Serowe

Serowe is one of the largest traditional villages in southern Africa, a sprawl of homesteads around a central kgotla, and it has been the Bangwato capital since 1902 when the people moved here from Old Palapye. Above the village is Thathaga hill with the royal cemetery, where Khama III and Seretse Khama are buried among others. The Khama III Memorial Museum, in a former colonial residence, covers the family and the village's history, and the writer Bessie Head lived and worked here.

History

Khama III, chief of the Bamangwato, founded Serowe in 1902 as their new capital, naming the area Serowa after a bulb plant found there that showed water was near; British settlers misspelled it Serowe, and the people agreed to keep the name, though the word does not exist in Setswana. It is the birthplace of Seretse Khama, Botswana's first president, and Swaneng Hill School here was the first of the Brigades Movement schools founded by Patrick van Rensburg (Wikipedia, Serowe).

Highlights

• The royal cemetery - the Khama family graves on the hill above the village.
• The Khama III Memorial Museum - family and regional history in a colonial house.
• The kgotla - the traditional meeting place at the centre of the village.
• The homesteads - traditional compounds spread across a very large area.

When to go

April to September is the dry season and the most comfortable. The museum keeps normal weekday hours and shorter ones at weekends. Summer heat is severe on the hill.

Good to know

The village is huge and spread out, so getting between sites takes a vehicle. The cemetery is a working royal burial ground and behaviour there matters. The museum is small.

Nearby

Old Palapye is southeast, and Khama Rhino Sanctuary is nearby.

Key facts