Where and How I Live: My Ward, Kgosi Ward

Hello everyone, sorry to be a day late, but here is the second part of Where and How I Live.  Today we will be focusing on my ward, the Kgosi Ward.

 

First things first, what do I mean by my ward?  Well, Gumare and every other villages, town, or even city in Botswana are broken into different wards that represent their historical chiefdoms.  For instance, Gumare has seven wards (I don’t know them all so will not attempt to name them) and seven corresponding sub-chiefs.   All of these sub-chiefs are born into their positions, which are passed down from generation to generation for that specific family living in that specific chiefdom.  Today these chiefdoms and chiefs act as more localities and local elders who have the final authority on traditional matters.  But legally they also have the power to sentence criminals to traditional punishments like lashings or fines.  This traditional punishment can be in addition to a formal court ruling, so in essence if you say steal someone’s property and get caught you could get lashed (yes, when I say lashed I do mean being hit in the back or buttocks by a stick) by the traditional court and then sentenced to jail time by the formal court. 

Now, as their name suggests the sub-chiefs are under the purvey of one ruling chief that has the final say in all the traditional and social matters of Gumare.  Finally, I tell you all of this because my ward, Kgosi Ward, houses this one ruling chief.  Thus, the Kgosi Ward literally translates into the Ward of the Chief, and this fact is one of the more interesting things about my immediate surroundings. 

Almost weekly, I walk past the Chief's office (see picture on Flickr next week), which consists of a five-roomed one story brick building, an outdoor community meeting space where the chief hears cases and complaints, and the main Krall where cattle is bought and sold.  As you can imagine, this is a hotbed of activity and it is not unusual for me to walk past while traditional court or community event is being held.  In fact, with my work here in Gumare I have helped organized and put-on some on these community events.

Other than the chief’s office, the Kgosi ward’s next biggest attraction is the hospital, which is just a five minute walk from my house.  It is the only hospital in all of the Okavango Sub-District and services residents from up to 200km away, though there are clinics in every village in Botswana.  With this said, Gumare Hospital is not what I would call a hospital.  It is small and under resourced compared to many of the hospitals in Botswana.   Yet, it is does have things that the clinics don’t like a maternity ward, which makes an invaluable health asset to the Okavango Sub-District. 

Moreover, the constant flow of people has enticed some entrepreneurs to open up little stands and a butchery/restaurant right next to the hospital.  So it is here where I get some of my lunches like meat-pies, beef, chicken, and bread (again, all included on Flickr and I will explain more about the food in the next chapter of the blog).    

And it is also at these lunchtime stops where I get a sense of my integration.  For example, at first when I walked into the butcher by the hospital the owners would look at me like any other foreigner and ask what I was doing there.  Fast forward to today and now they not only know me but comment if I have not come by to see them in a while or joke with me about my language skills.  Like a wise person once said, you truly feel like you’re part of a community when the local butcher knows you by name. 

Other than the hospital and the Chief’s office, Kgosi ward is mostly made up of a mixture of compounds like mine that have some brick houses intermingled with the more traditional mud hut rondaval.  I know this was short, but I’ll post pictures next week of everything I wrote about here so you can get a better understanding of what I mentioned.

As always, I hope everyone is doing well and please feel free to drop me an email to let me know how you are doing (jefflyle30@gmail.com).