"Seretse" is Setswana for "wet clay" or "mud"i shall staple this script and pray God to read it.i see the ink on paper and close my eyes, i see a moving pictureof the epic - bloodless but grand, unknown but biblical.i shall squiggle more words that will whisper to the grand souls of the land, and rouse us to knowledge - how we got our colors of blue,black and white. i am he and this blood between us is the ink i write with, about one who bound the nationtogether like muddy clay. white, black and indian; blue, black and white - i will draft and perform. and when i get older they'll call me freedomjust like a waving flag.
I have had the pleasure and honour of portraying him on stage and I hope to have the pleasure and honour to portray again, on film.
His is a heroic story of indomitable faith and vision even with the political opposition he faced from present-day Zimbabwe and South Africa for his inter-racial marriage, and it is not hard to see why his human values have touched the world over and his country Botswana to this day. Our first president, my hero, Sir Seretse Khama.
Seretse Khama was born in 1921 in Serowe, in what was then the Bechuanaland Protectorate. He was the son of Sekgoma Khama II, the paramount chief of the Bamangwato people, and the grandson of Khama III, their king. The name "Seretse" means “the clay that binds together,” and was given to him to celebrate the recent reconciliation of his father and grandfather; this reconciliation assured Seretse’s own ascension to the throne with his aged father’s death in 1925. Wanna know more? Click below.
I have been performing a stage show on the controversial of Botswana's first president Seretse Khama's marriage to a British woman in the late 1940's. Some of the articles on the show are below. I will put up clips once the DVD is out. http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=6&aid=11&dir=2008/November/Tuesday25 http://www.berkshirereview.net/theater/dialogue_one_08.html http://www.advocateweekly.com/inberkshires/ci_11026128 http://62center.williams.edu/62center/event.cfm?eid=174
Cheers,Donald.
