Some things don't change

I'm still figuringout how images work in this program. If they are not selfexplanitory or in the test, I'll try an comment at the beginning or the end. This is an overall view of Serowe from the white highlands (more on that later) and shows how spread out the "village" is. This is a sparcely populated country and lots of land available. This is why, traditionally the yards have been so big.

Some things have not changed, even though this is now a “village” of 40000 people. There is the same warm greeting and smile every time you see someone you know or even when you pass a stranger on a path. There is the ritual handshake on being introduced. There is also the same unhurried atmosphere about business and in the streets though I am told this is being lost in the capital Gaborone which is larger and more cosmopolitan.

Any time you pass a group of kids and they see the camera, they still ask to be photographed. Except that now I can show them the results right away which elicits much laughter and comment as they doubtless remark on each other’s looks.

The goats are still around and still search for every morsel they can find. In order to keep goats out, compounds are still surrounded by thorn trees or rubber bushes (which no creature on earth can eat and is even harmful to humans). What has been added to many courtyards, including this one, is wire fencing.

Shorts are still rarely worn in this hot country. Women never wear them, usually preferring skirts or, sometimes, among the younger ones, long pants. I can recall an elder coming to school in 1968 and expressing displeasure about how some of the female teachers were appearing in town with short shorts. On my first visit to the mall I noticed that almost no other male was wearing shorts, so I will wear long pants from now on to make myself less conspicuous, not that my skin colour doesn’t make me very conspicuous already. In fact the other day I did not see another white face when I was at the mall. One of wonderful things about this country is that it has been a society that promoted equality from the moment of independence (1966) inspite of the fact that it was next door to, and in many ways dependent on, one of the most racially divided countries in the world at that time, South Africa. For anyone interested in this topic, the story of the first president of this country is a fascinating one. He was a chief studying law in England and married an English woman. As you might imagine, this upset many factions here and it took years to sort out. The book, An Inconvenient Marriage, gives the details.