Bojalwa jwa Setswana, the best part of Dikgafela
Spira Tlhankane | Friday September 9, 2016 15:18
I arrived in Ntsweng Heritage site in Molepolole in the early hours of Saturday morning and drinking beer with bannabagolo (elderly men) was to be the first activity on my ‘to do’ list. I had never tasted traditional beer since Son of the Soil festival and my tongue was already aching with anticipation.
I decided to take a little tour around the place and locate the hut that houses the liquid of magic. I had once heard an old man passionately describing the beer as ‘kgarebe e tshetlha se ledisa bannabagolo’.
To my disappointment I soon learnt that I couldn’t just arrive and demand traditional beer. Doing that would have raised questions like ‘ke ngwana wa ga mang ene o (whose child is this?)’. Apparently protocol had to be observed and the beer that I was longing for had to be delivered as Dikgafela first before everyone can drink.
I knew that making bojalwa jwa Setswana was a long process and it takes days to come up with the end product so waiting for an hour or two wouldn’t have killed anyone. I then took my seat and waited for Dithubaruba festival to unfold.
Dikgafela was the first activity to be demonstrated by the Bakwena Tribe at the Cultural Festival and bojalwa jwa Setswana was the biggest offering of them all. Matsosangwao women carried pots of beer on their heads as they headed towards the kgotla. The women were lead by Bakwena tribesman called Rabojalwa Keetile and he continuously shouted ‘dikgafela tseo, a di e ko go monngwa tsone’. With the blue black and white striped megagolwane on their shoulders, the elderly women finally took the beer to Mohumagadi wa Bakwena Mma-Tumagole. The festival is meant to appease the heavens to release the rains and the beer, which is in liquid form, metaphorically brought the hope of showers from above.
I had read that back then people would gather at the kgotla to thank the heavens for the harvest. Bojalwa jwa Setswana being made from sorghum or mabele affirmed mabele as the biggest harvest hence the Setswana saying ‘mabele mabelega batho’.
Dikgafela is a sacred ceremony and it consequentially made drinking bojalwa jwa Setswana a sanctified occasion. It is only in Dikgafela where a lowborn could share a beer with dikgosi.
Dithubaruba activities like traditional dancing continued but I couldn’t keep my eyes off the small tent where the traditional beer was kept. After lunchtime there was still no sign of any man holding phafana or traditional beer cup and I began to wonder if we were ever going to drink setso as they often call it.
I didn’t want to leave any stones unturned therefore I went to approach the elderly woman who was tasked with the biggest role of them all, looking after the beer. I had earlier observed men coming from the tent with empty bottles. “Bojalwa bo tshwanetse ba rebolwa pele ngwanaka,” she told me.
She said the beer had to be taken to the kgotla for declaration and that is when everyone can have a share.
I went back to my seat and I realised that this was going to be more difficult than I thought. In the late afternoon men gathered at the kgotla to eat mokoto and that is when the time for the public to drink bojalwa jwa Setswana arrived. I took my big brown and dry phafana and hurried to the kgotla to join the grey heads.
I could observe men murmuring with excitement as the beer container sparkled with beer head or the frothy foam that forms on top of beer. Most of the men there didn’t have diphafana and they had to cut the top part of two litres beverage bottles. The fact that I was among the few who had their diphafana instilled a cultural feeling within me.
I took my first sip after what had been the longest day of my life. It was not just any other ordinary beer, because the best hands of the village women brewed it. I am not an expert of beer tasting but that traditional beer looked and felt good, ene e se nkwe.
As more young men were starting to form a queue around the beer container, the man who served the beer shouted, ‘ga go ipoeletswe se boa boane banna.’
Minutes later he stopped serving the beer (a tswetse). It was only temporary and as we continued drinking our cultural beer, we knew that the pot would be opened again to finish it off.
Some of the youth these days don’t drink the beer because of what they feel as unhygienic ways of preparing it.
Others don’t drink it because they feel it cannot get them drunk like barley malt beer that is consumed worldwide. But drinking bojalwa jwa Setswana at the kgotla was the greatest feeling and as the nation celebrates Botswana’s golden jubilee this month, I now realise that in Botswana, we would be a lost nation without mabele.