Good Hope

In North America, as it is throughout much of the world, the news coming from the many countries on the continent of Africa, is usually bad. There are civil wars, famine, disease, and other calamities. News around the world is usually bad. That's what makes it news. It is something unusual; something deviating from the norm. News is bad, as a general rule.

But there is good news, and it is usually not reported.

After spending time in Kanye, Botswana, a small group of recently sworn of US Peace Corps volunteers decided to spend an additional week of language training in the village of Good Hope. They were transported from Gaborone, the capital city, south along the Lobatse Highway. Then they turned off the pavement onto a dirt, or sand, track. It wasn't much of a road, but they proceeded west for about twenty kilometers. Good Hope seemed to be a collection of dispersed houses, most made of cinder blocks, but some were the traditional round mud hut with grass thatched roofs. There were a couple small grocery stores, and a primary school. Somewhere in this seemingly random collection of buildings was also a small health clinic.

The Mokgwetse's of Good Hope, Botswana, 1988.

The volunteers were distributed to various families for home stays. The Mokgwetse's welcomed two of the Peace Corps Volunteers into their home. From the Mokgweetse's home it was a short walk to the primary school where the language classes would take place, during a school break when the children were on holiday.

The year was 1988.

In 2013 the two Peace Corps people returned to Good Hope. And Good Hope could be renamed Good News.

Paved roads where everywhere, lined with street lights and utility wires.

Walking through Good Hope with Morris in 2013. Paved roads, electricity, street lights.

Students now do not have to travel to a boarding school in Lobatse to attend classes above the primary level. There was a secondary school, built in the past 5 years, in Good Hope. Classrooms, dorms, gym, library, administration, and staff housing are on the campus.

The entrance to Good Hope's Secondary School.

On the campus of Good Hope's school, with classrooms, library and dormitories.

Further your education is what this statue is implying to the students of Good Hope.

It's hard to imagine a place with no trees. When the Peace Corps Volunteers were there in the 1980's there were very few trees in many of the villages. There were trees outside of the villages, but for the most part people would cut trees around their houses. One of the volunteers was a Forestry Officer whose duties included teaching people the good news about trees--how to take care of them, keep the goats from nibbling them, watering, and the benefits of both the indigenous trees as well as fruit and lumber trees. There were only a couple of tree nurseries in the entire country.

Botswana's Forestry Department has expanded it's reach and influence in the  25+ years between visits.

Changes happen, and sometimes they are very good. Many of the villages the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers visited, including Good Hope and the village they had been stationed at, Letlhakane, had tree nurseries selling a variety of trees, shrubs and even some grasses and forbs.

Bertha, Tapiwa (behind), One, and Morris Modise of Good Hope, 

The good news of Africa usually stays in Africa.  But it is good news nonetheless, and should be proclaimed proudly.

Pula!