05 Mar 2017

Joy and laughter were the order of the day at the annual Son of the Soil (SOTS) 2017 as Batswana came in droves to celebrate the best of Botswana culture and revel in traditional cuisine.
The event started back in 2005 and has grown to become synonymous with what Botswana is all about; warmth, laughter, Botho, culture and a welcoming nation.
The event was broken into dikgotla tsa Ga-loapi, Ga-tshweu, Ga-tshwana, Ga-sebilo and Ntsweng, whose occupants competed in batho safe, Dibeke, Mhele, Morabaraba, Seragantshwane, best dressed, go thenkeletsa, sack race, tyre pushing and dikhwaere. What was most impressive about this year’s event were young people taking part in almost all the events, going head to head with their elderly counterparts.
Pontsho Pusoetsile, publicity and media relations of Bana Ba Mmala, the group responsible for SOTS2017, said the objectives of the event were to continuously find innovative ways of engaging the youth and the larger community around issues of culture in a bid to preserve and learn about Batswana culture. “This event provides us with an opportunity to present well-researched acts about the people of Botswana and their culture in a format that will appeal to the youth and the community at large. We need to foster a sense of national pride and cultural identity,” he said.
He added that SOTS needed to leverage on cultural values and pride in order to assist the youth deal with the behavioural challenges of a modern and global world. Pusoetsile noted that SOTS2017 encourages all attending to participate in the day’s activities and be part of an exciting cultural re-awakening.
“We are a non-profit organisation and all the proceeds from the fundraising activities including Son of the Soil festival are used for cultural research,” said Pusoetsile.
“We have in this regard funded research and packaging of Botswana culture into chewable chunks. Some of the research we have funded was the documenting of Setswana games (including modern ones), the documentation of old Setswana poetry, the packaging of tribal history into three paragraph versions, the documentation of the Setswana attire and lastly the packaging of Botswana dances,” he said.
With the theme of the event Kwa re go yang – Re Kgabile, Batswana were dressed to the nines and women were only proud to be in their German prints.“Mosadi wa Motswana ga a ke a tlhoka go tshwanelwa ke khiba,” males could be heard commenting on the women and how beautiful they all looked.
The day was closed off by none other than Sereetsi and the Natives as they belted away their songs, much to the pleasure of those that had one or two calabashes traditional beer. ENDS