I’ve really enjoyed this week in Gaborone (four syllables, not three as in the Colonial name ‘Gabarone’). It’s been hard work (that’s normal, with teaching), but it’s been a delight to be in such a pleasant, kindly, polite, and aware place – and that’s relative to Cape Town!
The last time I came across such a ubiquity of genuine warmth, friendliness and helpfulness was in Seoul. I mean things like complete strangers greeting you with a smile and a cheery ‘Good Morning’ in the street; as a standard thing to do – in the Capital; in the CBD! I mean normal people, not beggars (I didn’t meet any), not hustlers, just people about their business.
I was obviously looking a bit lost in the Airport and a fellow passenger, noticing this, came up to point out where ‘Information’ was, suggesting that I might get help there. He wasn’t a taxi driver, a tout, and an airport employee, just a passenger, mindful enough of others to notice my mild air of confusion and, even more, to step in and offer some help. Brilliant!
I also liked the general sense of style – lots of elegant, poised, attractive women, but, more than that, many, not just the young and pretty, with an almost parisienne sense of self and style. The plenitude of multi-coloured parasols, necessary in the heat, lend a sprightliness to the streets, distracting one from noticing that the pavements are not, of course, in perfect repair.
Botswana is obviously not a rich country. I think that’s part of the reason. I remember the same sense of a people content with who they are in Burkina Faso.
Maybe the altitude (only about 300m nearer Sea Level than Joburg) has made me light-headed. It’s possible, the clouds, in the clear air, seems so sharp, so close, and the colours so luminous, that I might be off with the fairies – everything else, though, the projector that needed a tin of diet coke to stop it pointing at the ceiling, the airport, clearly Chinese built, with huge automated gangways made for 747s that never come and stand completely unused as the little propeller aeroplanes park amongst them are realistically African.
The air is noticeably clean and sweet, particularly, of course, after the heavy rain – amazingly, the whole week, I’ve had only one, single, brief whiff of cigarette smoke.
The feeling has been, though, palpable, good humour abounds – the sound of chat and laughter is ubiquitous. I think one could do a lot worse than end up here.
My only regret? I didn’t take a photo of the lively, rusted-iron sculpture, of two elegant ostriches, in the pavement, opposite where I was working. Silly me.
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