Kutlwano Magazine

Never Too Late For Romance

Source : Kutlwano

Author : Aron Moreeng

Location : MOCHUDI

Event : Feature/Wedding

They say matches are made in heaven. And truly the maxim best describes Kube Mosate and Salome Motsewagae`s eventual marriage after a relationship that had remained out of orbit for ages.

As teenagers in the 1950s, Kube and Salome were devoted sweethearts. Life by then revolved around rural chores.

However, no sooner than later the lovebirds would unceremoniously part ways when Kube went to South Africa in search of work in the mines. Salome remained behind as custom and culture would dictate.

When Kube returned, he was already a pensioner, and by what seemed like a twist of fate, his long lost love, a pensioner too, was still available. They did not waste time to solemnize what started more than 60 years ago with marriage vows. Before the village Kgosi, of course!

While many people marry, divorce, and remarry at a tender age, the elderly Kube and Salome had to wait until they were pensioners to finally commit to the adage, “until death do us part.”

And today, as she safely disembarks from a well-decorated Mazda3 sedan at the Mochudi main kgotla to undertake the oath, the now 75-year-old Salome oozes confidence, grinning from ear-to-ear.

Having enjoyed her teenage years at the time when ‘Ponds` cream was the in voge for face care, this time around she is wearing modern makeup, and like a typical contemporary bride, she is also wearing a white wedding dress.

Walking marvelously alongside her partner, aged 79, one can sense the happiness in the bride`s face. Her moment of truth has arrived. “He may not be the most handsome man around but he has a very good heart,” she says hitting her chest.

As they wait their turn outside the kgotla conference room to solemnize their marriage before Kgosi Pone, the long wait is expediently turned into a photo opportunity for onlookers who are at the kgotla for various reasons. Obviously they are fascinated by pensioners getting married.

Modern technology such as mobile phones, Ipads, and traditional cameras get working and the ensuing commotion for the best picture becomes so serious it affects the ongoing solemnization inside the board room.

For the elderly couple, all they care about at this time is to commit before kgosi and have their marriage certificate well in their closet - safely kept!

“You are elderly and so there isn`t much I will say. Ke tlaa bo ke rumola bagolo,” is all Kgosi Pone can say as he sanctifies the marriage of the couple. He advises them to guard against people who will come draped in sheep skin while they habour ulterior motives.

In Biblical terms, he says, Satan tried to confuse Adam and Eve to commit sin whereas in the real world, friends, families, and relatives are likely to spread the gossip that may destabilise marriage. “You should be the guiding angels of your own marriage,” he counsels. And the guiding angels they have become. It is the same angels that have kept the telepathy between them going on despite years of separation.

Salome remembers that back in time, whilst she was still enjoying a light moment with her young ‘catch` under the evening shades in Mochudi, they were harassed by the late Kgosi Molefhi. In fleeing the scene, they went their separate ways only to meet again when the other party had already moved on.

“Since that time, we went our separate ways as he went to work in the South African mines,” she recalls. It was during his absence that she moved on and bore five children with different men. Despite that, every time they met, rare as it was, he kept assuring her that they would be married someday.

So determined was Kube that he promised to pay bogadi for her and the children so that they could reunite as a well-knit family.

And he kept his word. After returning home to Botswana in 2011, now for good after many years in South Africa, he went around the village in search of her lost love. “I took it simple when he asked me to give him another opportunity to rekindly the old-flame but the more he returned to me, the more I developed nervousness,” she discloses.

Although she played hard-to-get, at the back of her mind, Salome or Saki as her mountain of well-wishers call her, thought it would be advantagious on her part as a married woman. “I thought that as a married woman, I would avoid the stigma of being labelled a marriage-wrecker in the neighbourhood as a single woman,” she teases. The humorist Salome tells of how she shocked her siblings when they told her that some old man had asked for her hand in marriage. “Ba nthaya ba re monna mongwe a re o batla go ntira mosadi mme ka ba raya ka re ke siame ke setse ke le mosadi gale,” she chuckles as she narrates the moment.

The marriage of the duo comes at a time when a three-member team calling itself, ‘Committee on Curbing Cohabitation` in Kgatleng has been assisting couples to legalise their marriages after staying in long term relationships.

Also dubbed ‘Re a Nyalana Project`, the team is made up of Kgosi George Thwane of Artesia, Annah Morwaagole, and her brother David Morwaagole, both of Bokaa. Morwaagole says the purpose of the mass wedding is to address and curb cohabitation which has become rampant in Botswana. She says it is a known fact that one out of every four women in Botswana is married, one lives in stable cohabitation while two women live in visiting cohabitation.

“One of the unfortunate outcomes of this social practice is that women often end up in a precarious position in relation to property acquired during the subsistence of a cohabitation relationship,” she emphasises.

Hence, for the elderly couple, legalising what started as a hide-and-seek game many years ago, is a step in the right direction. That the children have accepted the old man has left Salome even happier. She had thought that her elderly children, aged 57 and 49 would reject her old man but they welcomed him.

And Salome could only sing praises for her old man. “He is not very much handsome but he has a good heart. He cooks for me and he usually transports me on a wheelbarrow when I am sick,” she reveals.

Although she admits to being old, Salome wishes nature was not so cruel on them. She is willing to bear children for her old man but due to old-age, she knows it will not be an easy undertaking. “Ba a mo lelela basadi ka fa ntle ka fa. Ga a pila mo sefatlhegong mme ke mo kgora fa,” she muses pointing to her chest.

Theirs was love made in heaven, and bogadi he has paid for his old woman before a myriad of witnesses. He has committed before Kgosi Pone, though with old age having settled in, that definitely, “only death will do them part”.