KGOTLA MEETING – Roger

Every village in Botswana has a Kgotla where the Kgosi (Chief) listens to disputes and makes a ruling, and where all community meetings are held. That is where all the decisions are made that affect the village. If the village is large it will be divided up into wards each with a Kgotla. In a Kgotla meeting any person who wants can speak and share his or her view, and the others listen politely (usually) while that person is speaking. The Kgotla is the center of village life and is recognized by a partial semi-circle of tree trunks “planted” in the sand forming a fence of sorts, usually near a large tree. A person charged with an offence may have to go through the traditional court at the Kgotla or through the civil courts (a system very similar to ours) depending on the nature of the charge. Sometimes the person is allowed to choose, again depending on the offense. One means of punishment in the traditional court is lashes – and believe me that is not a pleasant sight to behold. I watched it once.

The city does not have Kgotla’s, but the police in our neighborhood notified all the residents and drove around with a speaker announcing a meeting to be held one evening this past week. They jokingly said that is now our Kgotla, and about 40 or 50 people showed up for the meeting. I was surprised to see Jolene and I were the only lekoa (white people). We desperately wanted to live in a village when we returned, but since I have to be at the airport within 15 or 20 minutes when a mercy flight is called, we could not find a suitable location. It was good to know we are living in a neighborhood that is mostly composed of Batswana.

The meeting was to be held at 5:30PM so I came straight from work, and since everything is on Africa time it got going around 6:10. The meeting reminded me very much of some of the Kgotla meetings I attended in the past. It took until 8:00PM to make a decision – just to decide that a neighborhood watch is a good idea and to form a committee to have some ideas before the big group met again. It is frustratingly slow for someone with a western-type mindset, but everybody has a voice and only then can things be decided. The one police officer was trying to get me to be chairman of the committee, but I refused any position as an officer on the committee. I did agree to be an additional member, so it will be interesting to see how it all develops. It will be a great way to get to know some of the neighbors – something that is very hard to do with electric fences, high walls, and large solid steel gates. I would guess about 25% have high walls with electric fences (all of them have a fence of some sort) and ours is one of them. It is hard to get to know one’s neighbors that way.

The statistics the police gave on crime was an eye-opener. We live in an area called Block 5 (a small part of the city), and in Block 5 alone in the week prior to our meeting there were 167 reports of crime. 2 armed robberies, 8 vehicle thefts or break-ins, 5 house break-ins and numerous other attacks and thefts. I guess that is “development”!

One encouraging thing to see was the way the role of women has appeared to change since we last lived here. The chairperson position on the committee was open to any gender, and several women were asked to head it. In the end a man accepted it, but women are some of the other officers, and some were asked to be chairperson, but they refused. That would not have happened so quickly when we were here before. The dress code for women (at least in the city) has also loosened up. Many women wear pants now, and one even sees shorts on some of the younger women. Unfortunately the dress code for men seems to be more restrictive. I do not feel comfortable wearing shorts nearly as much as I did when we lived here last, and believe me this country is meant for shorts J. I am stuck in long pants much of the time!