Mogale on the Horizon (Part I)

“Why is it always one bird-call I hear at dawn? It is always one bird that starts the day for me, outside my window, and he’s not saying anything very properly –– just a kind of hesitant ‘peep-peep’ as though he’s half scared at opening his eyes. But the light outside, at dawn, is unearthly too –– a kind of white light; an immense splash of it along an endless horizon.”

(Head, 1981: ix)

Imagine embracing the legacy of Bessie Head in the rumbles of an approaching thunderstorm after the dry season. The wind performs a longing introduction and the sky darkens, teasing light drops of summer rain. A parched earth humbly awaits the moisture’s touch, as you breathe in deeply, a nostalgic fresh air. Cooling, comforting, loud and memorable, at times misunderstood.

As a practice in nurturing intangible heritage, this project is embedded in accessing sound as an ephemeral monument and marker of cultural identity. As an extension of themes explored in my earlier residency output for Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee entitled Satellite Activism (2022), Mogale on the Horizon (2026) reinterprets an aural experience of exile in contemporary Botswana. This time, with a focus on a female figure, Bessie Head, and the song of a migrant bird, known in Setswana as mogale. Though born in South Africa, Head is often considered Botswana's most influential writer. She is recognised today by a house named Rainclouds in rural Serowe, Botswana, which she built in 1969 with the proceeds from her first novel ‘When Rainclouds Gather’.

The title of this project in part makes reference to Head’s proposed autobiography title LIVING ON AN HORIZON – “a title definitive of one who lives outside all possible social contexts, free, independent, unshaped by any particular environment, but shaped by internal growth and living experience” (Head in Lewis, 2000: 16). I am interested in exploring ways in which one might sonically record or describe this sentiment, as an opportunity to conceptually rethink the experience of landlockedness in Botswana; unpacking ‘the horizon’ specifically (as far as one can see), as a contrast to (national) borders.

Mogale is a Sestwana word which refers to the white-browed sparrow weaver. Indigenous to parts of Southern, Central and Eastern Africa, the scientific name for the bird Plocepasser mahali, is thought to be derived from the vernacular name for the bird in Setswana (or similarly from the Sesotho word mohale). Interestingly, the Setswana word mogale is also used to describe ‘a hero, heroine, or brave person’.

What if we were to reimagine Head’s voice as the heroine’s dawn chorus? A brief chik-chick, or a loud, fluid, cheoop-preeoo-chop whistle, the birds’ song accentuates the highlights of the sun that are most emphasised at dusk and dawn. Similarly, in Botswana’s predominantly flat landscape, I believe the horizon is most emphasised at sunset and sunrise.

Mogale on the Horizon (2026) notably samples a part of an iconic Radio Botswana jingle, which would play ahead of the Setswana news, often marking the start of the day. This jingle could be heard across Botswana, on-the-hour, far and wide, and significantly included the sound of the white-browed sparrow weaver, as a marker of daily life in Botswana. With a mixture of archival material, music and fieldwork recordings in a radio-inspired sound collage, Mogale on the Horizon (2026) aims to transport the listener to a version of the Botswana that Head so profoundly describes in her literature. Representative of her experience of dislocation and naturalisation, one may consider the manner in which the birds can present aspects of belonging, history and migration.

Whilst I slowly read Head’s Serowe Village of the Rain-Wind (1981), I highlight her detailed description of the winds of change. Drawing parallels between my contemporary experience of the nation’s capital, Gaborone in 2024, and Head’s experience of Serowe (my matrilineal home village) in Botswana’s early-independence years, as described in her book. It feels impressively relevant (even after 40 years) considering the 2024 election results as a historical moment in Botswana’s political landscape; marking a historic defeat of the political party that governed for nearly six decades, since independence. Listen to the ululating that filled the National Stadium, during the inauguration of the sixth President of the Republic; overlaying the land, and filling the soundscape with celebration, a new dawn.

As an exercise in sounding the rain-wind, the rain, and the seasons change, Mogale on the Horizon (2026) aims to create an experience of sound that is embodied; portraying Head’s distant memory as though echoed from a passing megaphone, a sound often iconic of election time in Botswana. At times unclear rumbles, this piece also reflects on the limitations in accessing the material archive surrounding Head’s life in Botswana – something perhaps characteristic of the developing country, with a strong oral tradition.

With limited access to Bessie Head’s living archive in Botswana, what if we could experience her presence in the rumbles of an approaching thunderstorm, on a Summer’s day in the desert? What if we could literally feel her presence when the rain clouds gathered?

What if we could experience her soft voice in the confident and fluid, cheoop-preeoo-chop whistle of a migrant bird? As the seasons change, and we follow the transect of the local bird life, what can they tell us about belonging? About what it means to be indigenous, native, and what it means to migrate and naturalise?

How can we use sound and text to access moments in history or ‘herstory’ that are yet to be monumentalised in physical space? How can we translate an experience, specific to the feeling that surrounds this monument?

In so doing, Mogale on the Horizon (2026) embraces the three-legged cast iron pot of Dutch origins that has become iconic of Setswana tradition, as a mouthpiece or echochamber. Head’s experience of Botswana is in part reimagined in relation to Dollar Brand’s experience of exile, with reference to his 1973 album, ‘African Piano’. The piece concludes with the slowed sounds of the Common (previously Indian) myna birds, flocking in a roadside tree at dusk, interspliced by the aforementioned inaugural sounds of celebration.

With reference to Ilze Wolff’s ‘Sound Garden’ (Pan African Space Station, 2022: online), Head is fondly remembered not only as a writer, but furthermore as a gardener, forming a part of Boiteko Garden, a communal gardening project. In this way, Mogale on the Horizon (2026) forms a part of an ongoing project and sound installation intended for Botswana National Botanical Gardens, Gaborone.

Markers

• Sound of White-browed Sparrow Weaver (Plocepasser Mahali, also known in Setswana as Mogale) bird call and vocalisation (Stories Of The Kruger: online).
• Radio Botswana News Jingle (European DX Blog, 2015); Makin considers this sound as an iconic symbol of the nation.
• ‘Umms & ahhs’ mix, sampled from Bessie Head interview clip (Pan African Space Station, 2022: online).
• Intro. Abdullah Ibrahim, ‘Brah Joe from Kilimanjaro’ (1973).
• Clip of Abdullah Ibrahim on exile as a ‘voluntary strategic retreat’, from ‘Saying No Gaborone’ (Jacobs, 1982).
• Abdullah Ibrahim, ‘Brah Joe from Kilimanjaro’ (1973) continues with ‘umms & ahhs’ Head mix.
• Makin narrates an excerpt from the introduction to Bessie Head’s, ‘Serowe Village of the Rain Wind’ (1981: ix).
• Bessie Head interview clip, on stages of power/life on an horizon (Pan African Space Station, 2022: online).
• ‘In a pot’ sound experiment.
• Makin narrates a line from Head’s book “And I renamed Serowe, the Village of the Rain Wind” (1981: x), and then reinterprets it as follows: “And I renamed Gaborone, the City of the Rain Wind”.
• Head interview clip on “When Rain Clouds Gather” (Pan African Space Station, 2022: online).
• Inaudible sounds of Head, in a pot.
• The sound of thunder/rain from inside the pot.
• Makin narrates an excerpt from the introduction to Bessie Head’s, ‘Serowe Village of the Rain Wind’ (1981: x), ‘Before the first rains fall…’
• Bessie Head interview clip, “When did you start living your books?” (Pan African Space Station, 2022: online).
• ‘Summer Rain’ by Bujo Mujo.
• Fieldwork recording of thunderstorm in Gaborone (October, 2024). Think about the time/season with reference to the Setswana calendar.
• Voice of Ilze Wolff in ‘Sound Garden’ (Pan African Space Station, 2022)
• Makin narrates an excerpt from the introduction to Bessie Head’s, ‘Serowe Village of the Rain Wind’ (1981: ix), titled General Portrait of Serowe:

Where is the hour of the beautiful dancing of the birds in the sun-wind?
All time stands still here and in the long silences the dancing of birds fills the deep blue, Serowe sky…

• Opening pot, rain/thunderstorm sound experiment.
• Head on “an horizon” from Wolff’s in Sound Garden (Pan African Space Station, 2022).
• “Botswana” voiced by Hilda Phahle, excerpt from SABC TRC Episode 28, Part 03 (online). Hilda Phahle introduces the news — mother of George Phahle married to Lindie Phahle, both of whom were killed on the 14 June 1985 SADF Raid on Gaborone.
• “Power/service to the people…” by Head
• Voice of Abdullah Ibrahim also known as Dollar Brand from the 1982 film entitled ‘Saying No Gaborone’ (Jacobs). It documents Medu Art Ensemble’s Culture and Resistance Symposium and Festival which was hosted in Gaborone, Botswana from 5-9 July 1982. By Dutch filmmaker Gerard Jacobs, the film forms a part of the catalogue of the Dutch Anti-Apartheid Movement Video Archive in a partnership between Foundation African Skies and the South African Department of Arts and Culture (2004).
• “That’s about all you ever get in Serowe most summers –– the rain-wind but not the rain… Even so, summertime in Serowe can be an intensely beautiful experience, intense because with just a little rain everything comes alive all at once; over-eager and hunger. A little rain makes the earth teen with insects, tumbling out of their long hibernation… there is a heavy, rich smell of breathing earth everywhere” (1981: x)
• Fieldwork recording of birds at noon notably including the Southern Masked Weaver bird, amongst other birds specific to this transect (cc. Botswana Bird Life Association), layered with the sound of rain.
• Slowed fieldwork recording of flock of Indian Mynas at dusk, roadside in Gaborone.
• Makin adapts an excerpt from the Epilogue –– A Poem To Serowe (1981: 179);

To those I have loved, and give what’s left of love again, and make new friends now strangers. The hours I spent collecting together my birds, my pathways, my sunsets, and shared them with everyone. The windy nights, when the vast land mass outside my door simulates the dark roar of the ocean.
–– And those mysteries: that one bird call at dawn –– that single solitary outdoor fireplace far in the bush that always captivates my eye. Who lives so far away in the middle of nowhere?

• Ululating from the inauguration ceremony of Botswana President Duma G. Boko (SABC News, 2024: online)
• The voice of Head echoes “on that horizon” from Wolff’s in Sound Garden (Pan African Space Station, 2022).

Acknowledgements

Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee

Arif Kornweitz

Olukemi Lijadu

Thabiso Keaikitse

Ilze Wolff

Mary Lederer

Bessie Head Heritage Trust, Botswana

Khama III Museum, Botswana

Reference List

African Skies and South African Department of Arts and Culture, 2004. A catalogue of the Dutch Anti-Apartheid Movement Video Archive. Netherlands Institute for Southern Africa (NIZA).

Anon, 2024. Bessie Amelia Head. South African History Online [Online] Available at: https://sahistory.org.za/people/bessie-amelia-head

BWgovernment, 2017. “GOOD NIGHT: BIRDS OF BOTSWANA - WHITE-BROWED SPARROW-WEAVER OR MOGALE.” Facebook [Online]. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/BotswanaGovernment/posts/good-night-birds-of-botswana-white-browed-sparrow-weaver-or-mogalethe-white-brow/1518911584858161/.

European DX Blog, 2015. Radio Botswana - Gaborone - Live record 1993 with ID - rebroadcast. YouTube [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChfLR6DnPpQ.

Head, B., 1981. Serowe: Village of the Rain Wind. London: Heinemann Educational Books.

Ibrahim, A., 1973. Bra Joe from Kilimanjaro – Live. Spotify [Online]. Available at: https://open.spotify.com/track/43bgUW5ld3MRuHoGtkBRE0?si=9ca9da27267248d9.

Jacobs, G., 1982. Saying No – Gaborone. African Skies [Documentary].

Lewis, D., 2000. Living on an horizon: the writings of Bessie Head. University of Cape Town [Online]. Available at: https://open.uct.ac.za/items/4165491d-6705-4146-aa7f-99184ae2401f.

Moloi, N., 2022. Bessie Head’s Sound Garden | Intimacy and Home-ness. Bubblegum Club [Online]. Available at: https://bubblegumclub.co.za/art/bessie-heads-sound-garden-intimacy-and-home-ness/.

Pan African Space Station, 2022. Sound Garden – a live reading for Bessie Head's 85th. MixCloud [Online]. Available at: https://www.mixcloud.com/chimurenga/sound-garden-a-live-reading-for-bessie-heads-85th/.

SABC News, 2024. Botswana President Duma G. Boko inauguration ceremony. YouTube [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6NiUGgPZjA&t=6s

Stories Of The Kruger, 2022. White-browed (Plocepasser mahali) Sparrow Weaver Bird Call Vocalisation. YouTube [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVx46G_A_g0.

Wolff Architects, 2021. pumflet: summer flowers. Wolff Architects [Online]. Available at: https://www.wolffarchitects.co.za/projects/all/summer-flowers/.

Images

Credits for inline images.

1 Fieldwork recording of horizon at dusk, Gaborone Dam (2024). By Kim Karabo Makin.

2. Bessie Head, as pictured by George Hallet (1979)

3 Fieldwork recording of flock of Indian Mynas at dusk, roadside in Gaborone (2024). By Kim Karabo Makin.