A country where everyone obeys the rules

Someone told me in London when I said I was going to Botswana that the capital, Gaborone, was: “a bit of a backwater, don’t expect anything flashy”.

This was in 1987.

Gaborone, circa 1987 would probably fit the backwater definition as an isolated or peaceful place where nothing spoils the tranquillity, and yes, compared to the West Africans I was used to, the people were much quieter, laid back and everything was low key.

But the backwater definition as a place where no development or progress was taking place, would have been a sad and totally wrong reading of the Botswana I landed in, on the last leg of my three-country duty trip for the BBC back in 1987.

It was probably true that there was nothing flashy.

They are not flashy in Botswana.

But I am getting ahead of myself, as usual.

Let us get to the morning after my arrival in Gaborone, I am guest of a Ghanaian couple, the man is a senior Ghanaian civil servant on official attachment with the Botswana government.

The BBC Focus on Africa stringer, a male, white Botswana national, is showing me around town and telling me about the place.

I ask him if he thought I would be able to get an interview with the President.

“No harm in asking”, he said and proceeded to talk to me about President Ketumile Quett Masire.

“If he is in town and it is a working day, you can be sure that he will be at his desk at 7.45am, which is when work starts.”

The President is at his desk at 7.45am every day? I quizzed.

“Please ask anyone, or better still, go to the President’s office on any working day and check it out for yourself”, the stringer told me.

I did get an interview with President Masire, he was puzzled I found it strange he was at his desk when work is supposed to start.

“I expect everyone to obey the rules and I also obey them”, he said with that trademark, high-pitched laugh of his that I was to cherish for many years afterwards.

This question of obeying the rules came up over and over again, throughout my six-day stay in the country.

My Ghanaian host told me everybody obeyed rules in Botswana and backed the assertion with the story of a very senior Ghanaian legal officer who had been on attachment to the Botswana public office.

He was given an official vehicle and a driver.

At the end of his first day at work, the driver took him home at 4pm, which was the end of the working day and told him politely he was going to park the car in the office and see him the next morning at 7am to take him to work.

The Ghanaian official told the driver he wasn’t yet done for the day and they then went to visit friends and other places until much later in the evening when the driver finally dropped him at home and went to park the car.

Over weekends, the driver was asked to come and take the official around and this became the routine throughout the two years attachment period.

Nothing extraordinary, you might say with your Ghanaian and maybe West African background.

At the end of the official’s attachment period, a log book was brought out by the driver in which was documented every time the vehicle had been used after 4pm on a weekday and any time it had been used over a weekend.

He was charged for the use of the car and the driver during the “unauthorised periods” and by the time the calculations were concluded, and the money was deducted from his exit package, our compatriot had nothing left.

“These people are serious here and rigorous with their rules”, my Ghanaian host told me in awe.

The rule was an official car could only be used between 7am and 4pm on a working day and the only exemption at the time was the President of the Republic.

Everyone else, including Ministers of State, the Vice-President, all public servants, no matter how senior, were bound by this rule and obeyed it without question and I remember how puzzled they all were that I was surprised they all obeyed the rule. 

Diamonds

At this time, diamonds had been discovered and the giant diamond company, De Beers from South Africa had teamed up and was operating in the country as Debswana, but cattle was the main livelihood and economic lifeline for Botswana.

As the saying went, there were more cattle than human beings in the country.

Almost everyone had a cattle farm and they were exporting beef on a large scale to Europe.

I spent a happy day at a huge, modern cattle farm, and a fascinating day at the offices of Debswana.

De Beers was made to build a sorting house in Gaborone where the diamonds were graded before being sent to De Beers in London, and President Masire was especially proud he had also insisted the Batswana people were trained in sorting and evaluating diamonds.

The President was famous for his commitment and investment in education and in health, and it showed dividends during the AIDS crisis, when Botswana funded its own programme while other African countries had to rely on international aid.

Botswana was very much in the firing line in the wars against apartheid, surrounded as it was, by white-ruled countries, to the east, Rhodesia, (Zimbabwe) to the west, South West Africa, (Namibia).

It provided a quiet, safe haven for freedom fighters and stood up to the inevitable intimidation from apartheid South Africa.

The Botswana currency is called the Pula, which means “water” in the Setswana language.

In a country that is mostly desert, it was easy to understand why they called their money “Water”.

It was the only country in Africa I went to in those days and probably still today, where there was no anxiety about foreign exchange.

Nobody hankered after US dollars or British pounds or any European currency, they had confidence in their Pula and it reigned supreme.

Incident

My Botswana story cannot be complete without the “it is your hair” incident.

I am at the reception of the Gaborone Sun, which was the main top hotel in town and I am leaning on the reception desk talking with one of the front desk officers.

Suddenly I feel someone grab my hair from the back.

(I had at this time thick, long, black hair and wore it hanging down my neck.)

My hair is pulled violently and I stagger and turned around to see what was going on.

There stood a youngish woman staring at her empty hand and talking more to herself than to me in shock and seeming disbelief: “it is your hair!”

Of course, it is my hair, what did you think and what have I done to you  that you have pulled my hair so violently?

She kept muttering: “it is your hair, it is your hair, I have never seen so much hair on a black woman’s head, it is your hair”.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

I decided maybe this was part of the backwater designation.

Between the cattle farms, the day at Debswana, the use of official vehicles, the President at his desk at 7.45am, the total disinterest in the US dollar and the confidence in the Pula, and the laugh of President Quett Masire, I accepted the “it is your hair” incident as a comedy break and left Botswana, totally hooked on the country and its people.

To this day, it remains one of my favourite countries.