12 Jun 2015

On Sunday morning I received news that Kaisara Mmolawa was no more. A colleague called me in the wee hours of that chilly morning to inform me that “mosimane wetsho”, as Mmolawa was warmly known, took his last breath the previous night.

Reality struck me on Monday morning when I had to go to his office to drop off a few animated videos that he had asked me to organise for his son, Pako and his younger brother.

That was after our little Friday chat that would turn out to be our last conversation on planet earth. Kaizer, an easy going person and most certainly full of laughter, gave up his last breath on Saturday after battling a long illness just two months after celebrating his 48th birthday.

He joined the then Department of Information and Broadcasting in 1996 as a driver until he passed on.

Rraagwe PK will definitely be remembered for his priceless comic remarks and being Mokgatla or Kgabo, his reserves of crude vocabulary never seem to run dry. At some point people drew a very thin line between his often dry sense of humour and insults. That was the kind of stuff which Kgabo was made of and a perfect depiction by some who often regarded him as “ Kaizer o bogoma.”

Family members, work mates and friends alike, shared their views on Kaizer’s life. Lucretia Chima, who undertook her first assignment as a cub reporter travelled with Kaizer to an assignment in 2003. Chima lost direction to her destination and they ended up parking the car next to some tuck shop in Gaborone’s Block 9 location. “He offered me P10 to buy fresh chips erile ke a gana abo a nthaya a re ga se gore o a ntheka.

Erile ke leba go sele abo a nteba mo seropeng a re mmhm!! mme le wena o siame sentle!”

His supervisor, Seabelo Otisitswe, describes Mmolawa as a hardworking and quick witted fellow. Otisitswe describes him as a straight talker. “E ne e re a sa rate sengwe a bo a go raya a re ke a gana”. Otisitswe does not mince words when he describes how Mmolawa loved his job. He was at work the day he passed on.

He will always be remembered for his undying love for music, especially rhumba music commonly known as kwasa-kwasa. He would often sing in rehearsed and improvised Lingala and Swahili to the delight of his co-workers who were not acquiescent with both languages. He claimed to understand all these songs and to have personally met the likes of Kanda Bongoman and Koffi Olomide, amongst other rhumba greats.

The last song he sang to me, probably feeling a kind of emptiness in his deepest of souls was Muchana, by Kanda Bongoman, Oko lela ngai tango nyoso…..which loosely translates to “You will cry for me all the time”

He had recently confessed that he will soon give up pleasures of this earth and get baptised. He died in the middle of his campaign to do so and soon to walk down the aisle with Mmaagwe PK.

Kaizer was born in Oodi in 1967, a fifth born from his family. He is survived by his companion and four children. Ends