"Gaborone: a capital city w/ a strange... " a Gaborone Travel Page by Kid-A

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Driving into Gaborone

Learning to pronounce 'Gaborone'

The 'G' is more like an 'H' sound, but with a bit of a throaty thing added in, and the 'e' at the end is pronounced as a long e sound. So phonetically, it is spelled something more like Hahboronee.

According to Wikipedia, for many years, Gaborone was the fastest growing city in the world. Even today, it is still considered the fastest growing city in Africa.

But I found it to be designed in a very strange manner. It is very spread out. A resident told me it was designed by 2 Swedish guys on drugs! I don't know if it's true, but I could understand it if it is. :) I drove around that city for a week and never fully understood how or why things were placed the way they were!

Gaborone is located in the south of Botswana (only a short 15 kilometers from the border of South Africa).

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Part of the government enclave in the city center

The center of the city

When you say 'downtown' or the 'city center' in Gaborone, you would be referring to the government enclave. It's easy to find. They are the newer, more modern-looking buildings in the city. This is the center, so they tell me. There is a small walking area and a few monuments (you'll see a few in my Things To Do tips).

The modernist city center is surrounded by lower-rise development (organized as 'blocks,') and that has not been subject to the same planning as the enclave. But the city is surrounded by villages: Ramotswa to the south east, Mogoditshane to the north west, and Mochudi to the east and Tlokweng. A lot of people live in these villages and work in Gaborone.

A railway line divides the city into two.

Just FYI: Botswana's Independence Day is September 30, 1966.

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Nightlife in Gaborone involves plenty of alcohol!

Batswana live in Botswana

Just like citizens of New York are New Yorkers, citizens of Botswana are Batswana. So now you know. I was reading a newspaper on my first morning in Botswana and couldn't understand why some people spelled it with an 'o' and some with an 'a'. I just couldn't accept that it was being misspelled in a nation-wide newspaper! :)

AIDS and southern Africa

Botswana, like many nations in southern Africa, suffers from a high AIDS infection rate, which was 38.8% for adults in 2002. In 2003, the government began a comprehensive program involving free or cheap generic anti-retroviral drugs as well as an information campaign designed to stop the spread of the virus.

From what I have seen and heard during my time in Botswana, I'd have to say it's going to be a slow-going process to change the culture and stop the spread of HIV. One word comes to mind when I think of Batswana: promiscuous. It is common for men to have many girlfriends as well as a wife and children. And it is accepted for a wife to have a boyfriend on the side. And this is one of the biggest factors in the continued spread of HIV in the country. Someone told me, "The culture is literally killing itself."

I saw it myself. I went out one night with a few guys from the course I was teaching. We stopped by one guy's house and I met his wife, son and brother-in-law. We then went out to the Bee 6 Bar (Bee means 'block' and the city is divided into blocks). He didn't return with us. He went off with a girl he met at the bar.

//more to come//