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Born in Kenya and Uganda: settled in Botswana

Botswana: a safe country to emigrate to

As I travelled around Botswana on my last trip, I had the pleasure to stay with Cathy and Joe, a delightful couple now living in Maun, in the north of Botswana. They'd fled Idi Amin's Uganda in 1972 and finally settled in Botswana in 1994. They had some interesting insights from many years living and working in Botswana, and tinged by being able to make comparisons with other African countries.

I arrived in Maun late in the afternoon and was disorientated: it's grown a lot since I was last here. Its small airport is being extended so it can take international direct flights and Maun is gearing up to be a tourist hotspot as the gateway to the Okavango Delta. I ring Cathy and Joe and they drive out to collect me. Their house is accessed via fine sandy tracks once you leave the tarmaced main road: the residential 'streets' are swathes of sand and I'd forgotten the distinctive taste of the dust thrown up when one travels off road in Botswana.

Their house is pleasant, cool and, to my surprise, well locked and with barred windows. Botswana, although clearly still a low crime country, is now starting to experience enough crime that people have had to stop being blase about security. Some blame the increasing numbers of refugees from Zimbabwe, just over the border.

Cathy and Joe talk about their time in Uganda and Kenya, and their adult children scattered around the world: the UK, California, and South Africa. You realise Cathy and Joe are world citizens - borders and travelling mean very little to them. They have had to engage with many different cultures and countries in their lifetime and accept it as the norm.

They run their own businesses and have brought a work ethic and drive with them that Joe demonstrated when he worked for Uganda's airline, and then for Air Botswana. They like the morals, stability and opportunity of Botswana. Joe speaks approvingly of President Khama's attempts to address Botswana's alcohol problems by increasing prices by 30%. Cathy approves of Khama's drive to promote marriage (while being slightly disappointed that he isn't!) as she says many women raise children alone, and men flit from woman to woman. Cathy is impressed by the government. She relates the tale of queuing in a bank once and behind her was a government minister: she can't think of any other African country where that would happen.

The next morning the house is locked, the TV is left on at high volume, and we head into Maun so I can reacquaint myself with it and see how it's changed.


This is just one of the stories from my Botswana talk

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