Volume 65 December 2026-January 2026 : Feature

I am sitting on a cliff top of Lentswe-La-Baratani hill overlooking Otse village.  Clouds hang so close that with the stretch of arms I can touch them.  Tiny corrugated iron sheets that make the roofs of many houses blink constantly while cars the size of ants move along the tarred road.

Then the echo of airwaves of a cold breeze sweeping across the hill suddenly reminds me that we have invaded a territory that is believed to be reserved for the gods.  Candle wax, several coins scattered almost everywhere and a large write-up, Jeso ke morena, on the wall of a rock, suggest that the place is, I guess, also a home to ritual makers.

The journey to the top of the legendary Baratani hill, famed for its cruelty, was borne in my mind for quite some time now.  I just needed a friend who would accept the challenge to accompany me to the hilltop. That friend came in the form of my colleague and former school mate, Phenyo Moalosi, after my other colleague, Rebaone Tswiio, coward back at the last minute forcing me to postpone the trip.

From time immemorial, villagers have inherited a deep-seated feeling of respect and fear of the hill borne out of a belief that those who climb the hill vanish forever. However, with truth only lost in a plethora of tales told by the villagers we were determined to go against the grain.

We were aware that our own story could also become the stuff of legend. That is, if these tales are anything to go by. We made a choice that if it meant paying with our lives, then we were ready to do so. At least our deaths would not be shrouded in shameful wiles and vague explanations. It would be acts of heroism. “Great men die of heroism than just of a common disease,” I consoled the team.

We left Gaborone early in the morning and headed for Otse in the company of Mokwape as our journey to the “place of the Gods,” got underway. Clouds were moving across the sky and the wind blowing viciously.

Nonetheless we could not postpone the trip. With no protective clothing but only water bottles, we decided to climb the mountain on the western side. I was in the lead, Mokwape in the middle while Phenyo followed from behind. We walked up the steep path that meandered through thickets of bushes, occasionally forcing us to crawl on our knees and hands.

Half way through the wind patted heavily against our faces that had it not been for Mokwape, Phenyo would have flipped backwards crushing on his skull. He took a few breaths and regained his strength.

At that moment, we were exhausted and our knees hurt painfully. We took a rest under a tree. It was at that moment that human like murmurings came floating in the air. Phenyo grabbed his camera and tried to run for his dear life but unfortunately he tripped and fell on his buttocks. A veil of silence engulfed us, as we tried to figure out what could have been happening.

Then Mokwape broke the silence, “It`s only baboons,”. We breathed a sigh of relief and the journey continued. We reached a plateau and trudged on sand like soil occasionally stumbling on pieces of broken water bottles assuring us of prior human visits to the hill. We then headed towards north climbing steeper rocks. Suddenly a new breeze of cold air engulfed us as if it was an assurance that we were about to arrive at a place not reserved for humans.

Then echoes similar to those made by the wind hitting inside an empty tank hit us from all directions. We trembled with fear. “It`s a ghost,” I thought to myself. “It`s true this is a place for the Gods.” It took us a while to figure out that in fact the echo was from the wind blowing against the rocks. After an hour, we managed to reach the hilltop and it felt like a fairy tale. A large writing, “Jeso Ke morena” welcomed us, while Phenyo raptured into a razzmatazz of some sort.

Soon Mokwape would scream with joy as he stumbled on a P5 coin. Phenyo was next with a P2 coin from the other side. Then I found myself literally walking on several coins. It is a place of abundance.   We strayed on top of the hill like excited children, Phenyo taking aim at any little thing he came across with his camera while Mokwape immersed himself in his superstitious believes embracing the place as a true home for the gods. Money was everywhere!

Phenyo soon found himself on his knees, his hands raised in the sky reciting a prayer. At that instance, I was busy looking through cracks of rocks searching for things unusual, there was none. Then as I put my hands in my pocket, I dropped several of my coins.

 I was tempted to pick them up but Mokwape stepped on my fingers, telling me it was a gift to the Gods. I obliged. Suddenly, we all dropped a few more coins to appease the gods, just in case the story was true.

We stayed there for quite some time expecting a face to face encounter with the gods. There was none. No white woman, no snakes with a human head that we often heard of. The place was amazingly peaceful.

However, there was one thing that we could not explain - the cow dung that was in many of the spots there. And we still ask ourselves, can cows climb a hill so steep.  Nevertheless, the journey was worth an experience.

As for me, I still hold on to the belief that taboos and values depreciate with the passage of time. As we drove back from the hill, a guilty feeling had the better of me as I came across a Botswana museum board inscribed, “respect other people taboos”. Ends

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