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!

The People of the Bush

Boteti sub-district of the Central District of Botswana was a dry, dusty, out of the way place in 1989. With no paved road, no telephones, no electricity, and a six hour drive to the capitol, Gaborone, it was about as remote of a post as one can imagine. The area was sandy, covered with grass in the west, and short, shrubby types of trees in the east part of the district.

One of many magnificent sunsets in Botswana, 1989.

It was here that an American couple were living, she working for the Ministry of Lands as a Drought Relief Technical Officer, in other words, working in community development, and he was a Forestry Officer for the Ministry of Agriculture. They had lived in Letlhakane for a year, and were planning to stay for another year.

The Forestry Officer decided to take a trip to the western villages of the district to view the successes of the recently held National Tree Planting Day. In addition, he was going to inquire as to the need for more trees as well as check on the progress of three village woodlots. Usually, he travelled with a driver who was assigned to his office. There were three or four drivers: Palagabedi, Onkagatsi, Benjamin and Seepeto, but at this time they were all busy. The Forestry Officer was going to have to go it alone.

For several days he travelled west from the populated villages and diamond mining town to the vast open, dotted with tiny settlements along the dry Boteti riverbed. He wanted to get back home on Thursday, and he was hoping that he could do it before it got dark.

Traveling at night could be a terrifying experience in Botswana. There were the ever present bovines, that would wander across the road, or simply decide to stand in the middle of the road for the duration of the night. Then there was the wildlife--ostriches, impala, kudu, that would think nothing of being in the road, without any reflective gear. There were also other drivers. Several stories were told of somebody's vehicle breaking down on the road, and the driver would turn off the lights, not wanting the battery to die, and walk to the nearest village for assistance. Never would the thought occur to someone to pull off of the road.

The Forestry Officer got a late start from Makalamabedi, and after stopping in Motlopi once again, he realized he was running late. He travelled as fast as the sand track would allow him to drive the Toyota Hi-lux pick-up, and as he approached Rakops, he could see a spectacular African sunset happening. He had several hours to go before he returned home.

At the far end of the village of Rakops was a place people would wait to hitch a ride east. In Botswana at this time, in the "bush," it was common courtesy to give people rides who needed them. Private vehicles were infrequent, and public transportation, buses, taxis, were non-existent. There were thirteen people at the hitching spot.

He glanced in his rear view mirror and saw nobody behind him. No surprise. But he did glimpse the continuing spectacular sunset. Thinking that all of the thirteen people weren't waiting for a ride, that maybe some of them were merely waiting to say goodbye to their friends and relatives, he pulled over and after the appropriate greetings asked, "O ya kae?" Where are you going?

The monna magolo, the old man, said they were going to Orapa, and they all wanted a ride. "A re ye," said the Forestry Officer, we go. The women and children started loading their meager belongings into the bed of the small pick-up, and followed their gear into the open back. The old man, and a young twenty something man got into the cab with the driver. Just to be sure he had heard what he thought he heard, he asked the two in the cab with him where they were going, and they again replied Orapa.

A San youngster, Botswana, 1989.

Orapa is a diamond mining town about thirty kilometers northwest of Letlhakane. It is a closed community, with a fence around the area of ten by twenty kilometers. There are guards at the gates and if one doesn't have a good reason for going to Orapa, the guards will turn you away. This group of hitch hikers did not look like they had any reason to go into the town.

Just after they started picking up speed there was a knock on the back panel of the pick-up. Somebody back there wanted to stop. The old man asked the Forestry Officer to stop, and because there was seldom anyone driving these primitive roads, he stopped in the middle of the road. A women in the back jumped out, ran to a nearby rondoval, the traditional circular mud hut with thatched roof, and was quickly returning with a blanket. The driver glance in his rear view mirror to make sure she was settled in, and then focused on the blazing sunset.

Again they were underway, and shortly there was another knock from the back. The driver was becoming a little frustrated. He wanted to make some good distance while it was still light, but with every stop, the seconds, the minutes, where passing quickly, and he would soon be driving in the dark. Once the vehicle stopped, he watched a woman jump out of the back and run down the road. The driver watched, puzzled by her running along the road, but awed by the continuing sunset. Sunsets in Botswana seemed to be more vibrant, longer lasting, larger, than the sunsets he was use to in the United States. The woman picked up some fabric, a scarf, that must have blown off of her head,

Sunset in the Okavango Delta of northern Botswana.

They were off again, zooming along at 60 kilometers an hour. The two passengers were discussing something in a language the driver didn't understand, but he got the impression they were talking about the speedometer.

A short time later, the old man started fishing around in his oversized, well-worn pants. He pulled out a fist-sized amount of crumpled newspaper and opens it up on his lap. He tears off a corner of paper and then sprinkles some of the dried herbs that had been in the paper onto the smaller piece and rolls it into a cigarette. About this time the driver pushes in the cigarette lighter. The old man was fishing in his pockets for matches when the cigarette lighter pops out and the driver hands it to the old man. After the cigarette is lit, there is quite the discussion about the lighter, and the old man pushes the lighter in several times to witness for himself the miracle of fire on the truck.

By the junction of the road to Toromoja, the sky was darkening. The brilliant sunset was fading to dark.  It was becoming harder to see anything outside the headlight beam, and the truck was slowed to about 40 kilometers. By the time they reached Mopipi, it was pitch black.

There was a knock from the back and the driver stopped in downtown Mopipi, population 200. Several women climbed out of the back of the truck along with a child, leaving seven passengers in the back, along with the two men in the cab with the driver.

At the edge of the village there was another knock. The driver thought, what is going on with these people? Couldn't somebody have walked the half kilometer to here? Some of the women in the back got out and squatted. The two passengers in the cab got out, and standing in front of the pick-up, urinated into the headlight beams. Everyone got back into the vehicle and the old man said, "Tsamaya." Go.

It was going to be another hour, at least, to home in Letlhakane, but the road was straight and flat the entire way. The vegetation consisted entirely of mophane, a shrub in the legume family; definately a monoculture of shrubs. The mophane was densely spaced, and uniformly three to four meters tall. In the dark it looked very homogenous. There would be Orapa to deal with, but none of it's lights were visible when there was another knock from the back.

Argh!

How many stops are they going to make, thought the driver, now thoroughly frustrated. The women and children in the back were getting out, handing their bags out one at a time. The young man and the old man in the cab both slid out and closed the door behind them. Everyone was getting out of the vehicle. Suddenly, the old man was next to the driver's side door, and through the open window clasps his hands, bows slightly, and says, "Danki, rra." Thank you, sir.

In the dark, all of his riders stepped into the bush and quickly disappeared. The Forestry Officer got out of the vehicle and peered into the darkness. He reached into the cab and turned the engine off, then the headlights. It was dark and quiet. His nine passengers had disappeared, quietly into the dark, all nine of them. They knew where they were going--home. He looked up and down the road. It appeared just like the other hundred kilometers before and after the stop. No signs. No lights. Nothing that he recognized would indicate that this was a place to stop to let somebody head home. And there were nine people, women, children and an old man walking in the dark to some shelter somewhere.

As the Peace Corps Volunteer stood there in the dark, he tried to ponder the meaning of life. He looked up to the stars spread out from horizon to zenith and into infinity; he looked into the bush, up and down the darkened road; and thought he lived in an awesome place.

The slow drive into Letlhakane was somewhat of a denouement of the final part of his trip to west Boteti. It was good to see his spouse and catch up with all the news, but something was rattling around in his mind--who were they? What were they doing? Where were they going? Are they doing okay? What became of them? How did they know where to go?

They were questions he continues to find the answers to.

Home is Africa

They call it Africa, We call it home.

Most Americans lump all the countries of Africa into one country:  Africa. The ignorance that most Americans display regarding the fifty plus countries that make up the African continent is appalling.

Years ago I went to a doctor's office. The nurse noticed that I had been in Peace Corps, and asked me in what country I had served. I replied, "Botswana" and she got a little testy, said something such as, "I don't care about that--what country where you in?" I responded, "Africa" and she was okay with that. I'm not sure what she had thought I had first said, but by lumping Botswana into Africa, I had appeased whatever disgusting thing she thought I had said.

Later, the physician came in, and there was a similar conversation. "Where were you?" Again, I said Botswana, and the look on the physician's face was of confusion. He ultimately said, "I assume that's somewhere in Africa?" These comments were from two supposedly educated people, a nurse and a doctor.

There is a big difference between Morocco and Swaziland, for example. But there seems to be no problem for most people in lumping the two into a pseudo-country called Africa.

The capital of Senegal, Dakar, is closer to New York City, then it is to Johannesburg, South Africa. Maybe Senegal should be considered a part of North America, and let South Africa be a part of Africa.

Culturally, a person can cross the border of any country, and be in a different country (amazing), with a different language, different money, different cultural norms. Imagine somebody traveling to Italy, and you say, "Oh, you went to Eurasia?" It's hard to envision somebody lumping Italy with Thailand, or even an adjacent country such as France. Oh, you went to France? No, Italy. They might use the same currency, but that is about where the similarities stop.

It all seems to be part of a cultural bias of Americans. Throughout their educational years, students in America are taught about ancient Greek and Roman civilization. Chances are there is absolutely no mention of the great past civilizations that were occurring south of the Mediterranean.

Some companies have jumped on the African bandwagon. Certainly companies may be in many countries in Africa. It makes sense to be proud of your location. A bank that may have branches in Namibia, Uganda, and Nigeria, would want to use one saying for all the different countries in which they are doing business.

There were no national boundaries during the evolution of humans. Studies and research over the past one hundred years is showing that humanity originated on the continent of Africa. That continent is now divided into a bunch of countries,

Some of the oldest, or earliest, proto-humans, Australopithecus africanus have been found in South Africa. The Cradle of Humankind is located near Johannesburg. When these remains were first reported, anthropologists, mostly from western Eurasia and North America, were reticent to believe that human beginnings were in Africa. There was a cultural, and perhaps, racial bias, against believing that humanity began in some place other than Europe or Asia.

We are all from Africa. It is the place we can all call home. You just don't know it.