The Quirky And Wierd

My first trip to Botswana was an eye-opener in more ways than one.

That was way back in  the late eighties.Having travelled on the train for hours on end,we finally arrived in the capital Gaborone and what I saw did not impress me at all.Rondeval pole and mud huts right next to the railway station.I was expecting a cosmopolitan city,with sky-scrappers and all but alas this did not materialise.Since it was early in the morning we had to look for a place where we could freshen up before going further to Lobatse, where I had heard that goods were quite cheap there.These were the heady days soon after Independence ,when our Zimbabwe dollar was at par with the British pound.

The following morning,we were directed to a taxi rank, were we could get a minibus taxi to Lobatse.The first strange  thing  that I noticed was the female conductor. She was very rude to the passengers,I must add.After travelling for about twenty kilometres outside the capital we stopped at a Police road block.The men manning it politely greeted us and asked for our passports.During the search the female conductor got down went a short distance, but in full view of every one,and proceeded to relieve herself much to the consternation of the Zimbabwean first time travellers like me.The veterans told us that this was a common trait of the Batswana.if it was back home she could have been arrested on the spot for public indecency.

In Lobatse,at Wayside Shopping complex, the shop owner barred the locals from entering the shop whilst he raised the prices of goods.We proceeded to strip the shelves of goods. Laden with our new found material wealth ,we looked for taxis to take us to the railway station at Lobatse to wait for a train that would leave at 6 in the evening.We arrived sometime after lunch and the laisse-faire attitude of the citizens and the laxity of policing was evident for all to see as men would pass water in the street in full view of passers-by and they had the temerity to greet them.

When I got home after two days of travelling and told my friends of my experiences, they thought I was giving them tall tales.