Poverty and despair in Motokwe

Tausu Molotwe wants to die. Squatting beside her makeshift shack in Motokwe in Letlhakeng West, the octogenarian describes how she has lost the will to live.  “It is better to die than to continue living like this,” she says as she points at her small stick-and-grass hovel that passes for her dwelling house.

In another environment, the mogwaafatshe, as such structures are called in Setswana, would serve as a makeshift substitute perhaps to bide time. But for Nkoko (Grandmother) Molotwe, this is a home, and there is nothing temporary about it. It defines poverty with an emphasis that invokes a malevolent force of nature.

Even though her neighbours say Nkoko Molotwe is close to 90 years of age, she herself does not know how old she is. She is blind, hard of hearing and walks with a scissors gait, stooping forward from infirmity. She does not have children. Molotwe has been living in her shack for the past three years. She shares it with her ‘consort’ whom she started seeing in 2013. In all the three recent visits by the Botswana Guardian, Molotwe’s companion was never home because he was out ferreting for tobacco.

Molotwe has often gone for days without food. Though she is registered with the Department of Social Services, the problem is that she cannot go and fetch her monthly hamper from the social worker’s warehouse. Sometimes her companion assists with collecting the food rations, but that “depends on his mood.”

‘I live with snakes’
Nkoko Molotwe’s hovel is not fit for a human's habitation. Inside it her prized worldly belongings comprise old, dirty blankets, rags for clothes and a 12.5kg bag of mealie-meal which she says goes back to two months. Instead of a foundation, the hovel sits on precariously sandy soil. From inside, the outside is clearly visible through gaps in between the sticks that make the wall. Nkoko Molotwe says she usually sleeps outside because it makes no difference. 

“When it rains, I shrink inside and leave it to God whether I’ll still be alive when it stops,” she says. She reveals that her companion has on several occasions killed snakes that might have bitten them. She smiles wearily and jokes that maybe she will eventually have a snake to thank for her death even though she has grown accustomed to living with the slithering serpents.  Beer ferments in a plastic container covered with empty sacks at the back of the hovel.

In addition to tobacco, Molotwe says, the beer keeps her going. She cannot remember the last time she took a bath because she has no water, soap or a washing basin. “Maybe it was three years ago,” she says simply. Her complaint about general malaise prompts a question about seeking medical attention. She answers that her multiple disabilities and unwellness prevent from doing so.

Molotwe’s neighbour fares much better. Mmadikhai Radikhai is the proud owner of a decent house that was built for her under President Ian Khama’s housing appeal two years ago. It came with a backyard garden and a 'jojo' water tank.

How poor is poor
Meanwhile, according to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report, the number of people living in poverty in Botswana has slightly decreased from 55 percent of the population to 49 percent. Released on Monday this week, UNDP’s Human Development Index (HDI) shows that with a U$13,000 gross domestic product per capita - the highest in Africa - Botswana has managed to reduce the number of people living under US$2 a day from 55 percent to 49 percent of the population as the country continues to fair poorly in human development.

The report, which uses 2007 data before the financial crisis that gripped the world a year later, places Botswana at position 125 out of 185 countries in the study; from position 124 out of 177 countries last year. The life expectancy of a Motswana at birth, says the report, is 53 years. On education, 82 percent of Batswana are able to read and write, compared with the neighbouring South Africa and Namibia’s 88 percent each.

In poverty rankings, Botswana is positioned at 81 from 135 developing countries, with factors such as the high probability of a Motswana’s inability to reach the age of 40 pulling the country’s rankings down.

According to the poverty index, there is a 31 percent probability of a Motswana not reaching the age of 40 while 17 percent of Botswana’s adult population above 15 are illiterate. Four percent of the people in Botswana do not use an improved source of water, showing the great lengths to which the government has gone to provide safe and clean water for citizens.
As measured by the Human Poverty Index, 22.9 percent of Botswana’s two million people live below minimum threshold levels in each of the dimensions of the human development index.

Botswana is positioned at 81 from 135 developing countries in poverty scores, with factors such as the high probability of a Motswana’s inability to reach the age of 40 dragging the country’s rankings down. The HDI provides a composite measure of three dimensions of human development: living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy), being educated (measured by adult literacy and gross enrolment in education) and having a decent standard of living (measured by purchasing power parity, PPP, income).

Meanwhile, a Central Statistics Office latest study has shown that Kgalagadi, Gantsi and Ngamiland have the highest concentrations of severely poor households in Botswana.   Kgalagadi is the worst with 19,333 poor people out of a total district population of 44,684. Kgalagadi South has the highest poverty headcount of 11,570 people out of 19,348 categorised as poor. In rural Ngamiland West, 24,556 out of 44,729 were classified as poor, while in rural Boteti, 16,461 people out of 32,857 were classified as poor.