader at some point.

In Swaneng where I was destined to spend five years of secondary school from 1988 to 1992, we lived a totally different life from that in Pilikwe.  Our hostels could hold up to 16 roommates and some of them were big people.

Strange as the sleeping arrangement was, it was even stranger that we were expected to shower in a common bathroom.  It was horrific to be all too aware of the other fellows’ more advanced physical maturity.

Bath time in our hostel meant showering under those big and ugly metal showerheads with ice-cold water.  The drill was: quickly apply soap all over the body, feverishly and breathlessly scamper through running water to get rid of the foam, and then escape to dry oneself.

Then after wearing our school uniform, navy blue pants and sky blue shirts, we would head off to the hall in different raucous groups to have our first meal.

Breakfast was a fill of badly cooked sour porridge (motogo), which we reluctantly ate. Our motogo back home tasted much better and we could add as much sugar as we wanted, unlike in Swaneng where the cooks were always hostile.  They considered students as little scoundrels.

They always watched us like hawks to make sure that we never did anything naughty at the ‘buffet’ as we referred to the serving table in the dining hall.

The first assembly gathering was scary.  The senior girls looked at us like we were creatures from another planet. The huge boys also did not want to be associated with us because according to them we ‘smelt of baby milk’, which was humiliating enough.

So as the newcomers, we struck friendships with our lowly kind lest we got in trouble.

I was put in the same class with one Gabaikanngwe Chinyepi better known as Gaba who was a very naughty lad.

Our class teacher was Fergus who I think was an African-American. Fergus spoke with a captivating American accent.

I, being a village bumpkin who knew just basic English from the books I read and what I garnered from Mosiakgabo, was so intimidated and could barely converse with the unfortunate class teacher just like the majority of the class.

Cleopas and one Hyacinth Molefe, who was also a prefect and one of the most fashionable students, made my first few months comfortable.

The ever-stylish Hyacinth played lawn tennis and was one of the cool cats around.  Thanks to those two prefects and my homeboy Ishmael Kwakwanda, who was a big fellow,  I was never bullied at school.

I became disillusioned with the local education system at an early age and I do not fondly remember many of my teachers except Rooney and Mma Mackenzie who taught me English.  Then there was Mma Seitlhamo and Ramodise who taught me Setswana and History, respectively.

Some of the teachers that I remember were the eccentric science teacher, Hunter ‘The Cruel’ Bullock, the soft-spoken Mma Swamidoss and the naughty Muzumara, who never shied away from talking about sex and stuff.

One day when doing Form 3, we polished the lab, which made Bullock really angry. As a result he poured soil and water in the lab to drive a point home that labs were not supposed to be polished.

We later laughed our lungs out when the equally disliked Mma Moampe, made him clean up the mess. I would say at Swaneng, I loved Setswana, English, History and Development Studies.  As for all the other subjects, I hated with a passion. Bullock was the guy from the United Kingdom who liked kicking students on the butt like Boer farmers of the day and we all loathed him.

When we arrived at school in 1988, there was already discontentment among fellow students about the administration of the headmaster, Tiroentle Pheto. Most students regarded Pheto as a tyrant, who punished students severely for little or no reason at all.

Although we came from different ‘tyrannies’ ourselves, we immediately agreed that Pheto was the chief of tyrants.  We quickly plotted with the senior students that we were going to rebel against Pheto’s iron-fisted administration.

The brave among us started refusing to take orders from teachers and litter from garbage bins was scattered all over the school. We shouted at teachers we did not like and hurled invective at them.

As Pheto walked around the school trying to intimidate students, we started jeering at him and soon pelted him with stones forcing him to run for cover. That was little victory for the students and only briefly.

Pheto looked temporarily defeated and was a bit careful with the way he dealt with us.  I somehow believe that the strike of 1988 broke Pheto’s heart and we did not give a hoot. 

Sadly for us, we were the pioneers of the doomed two-year Junior Certificate (JC) and in 1989 sat for our exams. Yours truly got a B but those who knew me were disappointed.  Truth be told I spent most of my time being naughty instead of studying.

The fact that one day someone destroyed my books by pouring water on them did not help the situation.

The year 1990 was generally a good one for me.  I think that was the year I started to bloom.  I reached puberty around that time and how I dealt with the situation is a story for another time.

By 1991, I was one of the most vocal students in the school and greatly loathed the new administration under headmaster Jorosi and his deputy Mma Moampe.

I, like most students believed these two were the worst administrators.  They even made Pheto seem much better.  During Pheto’s tenure pupils passed but once he left, our performance in school slumped.

I somehow missed the meeting that was called by some ringleaders to rebel against Jorosi and Mma Moampe.  I later learned that my role would be to pull Jorosi’s long beard as he stood to address assembly so as to instigate the strike.

 

This was indeed ridiculous.

One morning we woke up to find trash scattered all over the school and some offensive graffiti.  Although the strike was not as successful as that of 1988, the effects were reverberating.

Mma Moampe desperately wanted me expelled but she could not find evidence that connected me to the strike. She then suspended my cousin Boipelo Seretse after catching her reciting the insults from the graffiti.

I strongly believe that woman hated the Seretse family because she also kept tormenting my other cousin, Veronica Seretse.

Like most people my age back then, I had my first girlfriend at Swaneng Hill School and her name was Tshepho Rakgole.

Tshepho and I were in the same class and we fell in love the very moment we set eyes on each other.

The major problem was that I was very timid back then.   I had to be at my very best behaviour whenever she was around. Tshepho was a vivacious beauty and I assumed that I had been lucky to snatch her from under the noses of many other potential suitors.

I still happen to be in touch with her thanks to Facebook and I must say that she must have good genes because she has not changed a bit and has not lost her sparkle.

I also met an older girl called Maria, who I fell head-over-heels in love with. Maria was one of the most fashionable girls at the school and she had that fixated look that could make one go jelly at the knees.

I remember my love song for her was ‘So Far Away From You’ by Dire Straits.  Whenever the song played while in Pilikwe, I would wish I were back in Swaneng with my Maria.

Then there was the petite and beautiful Kobontle.  One day she gave me scented artificial roses in public.  How I wish the earth could have opened up and swallowed me.

When we were at high school, still in Swaneng, it was fashionable to go out with ‘big’ girls and my ‘big’ girl was Ponatshego or Pony.  She was from a junior school in Gabane and Gabane students were regarded as naughty.

Pony and I parted when I became a born again Christian. I became an outcast when I became a Christian and was therefore dumped for being ‘naïve’. Despite the fact that I thought I was not that popular, I was chosen to be part of the entertainment team when I was doing Form 3 or 4 along with my good friend Neo Connolly.

This most certainly meant that some students held me in high esteem, which boosted my confidence.

At Swaneng, entertainment entailed what we called ‘record night’ and all sorts of music genres were played.

We sometimes had pantsula competitions which were loved by many and the DJ would play South African bubblegum songs in vogue by artists like Brenda Fassie, Lazarus Kgagudi, Patricia Majalisa and so on.

Occasionally we would get a ‘funk’ song and I guess that is the genre that gave life to the now popular house music.

Since there was a lot of movement at record nights, the boys chilled with their girlfriends and maybe played naughty when nobody was looking.

Sometimes we would watch videos of our action heroes, Jackie Chan, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and others.

Later, there was a major coup when Connolly and I dumped the entertainment committee to become members of the Scripture Union (SU). We were laughed at and derided.

Being a member of the SU was most certainly frowned upon. Members of the SU were regarded as lunatics who saw sin in everything. They were known for dressing modestly, shunning sexual relationships, booze and secular music.