Sisters on top of their game:

Source : KUTLWANO

Author : Calviniah Kgautlhe

Location : GABORONE

Event : Interview

Sisters on top of their game:

Across each of their shoulders rests the heavily contested tittles, Miss Earth Botswana & Junior Miss Botswana respectively

Article: Calviniah Kgautlhe

Photos: Gothusang Lesego 

These girls are not only beautiful. Their passion for beauty pageants is infectious. They ooze bold feminine confidence from inside out. Armed with super model heights and physical appeal, their looks are ravishing, a sight to behold that turns heads.

Holding some of the highly coveted national titles with striking heights of 1.83 and 1.69 respectively, reigning Miss Earth Botswana, Nicole Gaelebale, 23 and her younger sister, Hazel Gaelebale, 14, who is reigning Junior Miss Botswana, the girls are no doubt on top of their game.

These bright eyed and surely bushy tailed sisters have the world at their feet and see it as a center stage to celebrating their femininity as young women raised by a single mother who has always wanted nothing but the best for them.

“We were raised by a single mother, Kenalemang Gaelebale, who loves beauty pageants. Our house is full of six ladies, and my mother always pushes us to go beyond our limits. She believes in me and always pushes me to succeed. She supports whatever crazy ideas that come into our minds,” says Nicole explaining where their courage is anchored.

With a congenial personality, Nicole, who has taken all of her sisters under her wing coaching them, says her Miss Earth crown is not her first taste of glory. “It`s not my first pageant. I have been Miss Ledumang, Miss Teen Africa Botswana. I also gave Miss Botswana a shot twice and reached the semi-finals. I have also won Miss Global Botswana which led me to participate at Global international in Jamaica where I won top 10 talent section competing against 50 contestants from around the world,” enthuses Nicole with a captivating oomph as she shares her rich experience of beauty contests gathered from a very tender age.

A Diploma student with Botswana Accountancy College, studying Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), she says, “I have always loved bo mmabontle from a tender age, I remember asking my class teacher, Mmamarobela, when I was in STD 4 to allow me to use our classroom for a contest and at the time entrance fee was P1 and we had fun, the money we donated to the school.”

Describing herself as a self-motivated person who has tried her luck for Miss Botswana twice but failed, Nicole says she never gives up. “Ke santse ke mmatla Miss Botswana,” she says.

She says to date her passion for pageants burns on, and that she enjoys coaching her siblings, “When I ask a question, they must give it to me even in their sleep, every girl on the ramp is beautiful and one must strive to stand out by giving a winning answer from the top of her head!” she says buoyantly with her eyes fixed on her sister Hazel.

Nicole tells Kutlwano that her sister Hazel is the one who encouraged her to try her luck on Miss Earth Botswana and give up on Miss Botswana tittle since she had failed a couple of times. “I am now going to represent Botswana in Philippines in November this year,” she says excitedly. 

Appearing cheek by jowl with her sister, Hazel who smiles innocently at her sister during the interview with Kutlwano and constantly nodding at her perhaps to buttress her words, the reigning Junior Miss Botswana and form two student at Sir Seretse Khama, says she has entered only two contests in her life and won all of them.

“I won Miss Valentines in 2009 and Junior Miss Botswana 2013/2014 and now my eyes are fixed on clinching my dream tittle which is Miss Botswana.”

Like her sister, the fine-looking hazel eyed girl says her mother is their source of strength. “Even though she allows us to follow our dreams, the one thing my mother is always strict on is our education. She believes that one needs something to fall back on.”

Asked if she was not copying her sisters, she says her love for pageants, “started from nowhere. Perhaps my mother`s love for pageants and my sisters` did rub on me and then I started to like them.

 “I believe every person is thyself, be yourself, don`t copy somebody else, every individual should stand up to themselves. I honestly don`t look up to anyone because I believe that ‘everyone is imperfectly perfect`. ENDS