30 Nov -0001

Life in Tsutsuga cattlepost, along the Orapa/Francistown highway, does not stop because of events surrounding one day.

Although most residents know about the meaning and origin of Christmas, they have not anchored their way of living to the day so much that life continues as normal as it can be.

The uniqueness of Tsutsuga is such that the area occupies both sides of the Francistown/Orapa Road, where arable farming is practiced on the northern side and the other  is solely for pastoral farming.

What would be the forest in Tsutsuga are thick congregated Mophane trees that once in a life cycle provide a source of bread and butter for residents. During a fertile phane season, people literally camp in the bush for an excursion whose profits will feed households for months.

Mothusi Gaatshwarwe and Lopang Tidimalo spent their Christmas  in Tsutsuga, on the pastoral side, where they sadly witnessed the diminishing returns of life in their cattlepost.

What was days ago a thick mophane forest was now just stalks of single leafless trees that cannot even provide shade.

The phane has wiped all it could salvage during the days of its caterpillar stage. As if that was not enough, large colonies of the ripe phane vanished on Christmas day due to the scorching sun and heat on the day, coupled with the reality of leafless trees.

The only available phane in the trees was still at a stage premature to harvesting. Initially, farmers in Tsutsuga say, the season was a poised to be great as there was abundance during the butterfly stage.

“Unfortunately the environment could not cope with the large numbers as the leaves were finished before the caterpillar had reached full maturity stage,” noted one farmer. ENDS