The Voice (Francistown)
Zeph Kajevu
29 April 2008
Francistown — Retired senior mortuary attendant Elliot Sebego is determined to become a successful retail and services business provider after serving Government for 30 years.
The enterprising 61-year-old Sebego is strongly convinced that the discipline and patience that the previous job as a mortuary attendant called for helped sharpen his business acumen.
He states: "The mortuary routine demands the completion of tasks on time. This is largely due to the urgent need for relatives to collect bodies, perform rituals and bury them within the shortest possible time." Sebego, who always has his fingers out on lucrative business pulses, has established thriving business ventures in Gaborone and Francistown that include property development and retailing. But due to pressures from close family members and peers; he shelved indefinitely the idea to establish a funeral parlour and coffin-sales business venture in northern Botswana that he had considered as a natural choice, given the long exposure to the mortuary and its accompanying tasks.
Long before retiring, the ostensibly graying entrepreneur had developed an entrepreneurial mind. Due to this passion, Sebego started operating a semausu (tuck shop) in Gaborone's Bontleng suburb selling alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, foodstuffs, detergents, toiletries, fresh chips, confectionary and ice cream. Although Sebego has been granted exceptional retirement since he can be called back to the hospital in the event of emergencies or additional workloads, he has set business sights to focus well into future business prospects and market trends.
Apart from being a shareholder of a company listed on the Botswana Stock Exchange (BSE), he is diversifying his portfolio to include odd jobs such as vehicle repairs, welding, sheet metalwork and battery charging. His latest design is the corrugated sheet metal portable pit latrine toilet shelter that can be used in urban, rural and other remote areas. "I came up with the design for the metal prototype, after I realized the need to provide a more affordable toilet facility option. Furthermore, there were substantial financial benefits to be reaped from the use of recycled materials that litter the countryside and the dumping site. The user friendly and durable toilet which costs about P250 per unit and is cheaper than a brick and mortar shelter can be transported for long distances at the back of pick up truck or animal drawn cart and installed with relative ease.
"When production goes on stream, I intend to hold a series of promotions in different parts of the country to increase product awareness."
Sebego, born in Moroka in Botswana's North-West District on June 21, 1945, was employed at Princess Marina Hospital as a driver in the laundry section. He soon requested for transfer to a more sedentary job, since the laundry section compelled him to go on errands for days on end without seeing his family. In 1971 a vacancy arose in the mortuary section where he was immediately transferred at the tender age of 26. The duties involved the ferrying corpses from the wards to the hospital mortuary, before burial or cremation. Looking back over the years, Sebego said: "I started working as a mortuary assistant in 1971, when most people entertained horror stories and weird stigmas, associated with handling the dead.
" I remember the strong and prevalent misconception, universally shared even among other hospital staff, that mortuary attendants had to, as a prerequisite, undergo ritual cleansing or drink a specially prepared plethora of traditional herbal cocktails to ward off vengeful spirits of the dead, before handling dead bodies. These above-mentioned underworld therapies would allegedly safeguard against daylight hallucinations, bizarre visitations, nightmares, sleep-walking, death or misfortunes to immediate family."
Throughout his career Sebego vividly remembers two incidents. The first one occurred on his first day as a mortuary assistant.
"I was assigned to assist a medical doctor during the post mortem of a foetus. After the doctor had completed the autopsy, he left me to stitch up the foetus. Whether this assignment was designed to test my commitment to the new job or coincided with the duty roaster, I will never know. But it surely was an initiation into my new career and also an acid test to protect me from the corrosive influence of public scorn or ridicule. I had two options, either to abscond or stitch up the foetus. I summoned up courage, stitched the foetus and returned it to the mortuary."
The second initiation -by-fire occurred in 1980, after a suspected bombing incident by the then South African Intelligence hit squad in the Kgale View area, where a person was killed. The bombing was believed to be the hit squad's assassination campaign on exiled South African political activists. The corpse was badly mutilated and had sustained multiple fractures, which made it difficult to handle and shroud. The memory of the corpse stubbornly sticks out in my memory, because from that day and many nights after, the corpse has haunted my dreams. Although time has healed up the haunting, the memory of that corpse has stayed with me permanently."
When promoted to senior mortuary attendant in 1987, Sebego's duties included ordering mortuary equipment from Government Stores, supervising junior staff and training other mortuary attendants from hospitals in Botswana on proper corpse shrouding, correct body viewing procedures, disinfecting and cleaning the mortuary and equipment.
As the eldest son in a family of seven, Sebego has 13 dependants to look after in Gaborone and eight others at home. "That entails hard work on my part on all fronts to fulfill this obligation and to succeed in business," he said.
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