Reuniting with ancestors

Source: Mmegi Online
Author: Ryder Gabathuse

LIVINGSTONE, ZAMBIA: Visiting Zambia, the home of the Chipolopolo senior national football team, has always had a special bearing on my life. It's a place I consider my 'second home', albeit I have no idea where my maternal grandfather really originated, save to say, Zambia. My mother's explanation has been "e ne le Morotsi (He was Lozi)."

I remember my peevish mother's eyes abruptly wetting with the waterworks a few years ago when BIUST (Botswana International University of Science and Technology) was set up as families were advised to exhume the remains of their loved ones from the area where the university was to be built for further interment elsewhere. My mother and her relatives failed to locate Karabo's grave in the area near Lecheng where my mother was partly raised after relocating from old Palapye in Malaka. The search for the old man's final resting place could not bear fruit until they literally gave up. I hear my mother's relatives moved around trees and even rolled away boulders in the area around BIUST and they came up with nothing. Typically, a stone or mound marks graves, but for Karabo, there was no visible mark or whatsoever to identify his grave. This is a clear sign as people concentrated on new developments; they probably abandoned the remains of their ancestors. Most of Karabo's other relatives had relocated to Palapye from Malaka or old Palapye as it is called.