All entries for Monday 09 August 2004

August 09, 2004

A visit to Desert Cottage

Emma and I went to see our friends Johanna and Peter, who live in Gaborone. Johanna is an architect, and Peter is an IT business systems consultant. That's their city lives, complete with nice house and posh cars. However, they have another side.

Farming and the countryside are still of great importance in Botswana. Many wealthy city dwellers have large herds of cattle that they keep at a cattle post in the Kalahari. Peter and Johanna have continued this tradition through buying a small holding along the road between Phakalane and the village of Odi. This is a realy nice area, along the Ruretse farmland given to the first President, Sir Seretse Khama and his English wife Ruth.

Many of the plots along the narrow tar road have been developed well, sometimes as farms and sometimes as country estates with stables and delightful cottages. There is plenty of underground water, although Peter's attempts as locating a site for a bore hole have so far had no luck. The plot also contains a run down house which they plan to renovate.