The Gaborone Village

Source : Freelancer

Author : Sandy Grant

Location : Ghanzi

Event : Social

Whilst Gaborone is celebrating the 25th year since it was declared a city, it could perhaps keep other auspicious dates in mind – 1887 when the British established a fort and a small military presence there, 1891 when it became the base for the British Assistant Resident Commissioner, 1960 when the Legislative Council decided that it was to be the new capital, 1964 when it was declared a Township and 1965 when the entire British Secretariat moved there from Mafikeng.

These dates should serve to offset the widely held idea that the new capital was created on virgin land and with no relationship to any existing settlement. The archival records do show clearly however that the planners regarded it as a major asset that the new capital could be anchored onto the Village at its western end and the railway cluster to the west.

The Village, usually disregarded as a place of any significance, was by the early 1960s, a significant settlement with a population of between two and three thousand almost all of whom were in government employment. It was, in many ways, a mirror image of the Imperial Reserve in Mafikeng – certainly it shared many characteristics with it, a mix of offices and planned residential housing as well as a similar social life.  Whilst the British Assistant Resident Commissioner (South) had moved his base to Lobatse, Gaberones, as it was then styled, provided a home for a wide range of government departments. It had a District Commissioner, a Public Works Department, it had a Police base and a Police Training Centre, two prisons – the one which is now abandoned and the other still in use and a veterinary office. 

In terms of education, the Village possessed the Camp Primary School which was having its beginnings, a school for European children known as the Gaberones Government School with two teachers and 34-40 students which was the forerunner of today’s Thornhill, and the Botswana Training Centre which after multiple name changes is now styled the Botswana Institute for Administration and Commerce.  Regrettably, I have been unable to find a foundation plaque which would give me a better idea about its origins. Not so far away was the Catholic settlement at Kgale with its St Joseph’s College and small clinic. The two settlements were inter-dependent and inter-related in a way which today is difficult to imagine.

Surprisingly, given the obvious health risks, there was no clinic in the Village – but then health services anywhere during the Protectorate era were few and far apart.  Those resident in the Village were therefore dependent on the Kgale clinic until the clinic, now known as the BOTUSA clinic, was opened in Extension 12 in 1957. The Village was served by a store, popularly known as Q but which, I think of it as O’Reiley’s - now demolished, a small Anglican church, and no less than two graveyards. The one, which is best known, because it includes the graves of those killed in the Anglo-Boer War, notably that of Capt French, also provides the resting place for Jack Hunter, the British Director of Education who died in 1965. The other graveyard is hidden within the precincts of BIAC and possesses a single gravestone for Lance Sergeant Tumelo Maraisane, born in Kolonyama, Basutoland in 1906 who died in Gaberones 31st July 1955 which suggests to me, on thin evidence I admit, that this was the graveyard of those who died in police service, not least of Basotho – the Village/Fort settlement being notoriously malarial. For entertainment and relaxation, the Village possessed a Sports Club established in 1957, the result of George Sim’s initiative, which not only provided residents with a social centre but also allowed the more active to play tennis and swim; and to watch Saturday evening films.

Later on, they were also able to bowls. With the advent of Independence and an entirely new kind of society, the Club found itself stuck in the past and it took time before it was comfortable opening its doors to all who wish to become members.  Across the road from the Gaborone Club was, and still is, a mystery building of the  late 20th century building – now the National Museum’s Herbarium – which it has been claimed was once a mini-hotel where plans were hatched for the ill fated 1895 Jameson Raid. By report, it seems that attempts to pin down anything about the building’s history have ended up blank. 

The Village also possessed its own landing strip which without significant change came to be better known as the new Gaborone Airport. In a sense, still unrecognized, the airport, and the Village fathered the new capital town, there being an overlap year, the interim year between dependence and ndependence when there was still a British Queen’s Commissioner in State House but the country had its own Prime Minister.  The new capital hadn’t quite arrived but there was an entirely new feel, a sense of expectation, and a realization that a new kind of society was being born. Looking back, I now understand that this new beginning could have made itself evident only in the old Gaborone Village – because the Training Centre had one of the very few halls in the entire country as well as dormitory accommodation.

It was unsurprising, therefore, that the Teacher’s Union should have held  its annual Conference and schools Music Competition there, that Seretse should have opened it and that a first exhibition of books should have been organized for it – the first to be held anywhere in the country. Photographs taken of this occasion show a sea of people. Could this huge popular event have taken place in 1964 or 1957? Could it have taken place anywhere else but in the Gaborone Village?  And at that time, could any other organization save the Botswana Teachers Union have brought together so many hundreds of people. It was a huge new, wonderful beginning. 1965 was the year and the Gaborone Village the place.  ENDS