Her room was properly furnished with a huge bed with a wooden base, pictures and drawings of the tribes’ totem. Everything in her room was elegant and over the top, just like a chief’s house should look. Pelontle, which means 'kind heart', woke up with a big smile on her face. She felt at home. She woke up for the first time to the beautiful sound of no worries. In a few hours the whole family was going to gather up in her name to welcome her back to the family. She was a “Sikalekgosi”, daughter of a chief and it felt good.
The morning was steady and warm. She stepped out of her hut fully dressed in a traditional Setswana dress and traditional leather sandals. The dress still had the smell of a dress maker's shop. She walked into the kgotla, a customary court, where the meeting was to be held. Seated were old men on stools and the women on the floor as mandatory kgotla rules. They were probably the elders of the family. They quietly waited for her to enter. The chief was seated on his royal chair at the extreme part of the kgotla.
She greeted everyone, “Dumelang bagolo ba me,” which is “Greetings my elders”.
They greeted back and she took a seat. The chief stood up and ordered Pelontle to tell people who she was and as far as her knowledge, who she thought she was in relation to the family.
“I am Pelontle Sikalekgosi, daughter of the late Ratang Sikalekgosi and the late chief Ronald Sikalekgosi. I come from our great capital city Gaborone, where I have been living for as long as I can remember. My mother remarried and died when I was twelve,” she paused a little.
She had noticed that she had just skipped the whole part of how she and her mother were kicked out of the royal house when she was five, almost thirty years back. How the royal family, whom she was facing at that moment, had turned against them and would not take them in after her father was killed all because her mother was not of royal blood and she was not considered part of the family. She held back tears caused by the sudden rush of painful thoughts in her head but she tried very hard to brush them off. This was not the time to be vindictive nor to dwell on the past. Pelontle wanted to be part of her family so badly she became a completely different person; a nicer humble person compared to her angry, evil persona. She looked around the kgotla at the people who had come to welcome her back into the family, they all cared about her, the kind of care she so yearned for. It was not enough though, if only her real father was alive, she would feel his warm embrace and love just like her mother used to describe it to her when she was little. She cleared her throat and continued,
“I have come here to show you that the past has been forgotten. A part of me is missing and because of that my life cannot continue; I cannot get married or start a family because I am not complete. It was not easy to travel such a long journey to meet my estranged family, but I was tired of running away, I was tired of being an outcast, I was tired of being alone; I wanted to finally know my kind. I am here my elders, your long lost daughter; I have come back to my roots, so that when I finally have children, they could know where they come from, where I come from, here.”
Pelontle took her seat and the whole kgotla started to ululate and clap hands. The chief stood again and called Pelontle to come and stand in front with him while he introduced the elders to her,
“This is your father’s uncle, Sentle, and his wife; this is your cousin, my brother and his wife...”
Pelontle put on a smile and greeted each and every one of them in person, she felt warm inside for the first time ever since her mother died, she was finally home.
. I had kind of forgotten about this story, hehe. It's actually a snippet from a story I wrote a couple of years ago. I kind of forgot to mention that. I understand where the questions you asked could have come from. Thank you very much for taking interest though