I seek to construct a research project concerning the African country of Botswana. I will depict several of the aspects of Botswana, especially cultural, religious, geographical, and governmental insights. I will give particular attention and detail to the people of Botswana, Batswana, emphasizing how each of these entities influences their lifestyles. Naturally, I will also explain the relation of each of these elements to one another in accordance with their effects upon Batswana. Through this study, one will hopefully enhance his or her knowledge and understanding of the impacts of physical, mental, and spiritual environments upon people’s lives. I am enthusiastically interested in researching Botswana because I will be journeying there this summer to diligently work in the Lord’s ministry. Composing this project is an excellent way in which for me to learn more about Botswana, where I will be living in the city of Shakawe for eight weeks.

(1)The people of Botswana are presently torn between the survival of its ancestors’ cultural traditions and the growth of an optimistic republic. Within this study, the characteristics of Batswana’s lifestyles from the past, their present conditions, and outlooks upon the country’s future will be discussed. Botswana was born a country of flourishing diversity. It was a land inhabited by nomadic Bushmen (also known as San or Basarwa) and countless numbers of different tribes, who coexisted peaceably with one another. These people of ancient times lived contentedly through the land’s provisions of plants and abundant species of animals and through prosperous trade with each other.

    Today, this simple way of life conflicts the nation’s potential wealth in democracy, cattle industry, diamond-mining, and other technologies. Both lifestyles have their advantages and disadvantages, a majority of which will be portrayed within this composition. Botswana is entangled in a struggle to produce what is healthiest for its country’s people and environment for the present time and for the infinite years to come. This study will explore several different hardships that Botswana is suffering and the peace that the people have maintained throughout the years. (Back to Table of Contents)

(2) Concerning Botswana’s condition, the national geography standards that this study mainly relates to focus upon places and regions and environment and society. The physical and human characteristics of Botswana will be emphasized by geographical descriptions of the land and its resources and wildlife, and by portraying the attributes of the government, cultures, religions, and everyday lives of Batswana. How culture and experience influence people’s perceptions of places and regions will be reflected in the eyes of Batswana respectful to their tribal traditions and Batswana enraptured in the optimism for a prospering new nation, as well as in the eyes of immigrants, foreigners, the impoverished, the wealthy, and other inhabitants of the country.

    In accordance with environment and society, how human actions modify the physical environment will be viewed through the effects of the different lifestyles, in the past and present, of Batswana upon Botswana’s land, wildlife, and resources. How physical systems affect human systems will be explained in many aspects through the estate of Botswana’s ecosystems immensely, or variably, impacting the lives of Batswana and vice versa. Finally, the changes that occur in the meaning, use, distribution, and importance of resources will be perceived through people’s various actions partaking of the country’s provisions and the different values that a person holds depending upon their background in relation to Botswana. (Back to Table of Contents)

(3) Botswana is a landlocked country, which is bordered immediately south by South Africa, north and west by Namibia, north and east by Zimbabwe, and is connected by a narrow strip of land on its northern border to Zambia. On Botswana’s northwestern border, Namibia’s Caprivi Strip separates Botswana from Angola (Angola is Zambia’s western border) (5). The majority of Botswana's population, about 80% or four-fifths, is concentrated in a fifth of the country's territory, which is a narrow, arable strip beside the easternmost Limpopo River (7, p.75). Only about 1% of Botswana's land is reasonably farmable. Two-thirds of Botswana's landscape, mainly the central-to-southwestern lands, is covered by the vast Kalahari Desert of sand, savanna, grassland, and thorn bush. Since Botswana is dominantly a broad, flat, arid, subtropical plateau, 46% of its lands are used as permanent pastures and 47% as forests and woodlands (2).

    The land's whole basin appears to be titled to the northeast, with the Makgadikgadi salt pans forming its lower part. Within the northwestern region, the Okavango Delta flourishes as the largest inland river delta in the world. The Okavango Delta, although it is a very narrow thread of river, creates an "...ecosystem of a size and intricacy rivaling any on earth" (7, p.8). The only permanent sources of surface water are the Chobe, Okavango, and Limpopo rivers. The country's climate is semiarid, having warm winters and hot summers. October to May is the wet season, (summer is October to March), and the rains usually pour in eastern Botswana. Rainfall is poor and erratic. The country suffers stifling heat, periodic droughts, and dust storms, mainly in August, sometimes causing deposits of wind-blown sand as immense as 120m thick (4). It is a land so dry that the national motto, the national greeting, and the national currency are the same: pula--rain; in Botswana, it is a word portraying the meaning of blessing, hope, or a toast to well-being (7, p.75, 43). (Back to Table of Contents)

(4) Within Botswana's enormous open land, freely roam an endless diversity of wildlife (elephants, zebras, leopards, lions, antelope, hippos, crocodiles, hyenas, giraffes, wildebeests, cranes, flamingos, and many more different species). A National Geographic photo-journalist made the comment that Botswana has "...a freedom that comes from immensity: freedom of flat, open country roofed with an unending sky, freedom of a wilderness so unfettered that it can swallow a herd without a trace" (7, p.24). Although Botswana is a somewhat harsh and very dry land, the animals and the people both learn survival skills that adapt well to their environment. For example, catfish escape the dryness of evaporating ponds by burrowing into the mud, and antelope escape predators by submerging up to their nostrils in water (28). However, of course, many animals have died because of droughts or predators; but the factors of declining wildlife in the past were never as intense as they are now in the present day.

    Botswana's struggle to achieve continuous economic stability, to preserve its land's natural wildlife and environment, and to grow as an unified nation all conflict with each other and with other prospects of the country. One of Botswana's main sources of income is the cattle industry. Beginning in the 1950s the government built fences to control disease in commercial herds. Many of these fences restrict wildlife migration to and from traditional water resources, which is very critical to their survival, especially during a drought. For example, in 1983 alone more than 50,000 wildebeests died as a result of this conflict (7, p.47). This problem is very difficult to solve, for nearly 80% of the population lives in rural areas, many subsisting on the crops they raise and income from cattle (87). Twsana tribes have ever cultivated cattle--named them like children, praised them in poems, and valued them right along with pula. One tribal member, also the retired head of the National Development Bank of Botswana, stated, "Traditionally, a man's wealth and stature have been measured by the heads of cattle he owns...I love my cows...a cow on the hoof means more to me than money in the bank--even to me a banker" (86). Not only do quarantine fences for cattle hinder wildlife migration, but problems also exist within the cattle industry of communal versus private ownership of land, environmentally destructive overgrazing, and the effect of the industry's existence upon the people's lifestyles (88).

    It is extremely difficult to control and protect a wildlife that has thrived on its freedom for so many years, even in the utilization of national parks and game reserves, which seem like the perfect solution to some people for protecting endangered species. 17% of Botswana's land is set aside for national parks and game reserves, one of the highest percentages of any nation (7, p.47). One of the biggest vices of the installation of wildlife conservation is that it prohibits several natives from living in the ways of their forefathers. To Bushmen, what foreigners term as exotic wildlife are just a means of providing food. A few bands of Bushmen still hunt the Kalahari with traps, spears, and poison-tipped arrows. However, domestic poaching--traditional meat hunting--is now a minor offense (53). Although the Botswana Widlife Department is very strict upon poachers with expensive fines and even shooting some offenders, Botswana makes it fairly affordable for all citizens to acquire a hunting license that also can be transferred or sold between citizens (57). Furthermore, some years more lions and leopards are killed as threats to livestock than for sport. Chief Julius Mologasele of the Kachikau village states, "Lions are eating cattle. Elephants are coming for the destruction of the lands....We don't want animals to be finished in this country. Animals are food. You can't live without eating meat. We want the reserve to be farther from the lands of the people" (53).

    Since the diamond mines will not last forever, Botswana is promoting tourism as a means for economic stability. However, this factor struggles against the previously mentioned lifestyles of the people. Some citizens say that Batswana need to understand that animals are necessary for the country's fortune, and not just perceive them as meat. The Wildlife Department hopes to bring villagers direct rewards from tourism and wildlife harvesting by using tactics such as hiring and educating local poachers as gamekeepers. These gamekeepers would then have legal means of making money by cropping animals on a managed, sustainable yield (7, p.56). Others, however, like Sedia Modise say, "People aren't allowed to hunt in the parks, and they look on them as islands set aside for the benefit of people from outside Botswana. Except for the few jobs which it creates, the tourist industry does not benefit Botswana" (53). (Back to Table of Contents)

(5) These conflicts are results from the changing attitudes of the people, which evolve as Botswana gradually grows as a nation. At least 30,000 years ago, the Bushmen, or the San, arrived as the first known inhabitants of Botswana. Later on, the Hottentots settled in and were then followed by the the agricultural and pastoral Bantu. The first Twsana settled in the southeast of Botswana in approximately the 15th century. All of these inhabitants for the most part lived peacefully, trading and intermarrying. However, in 1820 various clans began to form into a string of nations along what is now the border between Botswana and South Africa in order to defend themselves against the expansionism of the Boers (white Afrikaners who were descendants of the Dutch) and Zulu militancy (1). In 1885, the British obliged the Batswana's request for security of its borders by declaring the country as a British protectorate known as Bechuanaland. Apart from a railroad across Botswana's eastern edge, the British rulers did not leave much of anything in Botswana. One might say that the main influence that the British had upon Botswana was the fact that they hindered Botswana from flourishing as a nation. Botswana was virtually penniless, having no industry or natural resources and only one public secondary school (7, p.76).

    However, in 1966 on September 30th, the Bechuanaland Protectorate achieved independence as a non-racial, multi-party democracy taking the proud name of the Republic of Botswana under the powerful leadership of Sir Seretse Khama. Since then, after Khama's death in 1980, Sir Ketumile Masire was elected president. Masire resigned on 31 March 1998 and now Festus Mogae resumes the presidency until the elections of October 1999. The government is a bicameral parliament that consists of a 40-member National Assembly and the 15-member advisory House of Chiefs, which represent the country's eight principal tribes (2). Botswana fortunately has had the blessing of outstandingly good leadership, which has been a long Tswana tradition. Botswana style democracy is a reflection of the way in which traditional Tswana chiefs carried the divine, authoritarian sanction of kings. In both conditions, the country's leaders cannot rule without the consensus of the people. The Tswana term for a public forum of people is kgotla and the tribe's old saying is still very true today: "Kgosi ke kgosi ka morafe--The chief is only the chief by the will of the tribe" (7, p.85).

    Although Botswana's new, flourishing democratic optimism is unified with the tribal beliefs of its ancestors in some aspects, in relation to other views the two clash with each other. The nation enjoys freedom of speech, religion, and assembly. The press is small, but voluble and blacks and whites work side by side from top to bottom in government (7, p.75). Jimmy Kamane, a bright, barefoot member of the Bakgatla tribe seems to articulate Botswana's future. When asked which was more important: his Bakgatla tribe or his Botswana nation, he replied instantly, "Botswana!" However, a tall, sinewy farmer of 65 named Zungwa Mabgwe holds a different view. He is one out of the fully half of Batswana who earn less than a hundred dollars a year. Beginning every day at 6 a.m., Zungwa and his family work diligently to earn income to live on. Zungwa measures his family's lot as very poor and that the government's help simply is not enough (93). When asked what has been the biggest change in Botswana, Zungwa stated, "Before, we could survive. Now, we must have money. But we have few ways to earn it." When asked if he would like to return to his tribal life, Zungwa stated, "In my head, I like the nation. But in my heart, I like the tribe" (94).(Back to Table of Contents)

(6) With so much affliction between old and new lifestyles involving the people, government, wildlife, and the land, one might wonder if Botswana has maintained any peace. There was no blood spilled in the quest for their country's freedom. There is no elitist class of bureaucrats among the people and there is no racial hatred toward colonial invaders (7, p.82). Besides having excellent leadership, having a thriving economy based primarily upon mining minerals (diamonds, copper, nickel, etc.), and having the survival skills of tribal ancestors; religious liberty is also an attribute that sustains the nation's well-being. Over two hundred active religious organizations, 50% are indigenous tribal beliefs and 50% Christian, exist within Botswana (2). The people of Botswana fervently cherish the right of religion and belief. The Constitution of Botswana states,

    "Except with his own consent, no person shall be hindered in the enjoyment of his freedom of conscience, and for the purposes of this section the said freedom includes freedom of thought and of religion, freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others, and both public and private, to manifest and propagate his religion or belief in worship, teaching, practice and observance" (6, p.846).

    All citizens and state alike in Botswana must not be a hindrance to or disturb the religious practices or beliefs of others. People and the government are both forbidden to manipulate, publicly ridicule, desecrate, destroy, prohibit, or persecute another's religion (6, p.849). The state must also not interfere in the internal governance of a religious denomination or within any theological disputes. However, a religion's practices, disputes, or beliefs must not endanger public order or national security (850). The Botswana Constitution governs the religions and rights of the people according to the interests of defense, public safety, order, morality, or health and for the purpose of protecting the rights and freedoms of others. The Botswana Penal Code empowers the president to declare any society to be "a society dangerous to peace and order in Botswana" (853). Examples of hazardous religions include not taking a sick child to the hospital because of the parent's belief in healing spirits (854) or allowing a neighbor's house to burn instead of helping him because the person asked to help only sings and dances in front of the fire (856). It is the sole aim of the law to ensure that churches are soundly managed and that people are not exploited or abused in anyway (859). (Back to Table of Contents)

   (7) Botswana's emphasis on freedom that respects the rights of others and the welfare of society is credited largely with contributing to Botswana's progress as a nation. However, Botswana's progress, which was rapidly increasing when they first gained independence, is now moving at a much slower rate because of its culture's diversity of lifesytles and activities that result in a diversity of tribulations. Since Botswana is known as an African country that offers sanctuary, tolerance, and freedom, many refugees fleeing racial strife, as well as other immigrants, have continued to spill into Botswana. Quill Hermans, the urbane governor of the Bank of Botswana, himself a white naturalized citizen from South Africa, states, "We are a nation of refugees. We came here hoping to create something better than what we'd left behind" (7, p.78).

    Following the discovery of minerals in 1967 and prudent management, Botswana became one of the three wealthiest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and one of the most successful economies in the developing world (4). However, the country's annual economic growth rate has decreased from 11% in 1991 (4) to 6% in 1997 (2). Diamond-mining has contributed almost a billion dollars per year into Botswana's treasury, but these excellent statistics will not remain forever, especially since mineral deposits lessen as the industries continue to wring them out for all that they are worth (7, p.76). Another factor that is inflicting stress upon Botswana's stability and growth as a nation is overpopulation. Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, is a good example of overpopulation's impact upon Batswana. The city was built for a population of 20,000 and now feels the weight of 130,000 people pouring in from impoverished rural areas (85).

    The main problem concerning overpopulation is providing jobs for the 1.4 million people and counting that inhabit Botswana. Botswana has an unemployment rate of 20-40%, with more than 100,000 people being without jobs per year (2). Even those who do enter into the labor force are not skilled at a trade because of a lack of applicable education. An increase in expenditures, such as the military, and a lack of skilled, educated labor are a hazardous balance because Botswana will eventually run short of resources that having been sufficing for the people's own lack of production. Native Motswana Athaliah Molokomme, an University of Botswana law graduate with a master's degree from Yale, says, "The present government simply isn't innovative." Botswana has many areas in which it needs to improve, such as women's rights, the disparity between rich and poor, and the nation's educational system. Concerning education, Athaliah continued,
    "Yes, access has improved. Primary and secondary education are available and free, but the content is geared to turning out bureaucrats. We all can't work in offices. We need people to build our houses. Install our plumbing. Fix our boilers and mend our electrical systems. People to make clothes and furniture. And no one knows how!" (7, p.81)

    Philemon Balekile, a 26-year-old Tswana tribesman states, "From the time of their arrival the people here have been taken from their culture. They dress, eat, even have their houses placed in the modern way--and none of it is the Bushman's way" (7, p.90). The Bushmen, Botswana aborigines who still inhabit the region, are not threatened as a race, being 35,000 strong and growing, but their nomadic way of life is at its end (88). One might say after studying these perspectives that Botswana's prosperity is to good to be true in the fact that the nation flourishes a luxury of fabulous resources, but the people have not had time enough to be able to adjust to the rapid changes. The government successfully provides freedom for its country's people, but it has not taken the time to prepare the people for the changes, the technologies, of their lifestyles.

    In the heavily populated eastern region of Botswana, most people live in rural areas and depend on dirt farming for subsistence. The government supplies them with essential services, plus technological assistance and substantial subsidies for plowing and destumping. Family members working elsewhere help support their relatives with monthly cash remittances. But the soils are geologically ancient, barely fertile, and rural jobs are few and far between (7, p.93). As mentioned earlier, there is a huge disparity between the impoverished and the rich, with the poorest half of the nation's population receiving about one-sixth of the nation's income and the wealthiest 20% taking two-thirds (78). For instance, while one kid enjoys playing cards and watching TV in their furnished home and attends private school; another kid, within the same city of Gaborone, sniffs glue and roams the streets at night and typically washes cars and begs for food and money during the day (89).

    The government is working in many different aspects to aid the impoverished and the unemployed and all of the Batswana who suffer from the changing of its nation; however, their efforts though noble have not been highly successful. In seeking to aid one Botswana village, the government trucked in food once a month--maize meal, beans, and cooking oil. However, the villagers were unable to produce or grow anything for themselves from the government's provisions and continued to suffer in hunger and disease from lack of nutrition and supplies because the government aid was simply just not enough (7, p.90). The government's biggest project, Mpandamatenga, to increase food production and amass reserves against future droughts failed because many of the some fifty 2,200-acre leasehold farms were invaded by elephants, eland, sables, by locusts and podile beetles, which suck the sorghum dry (95).

    However, there is hope discovered in statements like that of Joe Ramotshabi (a Texas Christian University graduate and three-time Olympic sprinter who is now a bank examiner in his homeland Botswana): "When our kids our grown, this will be a whole new town. They won't believe we did this with our hands." Joe's wit, vision, dedication, and grit are exactly the answers to the key of Botswana prospering as a nation. Joe has already built a house for his mother and a house for his own family in the village of Nko-ya Phiri, outside the capital Gaborone (7, p.81). David Inger (a naturalized Motswana out of Nottingham, England) says, "The only answer is jobs. The problem is creating them." David is the director of the Rural Industries Innovation Centre in Kanye, Botswana; which is a program that offers courses in baking, carpentry, sewing, leather tanning, and smithing. It also runs a profit-making furniture factory, sorghum milll, and solar-water heating firm. This program's inventions are creating opportunities where none ever existed before, such as a bread-baking oven made from two big truck wheels welded together (96). In situations like these, hundreds of informal jobs have been created. Toti-toti, meaning bit by bit, is the way in which Botswana is now going to progress as a stable and free nation. Botswana will prosper in reflecting the path of Motswana Mrs. Sebueng Keakopa. Having no money, which is the case of many Batswana, back in 1973 she built her own house out of mud bricks and thatch. To earn a living, she dug a hole in her backyard, baked five loaves of bread, and sold it to her neighbors. She then built a mud oven producing 30 loaves a day. Next, with the help of some American friends, she got a brick-and-steel oven producing 120 loaves a day. Today, Mrs. Keakopa bakes 700 loaves a day, has six employees working two shifts, and is the only woman in Maun who bakes wedding cakes (96).(Back to Table of Contents)

(8) Botswana is a country overflowing with wonderful potential in its resources, government, and most of all in its people for becoming a strong, prosperous nation. Though the nation is aching with pain from its unending and diverse afflictions, it is a nation of "smiles and friendly waves" because the people have inner peace from their freedom, religions, and the wise leadership of their tribal forefathers and nation's presidents (7, p.85). Peace not only unifies Botswana's diverse communities, but peace also instills within the individual and within a family the courage, strength, and character to press on in the journey of living towards accomplishment of one's hopes and finding the joy in the midst of one's present blessings. I hope that the readers have gained insights into the lives of Batswana and impacts of which they have upon their country and of which their country has upon them. The following sources are listed for those who desire to endeavor more study and interest into the majestic nation of Botswana.(Back to Table of Contents)

1.    Africanet. "Botswana History." http://www.africanet.com/countries/botswana.htm (1997).

2.    Central Intelligence Agency Fact book. “Botswana." http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/bc.html
        (2 Feb. 1999).

3.    Conservation International Foundation. "Botswana."
        http://www.conservation.org/WEB/FIELDACT/REGIONS/AFRIREG/BOTSWANA.HTM (7 December 1998).

4.    Inter Green Services Limited. "Botswana: the mysterious soul of ancient Africa"
        http://www.safariweb.com/botswana/index.htm (1996).

5.    Inter knowledge Corporation. "An Introduction to Botswana." http://www.interknowledge.com/botswana/
        (2 Feb. 1999).

6.    Nsereko, Daniel D. "Religious liberty and the law in Botswana." Journal of Church and State Autumn 1992: 843-862.

7.    Zich, Arthur. "Botswana: the adopted land." National Geographic December 1990: 70-97.

Created: 30 April 1999

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