04 Mar 2024

Madikwe Cultural Festival, a cultural celebration characterised by traditional cuisine, music, games and attire, is gaining popularity taking its rightful place in the calendar of events in the country while at the same time promoting the river villages as alternative places of entertainment and leisure. 

The event, which is now in its third edition, this past weekend offered nothing but loads of entertainment to a mature audience who had come in large numbers to spend time away from a hectic work schedule and day-to-day activities. 

This year’s event took place at the Newville Gardens in Sikwane with the host describing it as the most successful since its inception. 

In recent years, there has been a buzz of activities in the river villages often referred to as Dinokeng villages, comprising of Mabalane, Sikwane, Mmathubudukwane, Ramonaka, Malolwane as well as Ramotlabaki and Oliphants Drift. 

All these commercial activities have one thing in common, an intent to position these villages as one of the destinations for tourism and investment as well as promote economic sustainability of these villages. 

Madikwe Cultural Festival in essence paved a way to the Fish Festival scheduled for this coming weekend, which will also be hosted in the river villages. 

Entertainment dominated the day’s events with top performances from the people’s favourite artistes Dr Vom, Khoisan, Maghebula, Matlotla and Yaya, among others, as well as top DJs such as Fondo Fire, Slu, Sean Lacoostaq and Molex. 

Attendees were also treated to exquisite traditional cuisine ranging from seswaa, tlhako (cow’s hooves), mosutlhwane, bogobe jwa lerotse, dinawa, koko ya Setswana, and fresh harvest of makgomane among others as well as traditional beer, all free of charge. 

In his remarks earlier, Member of Parliament for Kgatleng East, Mabuse Pule commended the hosts for promoting the area, which had a dark history to it. He said in the past, the area was referred to as ‘the wrong side’ because of pick-pocketers who had adopted this bad culture from the then Apartheid South Africa emanating from the fact that black people used to fight for everything for survival.

“We are very proud as people from the river villages to host people from other places as well as the recognition we are now enjoying. This shows growth,” MP Pule said. 

He encouraged the local community not to take the festival lightly. “This is a big thing that will impact positively on our local economic development,” he emphasised. 

He further encouraged the informal sector to be part of this event in the future to improve and develop sustainable local economy. 

The host, Ms Tshegofatso Powane explained that Madikwe Cultural Festival’s purpose was to showcase Setswana culture through performing arts, traditional edutainment games, artifacts and food as well as to promote culture in general. 

She also said she was happy that the festival was gaining popularity because they managed to market and advertise the event thoroughly through different media platforms. 

She said the event had now stood in the gap left by the once popular Orange Letlhafula, which allowed attendees to taste various traditional dishes. 

For her part, Ms Batsile Pilane also known as DJ Batsy said this year’s edition had attracted a large crowd. She was happy that this year’s event had a lot of local artistes showcasing their talent and as a result, young artistes also got to enjoy the ripple effects of such an occasion by earning income while at the same time boosting the local economy. 

Kangawane Mogocha, popularly known as Dr Vom, who has earnestly earned the title of Messiah, was also happy to perform the people’s favourite songs Tsaya Thobane and Tlhabano from his album, Tsaya thobane. 

Surprisingly, out of eight songs in the album, Batswana have chosen these two songs as their most favourite songs and turned them into national songs. 

However, Dr Vom said he appreciated the overwhelming support from Batswana and vowed to remain humble, stay grounded and listen to what people want.  ENDS