Memories of Mandela from Peleng

Source : Kutlwano

Author : Mothusi Soloko

Location : Lobatse

Event : Interview

He lived right there in Peleng, in a room with no door. What passed for a door was but a piece of wood to prevent domestic animals from straying inside. The house belonged to the late freedom fighter, Fish Keitseng.

Yet no one can attest to seeing the late freedom fighter and former South African president, Nelson Mandela, anywhere in Lobatse. Only Fish and his wife, Joyce Keitseng, knew about the presence of Mandela. He would leave early in the morning to seek refuge in the mountain that tower over Peleng, wearing a brown dust coat and a head scurf flowing down the side of his cheeks. He had a gun tucked to his waist belt.

Up in the mountains under a tree and safe from the curious stares of people, he would read military books and hatch plans intended to topple the South African apartheid regime.  “If I knew one day I would be left to tell these stories I could have documented a lot of things, I was still young at that time,” says Keitseng the wife of the late freedom fighter Fish Keitseng now residing in Gaborone`s Extension 14.

Conversely, the passion through which Joyce, as she would like to be called, tells the story is that of a soldier happy that she stayed the course - endured in the midst of a terrible storm. Were she young, Joyce would jump around in the sunshine and sing, “The storm is over.”  True, the ominous storm that hovered around her life is over.  Hers, safe for the occasional pining for her soul mate, is a quite existence.

Almost entering the sunset of her life, her memory of Mandela is as sharp as ever. She could very well be reciting a script, you realise, as you talk to her.Nelly, as Joyce fondly refers to Mandela came unexpected in the company of a certain Indian man one day. That was in 1962.

 “It was around 3pm, he looked tall and slim.”  Mr Keitseng was busy plastering his house. ‘”When he saw him he put his tools down and said, ‘Ah Nelly it`s you!`”. “He replied, ‘I have been looking for you, the hotel here refused to accommodate me`,” recalls Joyce. Then began the trips to the hills and thickets of bushes of Lobatse by the two men.  Mandela often left early in the morning on an empty stomach and came back  when it was dark.

“There was a certain type of minced meat that he liked very much. I don`t remember the name of the minced meat but once he ate that he could go on for three days without food,” says Joyce.  Narrating how Mandela lived at Peleng, Fish Keitseng in his book, Memories of a Motswana in ANC underground says, “Mandela slept there with me. At five o`clock in the morning, he woke up.

He said he wanted to do some training.  He didn`t even want to wait for tea, and he only drunk some in the evening, You know he used to just eat once in a day, the man was always that way.” After a lengthy stay in Peleng Mandela  headed for Tanzania.

Return to Peleng

Nelson Mandela`s second trip was via Kasane and he was in the company of Mr Keitseng.  He was returning from Tanzania. “It was not easy for him to come here because, South African police were all over the place looking for him, so they decided that they would fly over Moshupa and land their plane in Kanye to avoid being noticed here in Lobatse,” reveals Joyce.

She says while they were in the plane Mandela handed over a big sack of bullets to Keitseng together with his gun. “Mandela`s guns and bullets are still here with me. I buried them somewhere underground in a place only known to me,” she says.

She says when the plane landed, there were many people waiting for them including police officers. “When they greeted Mandela he told them that he was not Mandela but David Motsamai, but on further questioning he admitted to be Mandela. When he came home he just packed his stuff and left. That was the last time we saw him before he went to jail,” says Joyce.  

The release from Jail and Presidency

When Mandela was released from jail, on his first state visit to Botswana he demanded that he be taken to Fish Keitseng`s house. “They reminded him that he was the president and could not just visit anybody, and also that it was not in his itinerary. He insisted that he had to see Fish but later an arrangement was made for him to come here. He was very happy to see us with our children,” says Joyce.  

Mandela names Fish Grandson “Madiba”

 When Keitseng died, Mandela was ill and he could not attend the funeral. However, after the burial he asked the family to visit him at his home in Johannesburg. “He requested us to all come and not leave anyone behind. When we arrived there, my grandson was only four months old and Madiba was very pleased to see him. It was then that he named the child Madiba,” says Joyce. Ends