50 years ago today, The Republic of Botswana was 'born'.
Every village across the country is celebrating today in various ways - including joining together in the village kgotla….and people have been busy sending social media messages wishing each other 'happy 50th Independance Day'.
Here is a 'video message' that we received multiple times with the National Anthem as the background music:
Our village of Gabane, has been adding decorations around the village in all kinds of creative ways, making use of what they have available.
Last week the ‘torch’ which has been touring the country came through Gabane.
Earlier in the week, the premiere of the movie ‘A United Kingdom’ about Botswana’s first President Sir Seretse Khama and his British wife Ruth was shown….at which Prince Andrew - the Duke of York attended.
In the Capital City, last night at the National Stadium there were fireworks and today there was a big parade which ended at the Stadium.
The weather was perfect - not too hot, sunny with full blue skies!
We didn’t go to the Stadium, as much as we would have liked to, as it was expected that it would be full to overflowing, roads near it would be closed, and negotiating all that with a wheelchair was out of the question.
So we watched what we could via the ‘live’ broadcast on the local TV station.
It opened with prayer by the current President and was attended by two of the past 3 Presidents.
We were thrilled with all the work that had gone into the decorated truck floats and the other displays tracing the history of the country and showcasing its current accomplishments. They did a superb job!
As a country it has come a long way from what it inherited at Independance (as I talked about in a previous blog post) and is reflected in this article sent to us today…..Botswana has come far from the impoverished ‘charity case’ predictions.
I learnt a few new facts about Botswana from the live broadcast commentators, including that the currency - the PULA - was only introduced 10 years after Independance. (prior to that they were using the Rand). PULA is the Setswana word for ‘rain’ and is to reflect that without rain, the country cannot be successful, and makes up the unoffical ‘warcry’ (without the ‘war) of ‘Pula, Pula, Pula’!…and is has connotations of ‘blessing’.
All the government departments and parastatals, along with the military, police, youth groups such as Guides and Scouts were featured in the parade as were various animals including camels!…which were some of the early means of transport for the Police.
It all concluded with a huge flag coming down into the Stadium from above by a parachutist.
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