07 May 2024

While the annual Khawa Dune Challenge and Cultural Festival is nothing but an entertainment and leisure fiesta for many folks, to two Khawa women, the event presents a lifeline that, albeit its short-lived pay-offs, is still worth looking forward to.

Like many of its sort, the event presents a plethora of earning opportunities to those with an entrepreneurial spirit and Ms Mikie Thau is always poised to reap some benefits from it.

Having all along been a simple spectator of the rich line-up of activities, the widowed 55-year-old mother of five caught on in the spirit of reaping spin-offs of the event pretty late, but since starting, she has not looked back.

Her yard positioned perhaps by fate, a mere stone’s throw away from the venue of the cultural festival, the event’s first edition post-COVID-19 showered her with unexpected blessings when a group of benefactors kitted her sister’s needy son with full school uniform on the sidelines of the festival.

Their having arranged to set up camp in her yard for the donation and the usual festivities of the dune challenge birthed in her the idea to capitalise on the event by allowing a few people to camp in her plot for a little fee.

When the same group came back in 2023, Ms Thau charged them P250 for camping, an amount though pretty minute, gave her hope of better returns for the years ahead.

In this year’s edition of the dune challenge, the retired former employee of Khawa health post saw a different batch of visitors descend on her place, and with their numbers exceeding those of her previous campers, she upped her fee a bit, the idea being to use the money to pay to connect water in her compound.

“I was expecting my usual guests, but a different group turned up. They initially offered me P250 for lodging in my place but when I found more of them having arrived the next morning, I asked that they increase the amount to P800,” she says.

Ms Thau’s yard lacks basic amenities, and with the amount paid by her guests she intends to start saving for water connection.

While she wants to keep milking her newly-acquired cow, Ms Thau is aware and has apparently been cautioned by the Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO) for illegally running a campsite.

“Ke a utswa gore ke kgone go oba letsogo, mme hela bone ba nkgalemetse. Le bone batho ba (her guests) ba ne ba ba biditse ba ba kopa gore ba ye kwa kampeng e e tlhometsweng gore go nniwe kwa go yone,” she says, explaining how her need to earn income had fuelled her defiance of the law.

Ms Annah Osenoneng, 61, similarly runs her own unauthorised campsite also not far from the cultural festival venue.

Hers predates the COVID-19 era as she has been consistently hosting the event attendants from when the dune challenge was still in its infancy.

“I started years back and at the time I charged P50 per tent. Over time, I raised the amount to P100 and I use this money to pay my water bills and buy groceries for my family,” says Ms Osenoneng, none of whose seven children is gainfully employed and therefore still look up to their mother for their sustenance.

Like any income-earning venture, her campsite ‘side hustle’ has registered both good and dry years.

“Dingwaga tse dingwe jarata e e ne e tlala mo ke neng ke kgona go bona madi a a potang P1 000 ka kwa,” she says as she reminisces of years past where scores of campers would flock to her yard compared to the seven that she received this year.

On one hand, unlike her compatriot whose earnings from the dune challenge are limited to her just collecting camping fees from her once-a-year visitors, Ms Thau has had fate smile upon her as this year’s group of campers are thinking of leaving an indelible mark in her life.

According to one of the campers, Mr Sibusiso Kgosikhumo, the state of Ms Thau’s yard caught their attention and has sparked in them the desire to help her in some way.

The group of friends who travel together for leisure saw the glaring need for ablution facilities, and for amenities such as water and power.

Above all else, the lack of adequate and quality housing has struck a chord in the campers’ hearts.

“We arrived here at night and when day broke the next day, reality struck as we were presented with the sad state of our host’s place. There is a lot that needs to be done here,” he said.

Mr Kgosikhumo says they have noted all the family’s needs and will upon return to base in Gaborone, sit down and decide how to assist the family.

“It would be a good thing to build them a decent house and put up ablution facilities as well, but all these will be determined by what we agree upon once we get back. One thing I am certain of is that we will definitely do something lasting for this family,” he said.

While possibly contravening the law with their campsite businesses, the duo of Ms Osenoneng and Ms Thau is clearly alive to calls for value chain development that government wants citizens to embrace.

In his keynote address at the cultural festival on Friday night, Acting President, Mr Slumber Tsogwane, reiterated this call, asking the Khawa community to embrace this concept by exploring other means of earning some income from the event.

“The festival has the potential of growing bigger and bringing economic benefits to the community through value chain development. Certainly there are more opportunities to be exploited; for instance if you put your mind to it you can collaborate and look into the provision of affordable camping facilities for visitors,” he said.

Mr Tsogwane said without the event positively impacting the lives of ordinary community members, its growth would be devoid of meaning.

The once-a-year undertaking by the two women is clearly a thing of interest to several other people in Khawa, with many households hosting varying numbers of campers.

However, neither BTO nor the Ministry of Environment and Tourism was forthcoming with information on the running of campsites and on the legality of running them from homesteads. Ends