09 May 2019

Twenty-four-year-old Ms Lesego Pheko is an example of what one could achieve if they follow the desire of their heart.

In 2013, Ms Pheko, like the majority of her peers, had just completed Form Five at Ledumang Senior Secondary School in Gaborone, and garnered enough points to secure a place at the University of Botswana.

The thrill of starting varsity life was too overwhelming for her and to a large extent her family.

Even more fascinating was the thought of one day finishing top of her class and finding a plumb job and the subsequent good life.

Unfortunately for Ms Pheko, this was not how things would pan out, at least not at the time.

Her sting at the university hit a dead end prematurely where she had enrolled to study computing with finance.

The then 18-year-old teenager from Moshupa figured out in second semester that she was not cut for financial matters. There was no two ways about it.

She decided to quit at once. Her decision to quit school to figure out what she really wanted with her life did not sit down well with her parents.

Parents always want the best for their children, and Mr and Ms Pheko, her parents, were not an exception.

Their only daughter’s decision to leave school shuttered their lives. What were they going to do with their daughter having blown their bubble so early in life and her future looking so bleak?

All this and many other questions echoed in their heads with no answers at hand.

Devastating as it was, the young woman had made her mind.

She was not going to change for anything and pursue a course that was not appealing to her. Ms Pheko just wanted to keep at bay the frustrations that come with wrong career choices, let alone wallow in self-pity for the rest of her life.
 

“Young as I was then, I felt I needed a break and think this through.

At least age was still on my side and I definitely felt this strong edge not to commit to anything that might turn out to be not what I really wanted to do with my life,” she said of her infamous decision.

His father, a one time councillor for Moshupa Sub-district council and finance chairperson for the Southern District Council and now executive secretary for Botswana Association of Local Authorities (BALA),

Mr Steve Pheko’s recollection of the day her daughter broke the devastating news stirs up deep-sited emotions.

“It was a very difficult decision to accept as a parent. Every parent would want their children to finish school and thereafter seek employment. But you see my daughter sat me down together with my wife and broke the news to us, and of course I objected.

One of the questions that my daughter asked me was what if she finished school as per my desire and did not get employment.”

 “You are the sole bread winner for the rest of us, I am not working and so is my mum and my three brothers,” Ms Pheko told her father at that time. These questions it appears softened the old man a bit.

It was not long after leaving school that Ms Pheko got hired in Gaborone at one of the cocktail bars at Masa Centre towards the end of 2013 as a waitress. She worked at the hotel for a few months before she got another job offer at Lansmore Hotel where she started work immediately.

As fate would have it, Ms Pheko found favour with one of the managers by the name Mr Louis Smith, a South African national. The two got along well as colleagues. It happened Mr Smith got a better job offer at one of the premier hotels in the Middle-East, Doha, in Qatar to be precise.

He wasted no time and instantly left for greener pastures. All this time, the two kept in touch until eventually Mr Smith called Ms Pheko to find out if she was interested in a job offer at the hotel he managed in Doha to which she answered in the affirmative.

By mid-May 2015 all the necessary paper work was done and dusted. But there remained one hurdle.

Will Ms Pheko’s parents, in particular, her father give her daughter the nod to go and work in a far-away country, right at the heart of the explosive gulf region?

Mr Pheko admits the idea of her daughter travelling by herself to the Middle East and working in Qatar sent a chill down his spine.

“I contacted her uncle and we frantically searched through the Internet to find out about the hotel and the former manager Mr Smith. We even contacted Mr Smith’s former employer here in Gaborone, and found out that everything was authentic and went further to solicit the consensus of the families, both maternal and paternal,” he relayed.

Having now cleared the air, Mr Pheko mustered enough courage to edge doubting family members and friends to give her daughter their blessings to charter into the unknown, under the condition that she would also study while working in Doha.

Today, Ms Pheko is having the time of her life in the hustle and bustle of Qatar.

She has climbed from the bottom-rung of the hospitality industry ladder where she started as a waitress almost four years ago to a plum post of sales coordinator at W-Doha Hotel. Not only that, she has honoured the word of her father and is pursuing a degree in business administration online with UNICAF.

“I have used the opportunity to come here as a spring board to learn and achieve a great deal. Doha is pretty much my second home and I am enjoying every bit of it,” she said.

Her sentiments were echoed by her father, Mr Pheko, who said her daughter’s migration to the gulf country was worthwhile.

Parents, he said, needed not to impose their wishes on their children, but should reason well with them and reach a consensus. “Parents should do this without absolving their role,” he concluded. ENDS