Segodi

When I was a little boy, growing up in the village of Kanye, we used to rear plenty of dikoko in our yard – for family consumption. Similarly, I vividly remember that almost all of the neighbouring families, relatives and the community at large had plenty of chickens. The chickens were mostly fed mabele (grain), sorghum, leftovers and water in the morning – before they embarked on a free roaming of the neighbourhood.

I believe the dikoko were let off for relaxation and to snack on other nourishments only they could source, such as: grasshoppers, earthworms and beetles. Occasionally, my brother and I  would help our parents to happily chase, catch, and slaughter one unfortunate carefully selected koko. The ’’scavenging village chickens’’ were always delicious.

However, apart from also dying from diseases, such as  seakhubama (Newcastle), there was another interesting way the chickens, rather the chicks died: a gigantic-dark-grey segodi (hawk) would often appear out of nowhere and hastily snatch one of the cute, yellowish chicks away!

Usually, the moment it happened, very loud cries would be heard from the victims’ screaming family: “segoooooodi ke seooo!” (watch out for the hawk!) Warning the neighbouring adults­ – who would, accordingly, quickly gather their clueless chickens into the smelly hen houses.

As much as we hated the famous segodi se phamola dikokwana (hawk snatching the chicks away), we also loved the amusing and noisy reactions from those concerned. The segodi-kidnapping moment always sent the cool, strict and old: parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles and the visiting adults into wild panics!

Photo: The Botswana Daily News