About Botswana
Botswana is a small landlocked country in Southern Africa sharing a border with South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Namibia. The capital city of Botswana is Gaborone. The climate is described as a semi-arid with distinctive expanse of the Savannah, Desert wetlands and Saltpans.
The population of this wildlife and wilderness country is approximately 2.63 million. Botswana is an area rich in indigenous plants with unique names and medicinal abilities, knowledge only known by the local people and learned via tour guides. Breathtaking wild animals include Lions, Elephants, Cheetah, Ostrich, Leopard and wild dogs just to name a few.
Brief History
Botswana used to be known as Bechuanaland from the 1800 under colonial rule of Britain. It gained its full independence on the 30th September 1966 under the leadership of its first president Sir Seretse Khama who was married to Ruth Williams who was a London native. This country is a democratic country which had peaceful succession of leadership respectively from 1966 to date. It was a least developed country which is now blooming from previous leaderships and the present leadership of its president Dr Mokgweetsi Eric Masisi, the 5th president of Botswana. Political stability and low cases of corruption have over the years placed Botswana in top 10 peaceful, stable and less corrupt country.
Botswana pride itself with being identified by different ethnic groups with primary languages. The official languages are Setswana and English. Amongst many ethnic groups, there are 3 which contribute enormously to the tourism of Botswana being the Basarwa known as the Bushmen who reside around the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, and the Bayei and the Bahambukushu who reside around the Okavango Delta.
The Basarwa are uniquely recognized as the first inhabitants of Botswana who were able to survive in the past by hunting wild animals and gathering wild fruits. There are lots of unrecorded pre historic knowledge of them, and now they are residing in the South East of Botswana. Bayei and Bahambukushu proudly known as the people of the river, residing around the Okavango delta, have inverted the Dugout Canoe (Mokoro) to lighten life in the swamp land areas. They used trees such as Sausage tree and jackal berry to make a mokoro which transported their goods from one place to another. With the present conservation laws, the use of trees to make Mokoro was discouraged and nowadays Mokoro is made from fiber glass. In the present day, Mokoro plays a major role in the tourism industry of Botswana as it is one of the unique ecofriendly safari experience which allows for a peaceful and close-to-nature experience.
SOCIO ECONOMIC LIFE
The economy of Botswana depends primarily on the export of beef and diamonds. It is a developing country facing socio economic problems such as large population of low income earners leading to populous of middle class income society. Crime rate in Botswana is low, which is contributed by the country incorporating the help of community leaders in every town who solemnly help to fight crime. President Dr Mokgweetsi Eric Masisi is tirelessly moving Botswana’s economy higher through amongst many, empowering the youth and women, poverty eradication schemes, promoting tourism and commercializing Agriculture. Hospitals, schools and other social services have been increased over years making it accessible to all.