Chapter 1
We would gather around the common room, listening to him talk
about his beloved Gaborone
Rangers, how they humiliated
Desert Cosmos in the Super Cup
final back in 2015 and how Killer
Kgosidialwa scored a brace on that
day.
He narrated the mesmerizing
performance of Stanley 'Dog
Engine' Mosojane and Bobby 'The
Great' Motlhala.
Engine' Mosojane and Bobby 'The
Great' Motlhala.
Smaller children would listen
keenly, but as for us, big girls with
pubic hairs, we came to the
gathering not for some football
mumbo-jumbo, but to get a whiff of
t e st ost e r one , f or whe r e v e r
Gaborone Rangers was, so were all
the boys.
Mrs Halabi insisted that we should
call him by his given name, Lebitso,
however Gaborone Rangers was on
the tip of our tongues. Since he
came to the shelter a month ago,
Gaborone Rangers was all he talked
about, day and night, awake and
asleep, literally. In his sleep talk, he
would imitate Ray 'Papa Action'
Sechele, the legendary sports
commentator.
His football fascination once got
him in trouble with a bunch of
hooligans. Young Stars Football
Club they called themselves, but
there was nothing young about
them, their faces were mountainous with pimples and their calves were
club, but a bunch of unemployed
jerks that puffed marijuana and
drank cheap spirits before they
chased the ball in the dusty field
near our shelter.
The hooligans had foul mouths.
"It's AIDS that killed your mothers,
not us" they would say to us.
Mrs Halabi told us to stay away from
them, but that was impractical.
Their playing field was on the
pathway to both the school and the
church.
