Please, meet Ranolang Phillip Babusi, the brother to my mother, my uncle. Rano is very talkative and very fashionable; he loves shoes, and shirts, particularly colourful shirts. He is a very skilled self-taught photographer, the passion that I am only now beginning to truly appreciate. Perhaps, his late brother, my uncle Bathina inspired him into photography. Bathina loved taking photos.
Rano is a Deputy School Head at a Primary School in the village of Metsimotlhabe. He has studied a Teaching Diploma from the Tlokweng Teacher Training College (TTC) in Botswana and a Degree in Music from the University of Pretoria, in the neighbouring South Africa. When I was studying in Midrand, I would often visit my uncle Rano in Pretoria, particularly when I needed some money. Rano was in the TTC choir and the Kings Highway singing group at the Mafhikana Church when I was a little boy.
The very first person to teach me how to cook was Rano: he expertly guided me through the stages of mixing the dough to eventually cooking bread. Rano, just like his 92-year-old mother, is an eloquent storyteller, the story that he was second to none in telling was the “borotho diphontshana” tale, particularly when he was teaching my cousins and me how to bake bread, ko isong, or outside, over a fire.
Blessing Kgosi e tsile Kgasa 