Thursday, 12 February 1987: Student Field Trip to Botswana’s Copper Mine

Sosele Hotel, Selebi-Phikwe, Botswana, 4:30PM

I’m on a field trip in northeastern Botswana with three colleagues and 20 of our fourth-year students.  We left early yesterday morning – a tiring six-hour bus journey which got us here in time for lunch.  The students are now out conducting surveys around the town with retailers, government officials, bus drivers, etc. in an attempt to define the service area of this small city of 35,000.  We faculty members are along to supervise, advise, and critique the students’ work.  That leaves us a lot of free time which in my case means taking photos around the town, taking an afternoon nap (too much beer last night and up early this morning), and adding to my volume of letters from Africa to America.  This trip isn’t overly exciting so far, but “it sure beats working”.  As a matter of fact, so does my whole job!

Fourth-year Environmental Science students on a field trip to the Selebi-Phikwe mining district.  Faculty members are Robson Selitshena (standing, second from left in white shirt), Mesego Mputakwane (standing, second from right in light blue shirt), Cornelis Vanderpost (standing on the right in white shirt), and me (squatting on the right in blue shirt).  Unfortunately, after 36 years I’ve forgotten the students’ names with one exception:  David Aniku is wearing a hat and is standing to the left of Masego.  I remember him well because he was the best student in my Geography of North America class and was the only one of my students who was not a Motswana – David was from Uganda.  He was a quiet, dignified fellow, and I’ll wager he has done well in his chosen career. 
   

A few words of interest about Selebi-Phikwe.  I’ve heard it described as a miniature Gaborone and there are certainly some similarities.  Both are planned cities and relatively new.  “Gabs” was designed to be the capital city and S-P was built as a mining center (copper and nickel).  Both have downtown pedestrian malls with stores.  Both are loaded with ex-pat workers.  Both have low density populations – very few apartment buildings.  Almost all the residences are single-family homes on large lots with swimming pools and gardens.  Both have industrial/warehouse parks on the outskirts of the city.  The topography of both cities is quite flat except for a few hills surrounding them.  And both cities have grown quite rapidly and have little poverty relative to most African cities.

Were it not for the Botswana government's commitment to Phikwe (as some people call it), it would be poverty-stricken or even a ghost town.  The copper industry has been in the pits (no pun intended) in recent years due to falling prices brought on in part by replacement of copper with fiber-optic cables in telecommunications.  But the Botswana government, which owns the mines in partnership with Anglo-American Corporation, has kept them open to save the 4000 jobs of workers directly employed and countless others who would eventually be without income if the mines were to fold.  As so many mining towns in the western U.S. illustrate (Butte, Montana and Leadville, Colorado come to mind), economies based on mining are historically unstable.  As I learned from working as a geologist on mining projects (albeit in environmental positions), today they pay you good money and tomorrow they throw you out into the street.  What saves Botswana is the stability of the diamond market.  Were they as dependent on copper for foreign exchange income as Zambia is, the economy here would be toast like it is in Zambia.  It’s an inherent problem of developing economies.  Most are too dependent on the ups and downs of a few commodity exports.  They never have a chance to develop diversified industrial or service-oriented economies particularly because they lack investment capital and a skilled workforce. 

Botswana’s diamonds are buying the country time to diversify and educate the population.  The progressive and pragmatic government provides an atmosphere of stability which attracts foreign investors.  Botswana’s main disadvantage for the future, as I see it, is its proximity to politically-unstable South Africa and its dependence on that country for most of its consumer goods and transport of overseas imports and exports.  Like most of South Africa’s neighbors; including Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Swaziland, and Lesotho; Botswana is landlocked so nothing comes in or out of the country directly by sea. 

It seems to me that most of these students are relatively bright and sensible.  I think many will turn into good managers, bureaucrats, educators, or business people who can lead the country to future prosperity if events next door don’t drag it into economic stagnation, war, or political instability.