By Rosie Motene

Mahalapye is a village that speaks softly, but if you are listening, it teaches you everything. This past Easter weekend, I visited for the first time.

I arrived with Clive G, a lifelong resident. His pride in the village, his stories, and his memory of every building and every tree made the village come alive. He is a volunteer with the Upright African Movement in Mahalapye.

This year, Botswana turns 60. Sixty years of independence. Walking in Mahalapye, I felt the rhythm of those decades. Freedom, resilience, and hope throbbed in the streets. The young people looked depressed, however.

I grew up in South Africa during apartheid. I knew exclusion. I knew what “not allowed” looked like. I knew the sting of doors closed to your presence, the pain of invisibility.

Laurence Hands Hall stirred that memory. Built in the early 1900s, it became a home for education, debate, and community. It is a ruin that still stands in central Mahalapye.

I imagined students hunched over wooden desks, hungry for knowledge that the system tried to deny them. Clive G told me stories of teachers and students who persisted anyway. Courage was carved into those walls. I felt kinship. I felt awe.

Mahalapye’s Railway Club hit me differently. Before Botswana’s independence, it was whites only. The doors that once shut now swing open for everyone. I remembered apartheid signs of Johannesburg, the sharp lines drawn between allowed and not allowed.

Standing there, I felt sorrow and joy at once. Clive G told me about the courage it took to reclaim the space, to make it a court, a church, a school, a pub and so on. It is now a monument to resilience.

Then the baobab. Mahalapye’s ancient witness. Its trunk thick and generous, its branches reaching for the sky. I felt centuries under its shade. Traders, children, storytellers—they all linger here.

Its bark and fruit nourish. Its shade heals. Clive G explained how villagers still gather here to reflect and consult. The tree breathes history. It is Botswana’s southernmost naturally occurring baobab.

At Dilaeneng part of the village, LD Raditladi’s yard was next. Raditladi, a dramatist and writer in the 1930s and 1940s, planted seeds of modern Tswana identity, expression, and culture here.

Walking through Dilaeneng, I could hear echoes of debates and scandals that have shaped Botswana’s literary life. Clive G said young artists and thinkers still find inspiration here. Creativity thrives in villages, not just cities. Mahalapye has always been a cradle of creativity.

Mahalapye is the hometown of notable figures. Donald Molosi, the Hollywood actor and Broadway playwright, whose career I managed for ten years, hails from here.

Duma Boko, the current President, also calls this village home. Walking the streets of Xhosa 1, where they grew up, I felt the pulse of possibility. Deep roots. Big dreams.

My personal connection to Donald added a layer of intimacy. This was a place that shaped a remarkable life I had watched unfold on international stages.

Throughout my visit, I performed blessings. I listened to ancestral whispers. Every place I touched, the halls of Hands Hall, the Railway Club, the baobab, Raditladi’s yard, was alive. History did not sit behind us. It walked with me.

In this 60th year of Botswana’s independence, Mahalapye reminded me that heritage is alive. It is a conversation. It is courage, resilience, and creativity woven into community. Even a small village teaches lessons that echo far beyond its borders.

I left Mahalapye with my heart full. Grateful. Inspired. Listening to the hum of ancestral voices. These lessons will follow me into my work, my art, my life. 

• Rosie Motene is a South African actor, filmmaker, and life coach who grew up during apartheid. She has spent over a decade managing the career of award-winning playwright and actor Donald Molosi.