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diamonds and cattle
Entry 70 of 79 | show all | print this entry |
Last week I managed to get all the way from Bulawayo to Mochudi (30 km from Gaborone) in a single day, via a slow train and a fast bus. It took about four hours to travel the 80 km from Bulawayo to the Plumtree borderpost, the featureless arid land starting to show signs of green. I was puzzled to see half of the passengers disembarking at this sleepy outpost. Later, when I found large numbers of Zimbabweans in Gaborone asking for casual labour, it was apparent that all those people had been planning to sneak across the border.
The train speeds up a bit on the Botswana side, approaching Francistown. When I first came to Botswana in 1976 it was entirely rural and undeveloped, while Zimbabwe had very good infrastructure. Since then there has been a dramatic reversal, partly thanks to the discovery of diamonds in Botswana. Even the railway has been slightly less neglected in Botswana than in Zimbabwe.
The bus is very modern and manages 400 km in 4 hours, notwithstanding stops. I'm sitting in front and it's a little scary. It's fenced all the way, though occasionally there are goats on the verge and one hopes they are well trained in road safety.
I'm staying with Ian and Lebohang, friends since 1977 when Ian and I taught at St Agnes HS in Lesotho. Now he confides to me that at that time he had been recruited by the ANC and was ferrying ANC members into South Africa. For example, he would pick Chris Hani up in Botswana, drop him off near the border from where Mr Hani would cross through the bush, then pick him up on the other side and take him to Johannesburg.
In sharp contrast to Bulawayo, Gaborone has changed beyond recognition. It's still a small city (the whole country has less than 2 million people) but it has several modern shopping centres and although it seems to sprawl, it can even boast traffic jams.
Mochudi is a big sprawling village with a chief who still has an administrative role. Ian and Lebohang have a spacious shady garden with several kinds of fruit trees and a guest house which I have to myself. There is a small patch of lush lawn, lovingly watered, but in this arid land most of the garden is bare earth, onto which leaves and petals constantly fall. Every morning Lebohang sweeps the ground bare again. I help once or twice. Do I really find the ground more appealing when petal-strewn, or am I simply lazy? Hard to say, but the question is irrelevant. Sweeping is a cultural imperative.
After a short drive through the bush down a dusty track we reach a large fenced plot on which they are keeping goats and chickens, with a resident minder who stays in a small hut. Every citizen is entitled to a plot like this (land is abundant) though most do not bother claiming it. Farther away there is also a cattle post where they have a herd of cattle.
Botswana's diamonds have enabled the country to send many students overseas for post-secondary studies, and it turns out that many are in Malaysia. Now, a Malaysian university is setting up programs in Botswana.
Some of you will be aware that there are even half a dozen best-selling novels set in Botswana, the Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. Although rather saccharine and whimsical, they do portray what many of us find so appealing about Africa, its sweeter side.
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