Prior to touching down at Gaborone nearly three weeks ago, I had some knowledge of Botswana, knowing it to be one of the more successful of African countries since gaining independence from Britain in 1966. I had earned a Certificate in African Studies as part of my Masters degree in Mass Communication, but this was my first visit to the continent south of the Sahara. A visit I had long anticipated and looked forward to. Though, like battle, our preconceived ideas are dispelled upon the initial shot, this being no exception.

A good friend from my Foreign Service days, going back more than three decades, is our ambassador to Botswana, and he was waiting to greet me upon my arrival. I think knowing someone in a country, especially someone with his own set of knowledge and connections of and in the country, makes an enormous difference, and almost from touchdown I felt a special relationship to Botswana I had not felt in the four prior countries of my voyage.

So I don’t bury the lead, Botswana held a number of surprises for me, both in terms of my responses to the country, as well as the personal responses it elicited within myself. One of the latter is how much being, if only peripherally and briefly, connected to the diplomatic life revived in me the pleasures I experienced when I was part of that. That was all readily accomplished since I didn’t have to deal with the daily stresses and strains of that life, as my friend does, so I could enjoy all the good parts without any of the not-so-good parts.

Early on I was invited to attend a diplomatic lunch, and it was great being at the table with about a dozen other guests, sharing in their individual stories and interests and theories about different things. Another evening I was invited to attend a reception at the Japanese ambassador’s residence, and that gave me an opportunity to meet still more people, with one in particular allowing me to blend two of the most formative and important of my various professions, diplomacy and journalism.

Staying at our Residence and interacting with the guards and household staff, being aware of security procedures, and just enjoying the classic opulence of the Residence added to the effect of being plugged into the kind of life I used to live (though I was never an ambassador, one experience I cannot personally identify with, while having interacted with many during my career).

My two weeks in Botswana reminded me of how I have no regrets about joining the Foreign Service and the life I led during those 11 years, and no regrets for making the decision to leave when I did. I always said that I’d stay in as long as it felt right and leave when it didn’t, and that’s exactly what I did.

The other personal response I had came on my last full day in the country. My friend suggested I attend a certain event that was happening in a place called the Fairgrounds, and while I almost gave up finding it — it helped when I realized the right turns I was making should have been left turns — I was happy when I persisted. It was a student recruitment event, and every university, college, and educational institution in Botswana, and I believe several from South Africa, had a booth, and there were thousands of students checking them out in their process of deciding where to attend. I felt the energy of that other vocation I have followed, teaching at universities in Albania and in the U.S. Probably the only regular job I’d consider taking again is that of teaching, and I approached and spoke with and got contact information from four institutions. Two about teaching in mass communication and journalism and two about teaching in marketing and tourism promotion.

And perhaps the biggest surprise alone was seeing Botswana, and its capital Gaborone specifically, as a possible country for my relocation. It was not on my list of nine countries I’m currently exploring for that purpose, but it has been added as a tenth possibility. More on that in a bit.

Living on the edge

I’m gradually getting a sense that I want a certain element of living on the edge wherever I finally decide to settle. I don’t want things to be totally easy or overly boring, and certainly not just what I’ll be leaving behind. But at the same time. I don’t want to live too far over the edge. Crime certainly is one thing I hope to avoid to the extent possible, and I can honestly say I have not felt unsafe in any of the countries or places I’ve visited on this trip. And that includes Botswana. That said, I heard enough reports of crime in the country to know my anecdotal experience in the two weeks I was there does not mean that there is not crime. Though people are quick to point out, correctly or not, that the crime is not like in neighboring South Africa, where the criminals can be much more violent.

As it turned out, I arrived in a week when gender-based violence was the subject of much national scrutiny. There were events about it, discussions on the television and radio, and sermons in church. The bulletin board in the photo above contained statements pertinent to the subject. As it turns out — who knew? — Botswana has the highest rate of rape in the world. Higher even than Lesotho and South Africa, second and third highest on the list but with rates notably below the front-runner. Clearly it’s good the subject is receiving public attention, but it will not be an easy process to root rape and other gender-based violence out from the society.

Gaborone, which seems to sprawl forever, with big patches of open land intermingled with fairly dense development, was a much more modern and at least apparently well off city than I had anticipated. There are big roads, a clearly defined central business district, a government area, and a number of very modern and upscale shopping centers. The number of new cars, including expensive cars like Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs, and Volvos, also was striking. But along with them came districts of almost shack-like housing, rutted streets, and signs that not everyone lives high on the hog. And speaking of rutted streets, I have to put potholes, some big enough to seemingly swallow your car and which randomly appear almost anywhere, in my negative ledger about the country.

Living close to nature

Nature is never too far away in Botswana. One sees baboons in shopping center parking lots, one can have lunch with impalas and wild boar and other animals within close sight of your table, and there is even a wildlife reserve just on the edge of the city. I decided on my first day on my own to go there, and as it turned out I was the sole person in the sole car exploring the reserve that day. The photos above were taken during that exploration, with ostriches, baboons, kudu (in order above), and more impalas than you can count, scattered all along the reserve roads. I had hoped to see some rhinos, but they were being reclusive the day I was there. Using all my Pine Barrens driving skills, I managed to avoid getting stuck in soft sand on some of the roads, and avoided areas of the reserve that remained flooded from serious rains the country had experienced a couple weeks prior to my arrival.

It was a pretty successful first outing on my own, until I missed the turn back to the Residence, went down another road, where for unknown reasons some curb was sticking out (I saw this often in Botswana), and I managed to hit it, bending a rim, almost flattening a tire, and losing a wheel cover with the rental car. I mean, I don’t know what it is, and I have spent years in countries that drive on the left, so I am no stranger to that, but it seems if I don’t lose the left front wheel cover on my first day, it’s just not right. So my successful outing turned out to be less so in the end.

The next day I set out to find both a VW dealer, to buy a new wheel cover, and a tire shop that could straighten the rim and get the tire reinflated. Without going into all the gory details, I managed to accomplish both, but the mission required me to employ a range of skills from direction-finding and navigation, interpretation of places and signs, tracking down a panel beater (the tire shops wouldn’t do it) who straightened the rim in a few minutes for the equivalent of a little more than $3, and finally locating and with some difficulty paying for the much more expensive wheel cover. All under the deadline for getting back to the Residence in time for the diplomatic lunch I was to attend. And almost making it, though not with the 15-minute pre-arrival buffer one is supposed to make for dip functions. Regardless, I felt my persistence and unwillingness to just give up in the face of adversity had reached new highs.

This is a voyage of rediscovery, and rediscovering those kinds of personal resources is reassuring that they have not been lost.

Roaming with the rhinos

It took one false start, and talking my way out of a speeding ticket — adding Botswana to my list of six other countries where I’ve done that — but I finally made it to the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, about mid-country north from Gaborone. The sanctuary was instrumental in preserving the country’s few remaining rhinos, protecting them from poachers, and actually growing their number back to a healthy population.

That’s Sisboy in the photo above, a famous young black rhino who was rescued and brought to the sanctuary after poachers killed his mother. He is named after former Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who was president at the time of Sisboy’s rescue in 2019.

I stayed in a basic chalet at the sanctuary, and once more had a ranger and a game drive all to myself. Exploring the sanctuary we saw lots more rhinos — most of the rhinos in the park are white rhinos — kudos, wildebeest, impalas, lots of birds, and one lone giraffe who observed us aloofly from a distance. The sanctuary has a mix of savannah, forest, and open areas that are salt pans, remnants of former lakes, and the wildlife varied, as what they gained from each different environment.

Both on my jaunt through Madekwe in South Africa and at the Khama Sanctuary, I realized wild animals have three basic tasks: Eating, keeping from being eaten, and intermittently reproducing. I don’t think I’d make a very good wild animal. I need a bit more diversity in my life than just those three things.

I also realized how strong the maternal bond is across many specifies. Whether among elephants, lions, kudus, zebras, or the mama rhino and her cub below, this seems to be a trait shared by humans and animals alike.

I’m a bit disappointed I didn’t make it to the far northern or the western parts of the country, but the prospect of driving 20 or more hours in my remaining two days just didn’t appeal. Instead, I identified a place called the Old Palapye Ruins, and set out for them. Found them, but all my Pine Barrens driving skills didn’t keep me from getting well stuck in the sand on my way to leave the park. I had just reached the point where I’d have to make a decision, to keep trying to free the car or wind up spending the night in it, or walking the few kilometers out to try to find four or five guys to come push out the car. I was thinking of what Sifiso, my ranger at Madikwe, had told me. Which is, a grown elephant can eat more than 400 kilos, mostly grass, in a day, but elephants have very rapid and inefficient digestive systems, so water can be squeezed from elephant poop to drink if one if dying of thirst. This was a point I decided was useful information, and immediately placed it on my list of things I hope I never have to do. There were no elephants around the ruins, anyway, so I would not be quenching my thirst with any eau d’elephant poop that day.

It was at the moment when a car with four or five guys, and one girl, came toward me, and in short order had managed to push me out of the sand and we both were able to go on our merry ways. It was a bit of a symbiotic relationship we had entered into, because in helping me extricate myself from my sandy mess, they realized not to drive where I had and found a workaround through the thin woods off the road. They refused any compensation for their efforts, but they did at least receive the benefit of not having to push their own car out of the sand.

Much to contemplate

Now into the seventh week of my eleven-week planned voyage of rediscovery, I still have not made any decisions where I might alight. I now have visited two more countries since Botswana on my voyage of rediscovery — Spain and the Canary Islands, and Thailand, where I am now — and each has merits and demerits to consider. And now a new factor, the possibility of perhaps teaching in Botswana, or — another new and very attractive option — wandering the globe to produce a series of books on various countries, as a dear friend has proposed. Decisions, decisions, and more decisions!

I’ll continue to post about the countries, the decision process, and my own discoveries and rediscoveries, in the coming weeks. For now, it’s time to go out and get some more of that incredible Thai street food. I’ll leave you with the image I took at the end of my last full day in Botswana while wending my way through the evening rush hour in Gaborone. It expresses some of the contradictions I found in the country.

Featured image, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn in Botswana

Board of comments on gender-based violence

Ostriches, baboons, and kudu in the Gaborone Game Reserve

Sisboy the black rhino at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary

A love giraffe

Mama rhino and calf

Old Palapue Ruins church

Evening traffic, Gaborone

All photos by the author

This piece also appears on my Substack, Issues That Matter. Comment, share, and subscribe, here, and there.