Qualla: Botswana

Botswana: Introduction

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Winfried Bruenken (Amrum), CC BY-SA 2.5. The currency is called the pula. It means "rain" in Setswana. In a country that contains much of the Kalahari Desert, where water is scarce enough to shape an entire culture's vocabulary of value, naming your money after rainfall is not whimsy -- it is theology. The smaller denomination, the thebe, means "shield." Rain and protection: the two things Botswana has pursued most deliberately since independence in 1966, and the two things that explain how a landlocked nation surrounded by Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe became one of Africa's most stable, prosperous, and quietly remarkable countries.

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Image: Winfried Bruenken (Amrum) | CC BY-SA 2.5

Botswana: The Protectorate That Refused to Be Colonized

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit British Government., Public domain. Botswana was never truly colonized. In 1885, the Scottish missionary John Mackenzie, alarmed by Boer encroachment on the territory of the Bamangwato people, helped arrange an extraordinary diplomatic mission: three chiefs of the major Tswana tribes travelled to Britain to negotia...

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Image: British Government. | Public domain

Botswana: A Marriage That Changed a Nation

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kutlwano Magazine, Public domain. While studying law in London, Seretse Khama married Ruth Williams, a white English clerk. The interracial union provoked fury from apartheid South Africa, discomfort in London, and opposition from Khama's own family. The British government, under pressure from Pretoria, exiled hi...

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Image: Kutlwano Magazine | Public domain

Botswana: Where a River Disappears Into the Desert

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joachim Huber, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Okavango River flows southeast from the Angolan highlands, crosses Namibia's Caprivi Strip, and then does something almost no other major river does: instead of reaching the sea, it fans out across the Kalahari sands into the world's largest inland delta. During peak flood in...

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Image: Joachim Huber | CC BY-SA 2.0

Botswana: Seswaa, Mopane Worms, and the Kalahari Table

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kalanga, CC BY-SA 3.0. Botswana's national dish is seswaa: beef, goat, or lamb boiled slowly until tender, then shredded or pounded and served with pap -- a stiff maize porridge that is the starch backbone of southern African cooking. The meat is seasoned with "just enough salt" and nothing more; the f...

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Image: Kalanga | CC BY-SA 3.0