15/09/2026
Dr Leloba Molema’s passing is deeply significant to me, not only because of her contribution to my journey in English Literature, but because of the profound influence that her scholarship and intellectual legacy have had on the person, thinker, preacher and minister I have become.
When I look back at my journey, I realise that some institutions become more than places where we study. The University of Botswana became a womb in my life a place where ideas were conceived, my thinking was stretched, my voice was developed and many things I now carry, nurture and protect in ministry were first formed. I did not leave the university with a degree alone; I left with a different lens through which to see people, society, culture, language and the world around me.
Dr Molema was part of that formation. Her work helped me understand that language is far more than communication. Language carries memory, identity, experience and history. Her contribution to African Literature particularly challenged me to look differently at the place and capacity of African women within our cultural and historical narratives. She helped open my understanding to the fact that women in Africa were never merely passive recipients of history; they were thinkers, storytellers, custodians of memory, contributors to society and participants in shaping the communities in which they lived.
That change of lens has stayed with me. Even in ministry, I have become increasingly conscious of the voices that are sometimes overlooked, the stories that are not always told and the potential that can remain hidden when people are defined by narrow cultural expectations.
My University of Botswana experience was also shaped by individuals, and this is something I will never forget. Institutions create the environment, but individuals often become the instruments through which transformation happens. The late Omorege was part of that personal influence in my academic journey, while Professor Otlogetswe became, for me, a significant turning point in how I understood language, scholarship and intellectual discipline. These were not simply names attached to university courses or academic spaces; they were people whose influence became part of my formation.
Today, I can see how those seemingly separate encounters became connected. What was planted in the university has found expression in my ministry. The discipline of reading, interpreting, analysing and communicating ideas has strengthened the way I preach and teach. English Literature taught me to listen carefully to words, to appreciate context, to recognise symbolism, to understand human experience and to communicate ideas beyond the surface. Ministry then gave those abilities another dimension: the responsibility to use words not merely to demonstrate knowledge, but to teach, challenge, encourage, awaken faith, restore hope and transform lives.
This is why the passing of Dr Molema makes me reflect deeply. Sometimes we do not fully appreciate the people who contribute to our formation until we look back and realise that pieces of who we have become were shaped by their influence. A lecturer may teach a class for a season, but the ideas planted in that classroom can continue speaking decades later through the lives of those who were taught.
I therefore honour Dr Leloba Molema not simply as a distinguished scholar of English Literature, but as one of the intellectual voices that contributed to the environment in which my own thinking and communication were formed. Her legacy is connected to a much larger story of teachers, scholars and mentors who planted seeds in me, seeds that I now have the responsibility to nurture and protect in the lives of others.
The University of Botswana was part of my becoming. Dr Molema, the late Omorege, Professor Otlogetswe and others became part of that journey in different ways. What they gave me was not merely knowledge; they helped shape lenses through which I now see the world and through which I communicate the message entrusted to me.
This is the mystery of education: sometimes the teacher never sees the full harvest of what they planted.
Today, I look at my ministry, my preaching, my writing and my passion for communicating truth, and I recognise that some of those seeds were planted long before I stood behind a pulpit.
For that, I remain deeply grateful.
Rest in peace, Dr Leloba S. Molema. Your contribution to literature, scholarship and the intellectual heritage of Botswana will continue to speak. And for those of us whose journeys were touched by the world of knowledge you helped build, your legacy will live not only in what you wrote, but also in what your work helped us become.
