Ghetto Diaries

Ghetto Diaries Ghetto Diaries is a narrative about growing up in Francistown in the early 1960s.

A journey of self-discovery through an era of pre- Independence and sojourns into adulthood.

08/07/2025

GHETTO DIARIES...
The age of innocence is coming to an end when you wake up one early morning and you feel a dampness between your thighs.
It is from the stories of the older girls who write on the halls of the ablution at school “ o nale dogwana!....

TO BE CONTINUED...

07/07/2025

GHETTO DIARIES...

Thereafter Mama woke up before me to make sure that I bathed and wore my Nyangabgwe Primary School uniform.
The same fire that boiled the bathing water in the morning was where the smooth stone was placed to burn until it turned a bright red. Before we picked it up we would take it out of magala and wait for it to change back into its original colour, then we would pick it up and hold it between our hands as we run along to school.
TO BE CONTINUED...

03/07/2025

My sister told Mama that she had been seeing me disappear into the tall grasses in the morning and just thought that I was catching grasshoppers at first, but she realized that the frequency of going there was on a daily basis daily and sooo in the early morning.

TO BE CONTINUED.

02/07/2025

Mama said, "Do you even know why you have to develop breasts in the first place, I shook my head and said No!. Mama sat me down and told me that breasts are a sign that I am maturing and that it is a good sign that I will have my own children one day.
“Just like my Mistress at school, she has a baby girl,” I said.
"Yes," Mama said, but after you are married.
I shook my head, as I did not really understand why my friends at school said babies come from heaven and are brought by a big, flying bird.

TO BE CONTINUED...

30/06/2025

...Just then my big sister walked in and when she saw me scratching my chest she broke out laughing, “ hahahahahaha.. she wants to have dikolamolora. “ Mama told me that I am in a rush to grow up and that I must be patient as things of nature only God will give them to me when the time is right. "Mama, but other girls in schools already have theirs and ke tswa pelo"

TO BE CONTINUED...

I pulled my night dress over my chest and immediately stopped scratching. I had three grasshoppers in my hands and Mama ...
29/06/2025

I pulled my night dress over my chest and immediately stopped scratching. I had three grasshoppers in my hands and Mama told me to let them fly off.” They can't fly; I broke their legs” .
TO BE CONTINUE....

28/06/2025

As soon as I pulled the door handle to the veranda, Mama asked, “where did you go to so early in the morning” I froze in my step, she had caught me. How can I tell her that I had gone to perform a ritual to grow my breasts? “I was chasing a setotojane .” I said. Mama was stunned and said, “ the lies you grow everyday are just too much”. She continued to say, now why are you scratching your chest.” ….
TO BE CONTINUED

GROWING MABELEGLOSSARYSebabatsane – grass used to magically grown breasts Mabele – breasts Setotojane – wild cricketDiko...
27/06/2025

GROWING MABELE
GLOSSARY
Sebabatsane – grass used to magically grown breasts
Mabele – breasts
Setotojane – wild cricket
Dikolamolora – first breasts

GHETTO DIARES EXCEPT …

The ground is wet and I am kneeling on the grass. I feel the morning dew on my forehead. I grab sebatsane grass and roll it up to gently put it under my nightdress. I was instructed at Mantlhwane to rub vigorously on my bare chest. This causes heat and soon I am burning up. I quickly rise and run back to the house before I thought nobody had noticed that I was not in my bed.
TO BE CONTINUED....

WHO IS THE POET?For Joao is not aloneJoao is a multitudeJoao is the blood and sweat of multitudesand Joao, in being Joao...
12/06/2025

WHO IS THE POET?

For Joao is not alone
Joao is a multitude
Joao is the blood and sweat of multitudes
and Joao, in being Joao, is also Joaquim, Jose
Abdullah, Fang, Mussumbuluco, Mascarenhas
Omar, Yutang, Fabiao
Joao is a multitude, the blood and sweat of multitudes

And who will take Jose, Joaquim, Abdullah
Fang, Mussumbuluco, Mascarenhas, Omar, Yutang, Fabiao?
Who?
Who will take us all and lock us in a cage?

THE END

04/06/2025

WHO IS THE POET?
But we know
why they took Joao from us
Joao, so truly our brother.
But what does it matter?
They think they have stolen him but Joao is here with us
is here in others who will come
in others who have come.
For Joao is not alone
Joao is a multitude
Joao is the blood and sweat of multitudes
and Joao, in being Joao, is also Joaquim, Jose
Abdullah, Fang, Mussumbuluco, Mascarenhas
Omar, Yutang, Fabiao
Joao is a multitude, the blood and sweat of multitudes

TO BE CONTINUED

04/06/2025

WHO IS THE POET?
But we know
why they took Joao from us
Joao, so truly our brother.
But what does it matter?
They think they have stolen him but Joao is here with us
is here in others who will come
in others who have come.
For Joao is not alone
Joao is a multitude
Joao is the blood and sweat of multitudes
and Joao, in being Joao, is also Joaquim, Jose
Abdullah, Fang, Mussumbuluco, Mascarenhas
Omar, Yutang, Fabiao
Joao is a multitude, the blood and sweat of multitudes
TO BE CONTINUED

01/06/2025

WHO IS THE POET?....But we know
why they took Joao from us
Joao, so truly our brother.
But what does it matter?
They think they have stolen him but Joao is here with us
is here in others who will come
in others who have come.
For Joao is not alone
Joao is a multitude
Joao is the blood and sweat of multitudes
and Joao, in being Joao, is also Joaquim, Jose
Abdullah, Fang, Mussumbuluco, Mascarenhas
Omar, Yutang, Fabiao
Joao is a multitude, the blood and sweat of multitudes...
TO BE ONTINUED

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Gaborone

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