I was born in 1981 in Kanye, southern Botswana, one of apartheid South Africa’s traditional ’labour sending areas’. My late father worked as a miner in South Africa. His father worked as a miner in South Africa.

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Photo: David Goldblatt

Probably, his grandfather worked as a miner in South Africa. Some of his cousins, uncles and neighbours worked as miners in South Africa. Equally, two of my mother’s brothers - my uncles, as well as some of her cousins and neighbours, worked as miners in South Africa.

Growing up - in Kanye - in the late 80s and early 90s, the word ‘leboso’ was on the lips of many: either among my schoolmates and me,at school, particularly during ‘t-break’, or heard from our elders at home, or an old bent man passing by, as well as mothers with babies on their

backs while we waited on the blue bench at the clinic. Quite often, followed closely with ’mmaene’ and ’Gouteng’. The word ’leboso,’ derives from boss, but not in a commendable way.

Perhaps its roots could be traced to ’boss-boy’, the term that was used to refer to Stope and Shaft Black team leaders, such as my late father, on the South African mines.

In my village, Leboso simply referred to any man who worked on the South African mines. The Leboso always dressed in the latest fashions and was renowned for casually dishing out generous amounts of money to the young and old alike. His walk was talk of the village.

The Leboso even had his own language. In daily interactions, the Leboso would drop a few words of a catchy and unique language: ‘puza mandla’, ’kusasa’, ’kona manje’, ’yena khathalile’, among others. We were told the language was Fanakalo.

‘Yes boy!’ he responded religiously when we boys greeted him. Strangely, he never said ‘Yes girl’ to our sisters, cousins or friends.
We were told that the Leboso used his mine wages to build the brick house next to his parents’ mud hut.

He had also bought his parents a Scorch cart, a planter and a plough that were also used by some of his relatives during the ploughing season. We were told that he had bought his uncle a red bicycle and his two sons BMX bicycles.

Most importantly, other than building the family home, he bough his wife a sewing machine, the wife was a seamstress.
When we were enjoying beef at the male-only kgotla, in front of the cattle kraal, while some mocked him by reasoning that he never had to use it back in Gouteng

most of the elderly men praised the Leboso’s sharp brownish knife, Okapi, it was branded. We overheard others pleading with him to bring them one from ‘Gouteng’.

The Leboso was consistently praised, by most. The Leboso was a hero, to most. Most of us wanted to be like the Leboso when we grew up.

We heard captivating stories of where this Leboso worked. We were told of places whose names we couldn’t pronounce and spell correctly:

Carletonville, Randfontein, Stilfontein, and Roodepoort. We were told that the Leboso did not only mine gold but these places we yearned to see were paved with gold. Occasionally, the gold watch-wearing Leboso would narrate stories of the gold teeth tsotsis of ’Gouteng’.

On our dusty streets, passages, and at the football grounds, as we were chewing on nche, or sweet reed, we would laugh with great joy when we retold some of the ’Gouteng’ tales we heard from our elders.

The elders had told us that littering on the streets of ’Gouteng’ was strictly forbidden. And if one were to be caught of such act, they would face a heavy fine. 
While it changed in the late 90s and at the turn of the millennium, most of us did not have TVs in our homes.

Therefore, we relied fully on word of mouth, with Radio Botswana filling the gap here and there. We heard of a system of apartheid. Whereby white people did not mix with Black people. Even though we always wondered why it was then allowed for them to mix on the mines, didnt ask.

We heard of Nelson Mandela. We saw the joy his name invoked in our elders. The Leboso had a framed picture of Mandela on the wall of his bedroom. We also saw with our own eyes how the elders reacted to the news of Chris Hani’s assassination.

From the ever-reliable Radio Botswana, catchy songs such as Hugh Masekela’s ‘Stimela’ formed our childhood soundtrack. Without failure, the Leboso always increased the battery powered ‘Omega’ volume when songs such as ‘Stimela’ played.

In the mid 90s, as we grew into our teens, around the time the movie ’Sarafina’ made its presence felt in Botswana, without warning, the Leboso moved back to the village. Within a short time, his shoes lost the sparkle.

While we reasoned that it was owing to the ever-present dust in the village we would hear from the elders’ lowered voices not so kind words when referring to the Leboso. Many times we would cross roads and share passages with the Leboso.

Even though he had the clothes and the walk, he was not the same Leboso we were accustomed to. Like our elders, our attitude changed towards the Leboso. Suddenly, we did not aspire to be like him. He was no longer a hero.

He frequented local bars. We know because we saw him with our small eyes when we were collecting dithini, or empty cans, to take to our primary school on Monday morning. Within a few months, he frequented shebeens scattered a stone’s throw from each other.

We saw him there when we were collecting empty ‘Chibuku Shake-Shake’ cartons for our mothers to plant fruits and flowers in. We overheard from one elder who also heard from the Leboso’s grandmother’s uncle’s cousin’s son that he flogs his children regularly.

We overheard from the elders that he fights a lot with his friends. Again, the elders lowered their voices when they mentioned his wife’s regular black eye.

Some elderly women would direct their saliva to the ground after one of them insisted that the Leboso had wasted his money in South African on ‘mataese,’ or gambling, alcohol, and women.

However the Leboso, without fail, reiterated to anyone who would listen that he was actually waiting for his pension from the South African mines. Nobody believed him. Ever.

This was until his family received a letter, from the ’mmaene’, years after he was stabbed to death with an Okapi, at a Shebeen.

Robala ka Kagiso Leboso.