Botswana
Pula! Rain! Refreshing. That’s Botswana.
Maybe there’s an advantage to being landlocked in a harsh environment. Or maybe it’s something in the water.
The Kalahari Desert covers most of its area, so the much-welcome rain is represented in the blue stripes of its flag. And its history is just as refreshing with presidents serving peacefully and retiring from office. Ah. In a way reminiscent of Bhutan, Botswana’s Three Chiefs negotiated with Great Britain to set their own terms for their relationship with the colonizers and that effort paved the way for independence and ethnic empowerment still evident today.
Botswana is devoted to its wildlife. The world’s largest population of elephants, an estimated 134,000, is in Botswana. More than a third of the land is a game or nature reserve and it’s likely that there are more animals than people in the sparcely populated country. Some of these reserves are the size of entire countries. The Central Kalahari Game Reserve is the area of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Makgadikgadi Pans are comparable with Portugal.
In Setswana, “Ba” means “the people of,” so the citizens of Botswana are known as Batswana. “Mo” means “the person of,” so one citizen of Botswana is Motswana. “Se” means “the language of,” so the primary indigenous language is Setswana. Foreigners are called “Lekgoa,” which means “spat out by the sea.”
Tourism is expensive in Botswana and strategically so. The idea is high cost for low impact.
One of the poorest countries in the world at independence in 1966, Botswana had one of the fastest economic growth rates in the world, thanks in part to a thriving diamond industry. Since the 1980s, Botswana is the largest producer of gem diamonds in the world.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic hit the country and its children hard and continues to impact Botswana, especially women, with an estimated 380,000 citizens living with HIV as of 2019. Beginning in 2002, Botswana provides universal free antiretroviral treatment for its people.
Tswana folk music engages voice, drums, and string instruments.
Dithlaka involves a circle of players blowing into copper pipes of differing lengths.
Select Traditional Rhythm Band from Botswana to hear selections of folk music.
70% of the population of Botswana is Protestant Christian and choral choirs are prevelant.
Select KTM Choral Choir and Batswana Botswana Choral Music to hear more.
Select Traditional pop in Botswana for an article that includes selections of old time popular music.
For more information and selections of different artists, choose Popular music in Botswana.
Although Botswana is not internationally known for its literature, there are a number of writers who have achieved notice.
The irony is that the most acclaimed Botswana writer is one who was born in Zimbabwe when it was Rhodesia and lives in the United Kingdom. Alexander McCall Smith writes The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books that are now a TV series filmed in Botswana and streamed on HBO.
Bessie Head, born and raised in South Africa, wrote three novels set in Serowe, Botswana: When Rain Clouds Gather, Maru, and A Question of Power. She died in 1986.
Select A Year of Reading the World – Botswana – Mind Over Matter, for more about Bessie Head.
Barolong Seboni, a pioneer in the literature of Botswana, is a poet, playwright, and co-founder of the University of Botswana Writers’ Workshop and the Writers’ Association of Bostwana (founded in 1980).
For an interview with Barolong Seboni in 2017 about the literature of Botswana and how to make it more widely known, select The History and Future of Literature in Botswana.
For poems by Barolong Seboni, select “We Do Not Need These Jaggered Words That Dig a Trench Between Us” and Under the Sun.
TJ Dema is a poet of the younger generation who studied at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and in England.
To watch an interview with Motswana poet TJ Dema and her reading of one of her poems, select African Voices – An Evening of Poetry with TJ Dema and Gabeba Baderoon.
Select TJ Dema “Bread For The Birds” to read the poem.
Some of the foods in Botswana:
Phaphatha is bread cooked in a dry pan, sometimes filled with meat.
Seswaa is the national dish of Botswana made with slow-cooked beef, goat, and sheep, often served with beans or rice or used in a sandwich.
Vetkoek is a ground meat burger with onion, red pepper, and spinach seasoned with curry, thyme, and chili.
Bogobe is a porridge made with sorghum, corn or millet flour.
Dikgobe is made with beans cooked over low heat, roasted lamb, and corn.
Mogodu is made with sliced tripe seasoned with chili, ginger, and garlic and served with potatoes and peas.
Bojalwa is a beer made of fermented sorghum.
Select Top 10 Things to Eat While in Botswana to find out more.
The Whirlwind Trip Through BOTSWANA:
TSODILO HILLS
Tsodilo Hills, in the very northwest of the country, have more than 4,000 rock paintings dating back more than 30,000 years, perhaps as old as 100,000 years ago. There are Bushmen villages in the area.
The cave paintings of Tsodilo in Botswana are almost 7,000 years older than the Lascaux paintings in France and, as a side note, they could be older.
Divuyu, an Early Iron Age site from the time of the Bantu, about 700 to 900 AD, is part of Tsodilo Hills.
Gcwihaba, 220 kilometers and a seven hour drive south of Tsodilo Hills, is a cavern area of underground passages, rock formations, and flowing falls of rock.
OKAVANGO DELTA
The Okavango is “the river that never finds the sea,” thanks to an earthquake that rerouted its natural intention toward the ocean.
The Okavango Delta, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of Africa, is an inland delta, a fluke of nature, with waters originating in the highlands of Angola and creating a swamp of the area from May to August. Covering an area of roughly 15,500 square kilometers (6,000 square miles) with waters that swell and recede at the whims of the wet and dry seasons, the Okavango Delta is one of the best places in Africa to see animals such as elephant, buffalo, giraffe, hippo, antelope, leopard, hyena, zebra, crocodile, and hundreds of birds.
The Okavango Delta has more than 150,000 islands; the largest is Chiefs Island in the center of the delta.
For more information, select:
How Was the Okavango Delta Formed?
The People of the Okavango Delta
About the Okavango Delta Peoples
The Wildlife of the Okavango Delta
The Land of the Okavango Delta
Mokoro is a dug-out canoe that is used for transportation in the ever changing levels of water of the Okavango Delta. If visiting the area, it is highly recommended that you go on a guided mokoro safari. Horseback safaris, scenic flights and helicopter rides, and opportunities for bird watching and fishing are also available.
Moremi Game Reserve in the Okavango Delta is considered to be one of the best in Africa.
Khwai Game Reserve offers wonderful experiences as well in the eastern part of the Okavango Delta.
Lake Ngami in the southwest of the Okavango Delta is becoming dessicated.
The San Bushmen live near the Okavango Delta and speak the Khoisan languages with click sounds. The San Bushmen may be the oldest race of people on earth. The designation “San” is considered derogatory, so the San Bushmen prefer to be associated with their specific tribe names.
To read more, select Botswana Bushman – Modern life is destroying us.
FOUR CORNERS
Kasane is where Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Zambia meet on the Zambezi River. Kasane has a baoboa tree you can walk inside, a snake park, and it is not far from Victoria Falls. You can take the Kazungula Ferry to cross the Zambezi River at the tiny 12 mile border between Botswana and Zambia.
Kasane is also on the Chobe River and is the gateway to Chobe National Park.
Chobe National Park, close to Victoria Falls in northeastern Botswana, was the country’s first national park in 1968.
Chobe National Park is home to warthogs, zebra, kudu, baboons, monkeys, impala, giraffe, roan, jackals, lions, and leopards in addition to the largest concentration of elephants in Africa, roughly 100,000.
Savuti is a big game area to the west of Chobe National Park.
Linyati, Selinda and Kwando are remote big game reserve areas in the northeast of Botswana along the border with Namibia’s Caprivi Strip.
SALT FLATS
The Makgadikgadi Pans (salt flats) are about the area of the country Portugal.
Makgadikgadi Pans used to be a lake and are now one of the world’s largest salt flats.
Every November, at the beginning of the rainy season, about 25,000 zebras migrate through the Makgadikgadi Pans.
Select for a NASA Satellite View of Makgadikgadi Pans.
Chapman’s baobab, 3,000 or 4,000 years old, was so large that it served as a guide point in Dr. David Livingstone’s trek though the flats in the 1840s and 1850s. It fell over in 2016, but the impressive tree can still be visited.
Baine’s Baobabs are baobab trees that can be visited at Kudiakam Pan in Naxi Pan National Park.
Naxi Pan National Park has sand dunes, baobab trees, and salt flats (pans).
Nata is a gateway village to the Makgadikgadi Pans and there is a Nata Bird Sanctuary.
Gweta, to the west of the salt flats, has bullfrogs that hide in the sand and emerge when it rains.
Francistown, home to the Kalanga people on the Tati River near the border with Zimbabwe, is one of the oldest cities in Botswana with a gold mining past and present. The second largest city in Botswana, Francistown is 419 kilometers north of Gaborone.
Domboshaba ruins, north of Francistown, have stone walls and enclosures from 1450 AD, the end of the Great Zimbabwe period. The word Domboshaba means “red hill.”
Select the link to find out about the Domboshaba Festival of Culture and History held every year near these ruins.
Selebi-Phikwe is a copper-nickel mining town with the scenic granite Lepokole Hills nearby.
Tuli Block is an area of several game reserves at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe Rivers on the border of Zimbabwe and South Africa. Elephants, lions, leopards, and cheetahs are among animals in the Tuli Block.
Serowe, the royal village of the Bamangwato people, is the birthplace of Botswana’s first president: Seretse Khama. There is a museum about the history of the Khama family.
Khama Rhino Sanctuary is just north of Serowe.
The Old Palapye historical site is to the east of Serowe.
The Tswapong Hills are a beautiful green and craggy area with waterfalls and Moremi Gorge.
GABORONE
Gaborone came into being in 1964 to serve as the capital city of the newly independent country.
Gaborone was named after Chief Gaborone of the Tlokwa tribe.
The Three Chiefs Monument (The Three Dikgosi) commemorates Chief Khama III of the Bangwato, Chief Sebele I of the Bakwena, and Chief Bathoen I of Bangwaketse. The three chiefs went to London in 1885 to seek protection from England. Their land became the Bechuanaland Protectorate, remaining independent from the British South Africa Company.
Gaborone Game Reserve is inside the city and provides opportunity to view zebra, eland, gemsbok, red hartebeest, blue wildebeest, impala, kudu, steenbok, vervet monkey, warthog, and rock dassies.
Mokolodi Nature Reserve is a game reserve to the southwest of the city.
Kgale Hill provides beautiful views of Gaborone and Gaborone Dam.
Gabane is a village near Gaborone with glass and pottery works and opportunities to hike.
Bahurutshe Cultural Village, designed to educate tourists, is just outside of Gaborone.
Manyana is a rock painting site near Gaborone.
Matsieng Footprints are two deep holes in the sandstone. According to legend, Matsieng, the first ancestor of the Batswana, stepped out of a hole along with his people and animals.
Mochudi is a village of the Bakgatla tribe.
Thamaga is a pottery village in the granite hills southwest of Gaborone.
Otse Hill is the highest point in Botswana. It’s part of a series of hills that can be hiked and there is a legend about two lovers who could not be together so they flung themselves to their deaths from the cliff.
Lobatse is a village 70 kilometers south of Gaborone.
Kayne is a village 80 kilometers southwest of Gaborone. The drive between the city and village is scenic.
Jwaneng Mine is the largest diamond mine in Botswana, perhaps the richest in the world. There is a game park nearby supported by Jwaneng Mine.
Molepolole is referred to as the gateway to the Kalahari from the eastern side.
Kebokwe’s Cave overlooks Molepolole and has a legend of a witch thrown from the rocks who continues to haunt the caves.
KALAHARI DESERT
The Kalahari Desert is roughly 360,000 square miles in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa. The Kalahari sand dunes are the largest continuous expanse of sand in the world.
Central Kalahari Game Reserve, at 52,800 square kilometers, is the second largest wildlife reserve in the world, which is about the same size as the country Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Khutse Game Reserve is just south of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve,
Ghanzi, a cattle farming region, is considered to be the gateway to the Kalahari from the western side.
D’Kar is a village 35 kilometers north of Ghanzi that hosts the Kuru Traditional Dance and Music Festival each August.
Kangumene Rock Engravings is an archeological site near Mamuno at the western border with Namibia.
Basarwa Walks provide guided hikes with the Basarwa people to learn about the land and its people.
KGALAGADI TRANSFRONTIER PARK
Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, in the southwest of the country, is shared with South Africa.
Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park has red and orange sand dunes, dry riverbeds, gemsbok (an oryx antelope), springbok (a sleek little antelope), eland (a more stately antelope), red hartebeest (an antelope with a long nose and bendy antlers), blue wildebeest, meerkats, and mongoose.
Kgalagadi means “place of great thirst.”
For more information, select:
5 Things You May Not Know About Human-Wildlife Conflict in Botswana
Hundreds of elephants found dead in Botswana
Botswana reveals the cause of a mass elephant die-off after months-long wait
The Language of Botswana – Learn to Speak Setswana
Botswana’s ‘Stunning Achievement’ Against AIDS
5 Reasons to Visit Botswana
15 Best Places to Visit in Botswana
Why go to Botswana?
11 Reasons To Visit Botswana This Year
10 Reasons why you need to visit Botswana
A Traveler’s Guide to Botswana – Where and When to Travel
11 Reasons Why You Should Visit Botswana
Regions of Botswana
