Matsha tragedy nine years on

Source : Kutlwano

Author : Baleseng Batlotleng

Location : Gaborone

Event : Social

This year must be the most painful for Kgololo Bareeleng as the number nine constantly flashes in his mind. That is because when he counts how many years have passed since his fellow students at Matsha Senior Secondary School died after ingesting methanol - ostensibly after learning that it contains alcohol – he stops at nine. Again when he counts that day’s death toll he remains stuck at nine. Besides, it all happened on the ninth day of this month - the ninth month of the year.

That dreadful memory of September 9, 2003 remains firmly etched in Kgololo’s mind, constantly haunting him – an ever-recurring nightmare that he wishes could go away. Each event plays out before him like a movie, and the nine years that have come and gone, have not blurred that dreadful image. The events of the day threw the nation into a state of shock, and the school was temporarily closed.

On that fateful morning, Kgololo had missed school, not because he was ill but due to the fact that he was locked up in a police cell. Together with a few of his friends he had been taken in that night after a number of computers were stolen from the school.

They were suspects and the police could not have been more right. During the break in, the boys also stole methanol.  Fortunately, by locking him up, the police saved him. Otherwise he would be six feet under.

Kgololo shivers at the thought. While he was languishing in police cells, his partners in crime were guzzling the stolen methanol. At the time he was arrested, he had only managed to take in just a sip of the chemical and would have surely taken in more, had the police not showed up. He sniffs, and shivers again as he fights back tears that are welling up, again, in his eyes – little dams that threaten to break into little rivulets.

While Kgololo was still in the cells, some of the remaining boys were brought in. Then suddenly: “One of the boys who had been detained told us that he was losing his sight…we took it lightly but he collapsed soon thereafter. He was taken to hospital where he was confirmed dead,” he says, sincerity on his face. Back at the school management was having a crisis in their hands. They rounded up all the children and begged those who had drunk the poisonous methanol to come forward. In the police cells the officers had as much a crisis. All the incarcerated boys were whisked to hospital but by then a lot of harm had already been done. “I watched helplessly as my friends perished after drinking methanol,” he recalls.

As he recounts his sad tale, I could feel the weight of weariness in this young man’s voice and demeanour. Some of the students were flown to Gaborone’s Princess Marina Hospital in critical condition. All in all, over 70 students handed themselves to authorities and various health facilities and confessed to have had a fair share of the chemical.

If  he knew how, he says, he could turn back the hands of time and cast a shadow as dark as the arctic night on the day of the tragedy, for it to never to be remembered. However, then he knows, that is beyond any human can do. Back then, he was only a child, a mere form five student at Kang’s Matsha Senior Secondary School. However, this guilt simply will not relent and it appears it enjoys gnawing at him.

Now he sits home, a shattered dream being all there is to show. Kgololo had been one of the lucky few to make it to senior secondary school and like most young people he had a dream.  He had wanted to become a graphics designer and hoped to enter university upon completing at high school, which would have happened in a few months. It was a dream he had carried from primary school and doted every day, nurturing it, ensuring it blossomed even as he himself grew up.

His entry at Matsha in 2002 was a huge step in the attainment of the dream. Now that dream has dissipated - all because of childhood naivety. He spits out the words but you cannot mistake the pain that laces every word. Meanwhile, it is not only Kgololo who feels traumatised by the tragedy. At the time disaster struck, 59 year-old Motheo Matlhatsi worked at the school as a kitchen hand, a position he had held for 10 years.

He knew nearly all the children by name, and treated them like his own. They too loved him. However, on that day something weird happened. Matlhatsi had just offered the children Fona – a reconstituted powdered drink - when as one, a number of the boys threw it on him.

The children would surely have drowned him in the sticky liquid were it not for his colleagues who restrained them and pulled him to safety. Bewildered beyond endurance at the behaviour of the children, Matlhatsi trudged home soaking wet, as the school hall roared with laughter. The bizarre incident turned out to be an omen, for no sooner had he reached home than he was called back to the school. All over the school, the children were collapsing and vomiting. A number of them had died and God knows, how many more would die. Matlhatsi wept bitterly for the children who only moments ago humiliated him – children he had come to treat as his own.

He can still see many of the children through the eye of his memory, and can hear their taunts as they took turns to pour the drink on him. It was too late to save the dead children. They simply had taken more than the body could tolerate of the methanol. Today, as he walks to the kitchen every morning, Matlhatsi passes by the monument that has been erected in remembrance of the nine children – and the nine crosses representing each child. For a man with whom the children awkwardly parted, the monument is a persistent reminder of the sad events of that day – and a constant challenge to his emotions.

It will take many years before the village of Kang can get rid of the memory of September 9, 2003, an apparition greatly dreaded by parents. For any child is a potential candidate of childhood foolishness.  Parents have a reason to be worried, says Kgosi Morabeng Phori of Kang. For some inexplicable reason, children at Matsha College are among the world’s most delinquent. It is a rabid, contagious phenomenon that repeats itself year after year, which for the religious could only be removed by exorcism or casting out of wicked spirits.

 

Methanol Facts

Methanol is an extremely toxic alcoholic substance. Ingesting as little as 10ml of methanol can cause permanent blindness or death. The initial symptoms of methanol poisoning include depression of the central nervous system, headache, dizziness, nausea, lack of coordination, and confusion. Methanol has certain similarities to ethanol but the latter can be denatured and made suitable for drinking. Methanol is used in industries as an antifreeze, solvent, fuel, and as a denaturant for ethanol. In schools, it is used in science laboratories to teach students about different types of alcohol. ENDS

Teaser:

Matsha tragedy survivor relives the painful events of September 9, 2003 which left nine of his colleagues dead. Kutlwano staffer, takes us to Kang to hear first hand, how it all happened.