Volume 6, Issue 3

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Village of Mochudi

Photo by Mirko Raner

Mochudi, one of Botswana’s largest villages, is located about twenty miles from the capital city, Gaborone. In the center of the village is the kgotla, surrounded by traditional homes, including rondavels, thatch-roofed round houses made from local materials. A government hospital is within walking distance of the kgotla.
Mochudi was settled by the Tswana people in 1871. In Setswana, Mochudi means “a person who dishes out food from a pot,” and refers to the traditional Tswana hospitality towards visitors. Cattle raising and subsistence farming are the foundation of the local economy. Precious Ramotswe, the fictional heroine of Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books, is a native of Mochudi.

Mochudi in Fiction

“Through the village a river flowed, bringing lots of life—fish in its waters and wild spinach along its banks—and around the village, hills stood, solid and reliable. Beyond the hills were the lands, where we ploughed maize, millet, sorghum, watermelons, beans, sweet reed and many other foods. Beyond the lands were the cattle posts, the land of men and boys, where the cattle were kept and boys learnt to be men and men lived quietly missing their women and daughters.”
- Juggling Truths, Unity Dow