“Traditional Botswana men like ladies who are more traditionally shaped. You and I, Mma. We remind men of how things used to be in Botswana before these modern-shaped ladies started to get men all confused.” — Alexander McCall Smith, The Full Cupboard of Life
Forgive my tardiness with this week’s Africa lesson. I usually do these on Wednesdays (as I’m sure my millions of followers have noticed), but it was an unusually busy week and I’ve been trying to out-vitamin a cold for a couple of days.
I’ve been reading The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series (now on book two of 10) for a while now, a delicious indulgence among other books on my nightstand. My friend Meg Medina suggested it when I visited her this summer. I confessed to her that I found myself only reading books about Africa. “Well,” she said, “if you’re only going to read about Africa, you might as well read something entertaining.”
I love Botswana through the eyes of Alexander McCall Smith and his main character, Precious Ramotswe. She is one of those characters I will deeply miss when I am done reading her stories. Someone with whom I would love to share lunch or an afternoon of people watching on her front porch.
In addition to reading the book (really, even if you’re not obsessed with Africa, the stories are wonderful), here are some things you should know about Botswana:
1. The country (which is slightly smaller than Texas) borders and is closely connected in many ways to South Africa.
Gathering food in Botswana
2. Bridge is a very popular game.
3. This is a stable country and has been since its independence from Britain in 1966. Since that time, the people of Botswana have pulled themselves up from being one of the poorest countries in in the world to being a middle-income country. Much of this is due to the discovery of diamonds shortly after independence.
4. Botswana has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection. The CIA estimates from 2007 show 23.9 percent of adults are infected, second only in the world to Swaziland where 26.1 percent are infected.
5. The country is predominantly Christian (71.6 percent).
6. 81.2 percent of the population is literate (80.4 percent of men, 81.8 percent of women).
7. Many refugees from Zimbabwe flee to Botswana to escape their corrupt government.
8. There are actual Bushmen here. They have been kicked off their land (although they were the first there) and are living in resettlement camps. They now face alcoholism and many other problems (sound familiar to other native people we might know?).
9. Sorghum is a food staple here. In urban areas, you will find also find fast food like KFCs. I’d rather eat the sorghum. A favorite dish is “bogobe, nama and morogo,” the bogobe being sorghum or maize, nama is meat, and morogo is a green leafy vegetable that looks like spinach.
10. Most people in Botswana have three homes: one in a town (near work and school), one in the village (usually where their family is from), and one in where the cattle are (called the “moraka” or cattle post).
How you can help:
• For $30 a month, you can sponsor a child who has been orphaned by AIDS through SOS Children’s Villages.
• Donate to Cheetah Conservation Botswana to help outreach, research, education efforts to help Africa’s most threatened big cat.
• Help the 1,000 Bushmen, who won a court victory in 2006 but have not yet been allowed to return to their homeland, by donating to I Want 2 Go Home.
I interviewed McCall Smith once. He was every bit as delightful and charming as you’d expect the creator of Mma Ramotswe to be.
Merely want to say your article is astounding. The clearness in your post is simply striking and i can take for granted you are an expert on this field. Well with your permission allow me to grab your rss feed to keep up to date with succeeding post. Thanks a million and please keep up the ac complished work
Thank you so much for your kind words. Glad you enjoyed the article. I love writing the blog and hope you enjoy following it.
Happy holidays!
Dawn