Wednesday, 4 June 1986: Kindness from a Motswana Security Guard

June 6, 4:30 PM, Gaborone Station, Botswana 

I’m waiting for my evening train to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe after spending four days here in Gaborone.  This modern, planned city of less than 100,000 seems very livable for the “developing world”.  The Africans here are called Tswanas (an individual is a Motswana; two or more are Batswana).  They seem very friendly, smiling easily and saying hello, or better yet, Dumela, their standard greeting in Setswana regardless of the time of day.  Sometimes it’s difficult to communicate with them as English is their second language, but they try hard to be helpful.  There doesn’t seems to be much racial prejudice either way.  There about 10,000 whites living in the country (some are citizens) including 200 Peace Corps volunteers. 

For the most part, the locals are very laid back.  I did get told I couldn’t take a photo of a government building this morning.  That struck me as rather odd (maybe they thought I’m a South African spy planning to take out a building).  Hell, I’ve been staying at a government guest house and many of the other guests are members of the House of Chiefs, the upper house of Parliament.  None of them seems the least bit concerned about who I am.  

Construction of Gaborone’s new civic center was nearing completion when I was in the city in early June 1986.

I’ve spent a couple of interesting evenings drinking and eating with two British accountants who work for the Botswana Development Corporation.  They seem to enjoy life here except for their women being in Johannesburg. 

The first two nights here, I stayed in a relatively costly hotel (including breakfast but costly given the hotel’s sleazy condition).  The room with private bath I had there the first night cost about US$18 and I gave it a two-cockroach rating since that’s the number of cockroaches I killed the night I stayed there.  It was nice compared to the $14 room I had the second night (bath down the hall) – no cockroaches but quite shabby (there were holes in the pillowcases).  The last two nights I’ve stayed in a modest but clean and inexpensive government guest flat: about $8.00 per night with kitchen, private bath, and no cockroaches.  Plus, it’s only two blocks from the downtown commercial mall.

Wednesday, the first night I stayed in the guest flat, an incident occurred which certainly helped my impression of the Batswana.  I was walking back to my guest flat along a somewhat dark suburban street.  There were two big dogs out in the street as I turned the corner to walk the remaining ½ block to the flat.  I had encountered these two earlier that day but didn’t want to mess with them at night as they were barking up a storm, and their owner was nowhere to be seen.  Across the street from their yard was a large elementary school with a low fence around it.  I jumped the fence and headed across the school yard planning to make my way through the maze of buildings and outflanking the menacing pooches.  I hadn’t gone more than a couple hundred feet when I came upon an old Motswana watchman sitting in front of a fire (the night air was chilly as winter is almost here).  Now, I can just imagine that if I were trespassing in a school yard at night in American I would get a ration of shit from a security guy.  I started talking as soon as I saw him, “Good evening.  I’m trying to get back to the government guest flats across the street and there are these two big dogs blocking the way.  I thought I could avoid them if I walked through this school yard.  I’m afraid they may try to bite me.  Can you show me which way to go to get back to the flats?”  He didn’t get angry at all.  The old gentleman didn’t just point out the way, he led me through the group of buildings out to a gate directly across from the flats.  I thanked him profusely and he thanked me back.  People here say “Thank you” instead of “You’re welcome” when you say “Thank you.”  I suppose it’s their way of saying, “Thank you for saying thank you.”