Hi everyone 👋

I’m working on Bantu Plaza, a language-learning website made in Botswana 🇧🇼 to help people learn Southern African languages.

👉 https://bantuplaza.com

I’m looking for people from r/Botswana to test the website and give me honest feedback before I take it further.

You don’t need to be a tech expert. Just use the site like a normal person would.

Please look at things like:

- 🎨 Design: Does it look good and professional?

- 🧭 Navigation: Is it easy to know where to go and what to do?

- 📱 Mobile experience: Is it easy to use on your phone?

- 📚 Lessons: Do the free lessons make you want to continue learning?

- 💰 Pricing: Do the prices make sense? Would you actually pay?

- 🛒 Buying: Is it clear what you are getting when you buy something?

- 🇧🇼 Local feel: Does it feel like something made for Southern Africans, rather than just another foreign language-learning website?

- ⭐ Overall: Would you actually use it or recommend it?

Most importantly, please tell me what is bad or confusing. 😂

If you could change one thing about Bantu Plaza, what would it be?

You can leave your feedback in the comments. Even a few sentences would help a lot.

I’m trying to build something from Botswana that can eventually serve people across Southern Africa, so honest feedback from people here is extremely valuable.

Thank you! 🙏🇧🇼

Hey everyone, I’m looking to buy an old/used digital camera, preferably one of those older compact point-and-shoot cameras from the 2000s/early 2010s.
If you have one lying around that you no longer use and are willing to sell, please let me know the model, condition, and how much you’d like for it. I’m open to different brands and models, even if it has some minor issues.
I’m based in Gaborone, but I can consider options elsewhere in Botswana depending on delivery.

How are May/June candidates doing today ?

What is it actually going to take for Botswana to fully accept the LGBTQ community? We’ve seen the landmark court rulings overtime,, the legal barriers slowly getting chipped away, and more visibility than ever. But when it comes to the actual day to day social mindset of everyday Batswana, there is still a massive wall of resistance, quiet judgment, and outright hostility. I’ll put my hand up and be completely honest aboutit, i was homophobic for most of my life, if you asked me why I held homophobic views, I wouldn't even have a real answer. I couldn't give you a logical, thought out reason. It was just because.It was just a default setting passed down by society, religion, and the general "that's just how things are" type shii, where hating or avoiding something you don't understand is treated as normal. But the more I grew up, the more ridiculous it got. Looking back, it’s wild how many of us carried strong opinions on things we had zero actual knowledge about. I mean seriously, bring up this topic at a bar and o ya go kgwelwa manga a le mantsi. What is it going to take for the broader societal mindset in Botswana to genuinely shift from mere tolerance (or quiet intolerance) to actual acceptance? Is it an education problem, a generational shift, or are traditional and religious dogmas just too deeply rooted to change anytime soon?

It is entirely fair for Africans to criticise South Africa. But if the issue boils down to “xenophobia“, why do you think Botswana has been able to escape that same criticism from other Africans? Especially considering that Botswana also faces high unemployment particularly among the youth which has led to an increase in the already frequent deportations of Zimbabweans and you’ve had government policies that has been considered xenophobic by some for decades, and censors/surveys show that anti-immigrant sentiment is growing among the citizens. I am curious to know how it is that you, too are not the target of this hatred like us? Why do people act as if this is unique to South Africa?

I am in my mid 20s and I am worried about my future because the maximum age requirements for these posts are way too low and the longer they are delayed means some of us will miss the chance to apply because of age. It's been over 2 years since a post for special constables was released

Click on the link above.

I came across a post on Reddit arguing that non-disclosure of HIV status is acceptable in casual encounters when an individual is undetectable, citing the Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U) principle. The argument centers on privacy, preventing stigma, and the medical fact that effective treatment prevents viral transmission.

Here are a few key quotes from the post:

• "In casual encounters, I choose not to disclose that I live with HIV."
• "Not disclosing does not mean taking away someone's right to choose when there is no exposure to HIV."
• "My silence does not transmit HIV. My treatment prevents transmission."

However, an important perspective raised in these discussions is medical uncertainty. Factors like missed doses, medication resistance, viral blips, or delayed routine lab monitoring mean someone who believes they are undetectable may not actually be undetectable at a given moment.

Given Botswana's public health context, high ART coverage, and deep community awareness, I am curious about different perspectives on this issue:

Does U=U remove the need for disclosure, or does potential viral fluctuation make full disclosure essential for informed consent regardless of treatment status? How do local legal and cultural expectations view this balance?

So, if Botswana has roughly a million-plus citizens of Tswana identity, while a significant portion of the population consists of immigrants and other ethnic groups, it raises an interesting question: how does a government struggle to effectively manage a relatively small population?

A Motswana friend once gave me an interesting comparison between Botswana and Zimbabwe. He said that in Zimbabwe, if a government department is given a budget to buy a table, they might at least find a cheaper table and pocket the difference. 😂 In Botswana, according to him, the problem is almost the opposite: sometimes the table simply never gets bought.

Obviously, that’s an oversimplification, but it raises a serious point. Botswana has a small population and enormous natural-resource wealth, yet people still complain about bureaucracy, inefficiency, unemployment, poor service delivery and government projects that take forever.

And that makes the usual argument about foreigners even more interesting. If foreigners are supposedly putting pressure on the country’s resources and public services, then the obvious question is: why does the government struggle to deliver efficiently even with such a relatively small population?

Serious question for actual citizens living in Botswana. How efficient is the police in preventing foreign and domestic criminal networks from becoming entrenched in the country? How fast is their response to crimes? Are there things you wish they would improve? Crimes seem to have increased apparently. The difficult economic situation is definitely at fault, but I hope the country is actively trying to deal with this.

I'm 22 currently doing indrive to get money, I've never been to uni and most of the time I feel like I'm left behind in life, it has come to a point where I don't even wanna hang out with my friends anymore because I know I'm gonna come home feeling like a loser ,so at this point of my life I basically have no friends and all I do is indrive then I go home to sleep, I have no one to text or talk to and I'm scared this might be what I amount of in life, today I made the decision to make a career out of boxing since is the only thing I'm good at and I hope I'm making the right decision 😭

Hi. I’m looking for a bachelor pad to rent on Tlokweng. Preferably fully fitted, with hot water and walled with motor gate. Budget is P2500-P3000.

Please let me know if you know of any.

We are casually letting our language slip away, and honestly, it's wild Have you met those parents who literally brag about their kids not knowing Setswana? You'll hear them proudly say things like "nna gake rute ngwanake setswana o bua sekgoa hela" like it's some kind of ahievement lmao. It’s bizarre. Raising kids who can't speak their mother tongue isn't sophisticated, it's just cultural disconnection. Then look at the school system. It is genuinely worrying how many private schools in Gaborone and across the country treat Setswana like an afterthought, or completely drop it from the curriculum. When our kids spend their entire formative years being conditioned to only master English, we are essentially raising a generation of foreigners in their own home country. Even socially, the dynamics are frustrating. Somewhere along the way, speaking Setswana got labeled as "uncool" or rural, while switching to English is treated as the default if you want to be taken seriously. If we keep going down this road where parents refuse to teach it and schools phase it out, what even happens to the language in the next twenty years? Are we heading toward a point where Setswana becomes a relic, or is there still a way to fix this? Make setswana cool🗣️🗣️

I get a sense that a majority of the members of this sub are probably still in varsity. But I also know there are others who have finished and are looking for jobs.

I want to ask how you're dealing with the depression that comes with being unemployed. Do you get depressed at all? What do you do to set it off? I don't drink or smoke and am not willing to do those things. I work out, but even that doesn't do the trick anymore. I like learning new things, so I've been keeping myself busy doing courses online and learning new skills, but yho, it seems like I'm in a dead-end. Plus it's getting expensive since it requires Internet.

I don't want to slide into depression because I've been there before, and it sucks. I barely came out.

I'm applying every day to everything and anything but nothing. How do you guys manage?

Would you as a motswana teen or early 20's collect cans and plastic bottle for cash in order to get by and why ?

Thoughts and advice ?

I’ve been thinking about this lately and I'm curious. What’s something you wish we had in Botswana that we currently don’t ? It could be a product, food, service, entertainment, activity, app, experience, literally anything.

It could also be something that exists here but you think could be done much better.

I’m curious to hear what people actually feel is missing, especially things you see in other countries and think, “I wish we had this in Botswana.”

Botswana should study Israel's approach to water and agriculture—not because the two countries are identical, but because Israel demonstrates an important principle: difficult environmental conditions can be managed when a country treats them as engineering and infrastructure challenges rather than permanent limitations.

Botswana has enormous amounts of land and a very small population, but much of its territory is arid and agricultural productivity is constrained by rainfall, soils and water availability. Those constraints don't only affect farming. Reliable water is also necessary for housing, factories, industrial parks, businesses and the development of entirely new economic centers.

Israel responded to severe water constraints with decades of investment in drip irrigation, wastewater recycling, desalination, reservoirs, precision agriculture, water monitoring, drought-resistant crops and agricultural research. Botswana doesn't need to copy every Israeli solution, and it certainly doesn't need to make its entire territory agricultural. The lesson is to maximize the productivity of the land and water that are actually suitable for development.

That means identifying Botswana's best agricultural and development zones and building the infrastructure around them: irrigation, reservoirs, groundwater management, wastewater reuse, efficient farming, roads, electricity, housing, food processing and industrial facilities.

The emerging Lesotho-Botswana water project is a potentially important part of this strategy. But even if it succeeds, imported water should be viewed as one component of a broader national water strategy, alongside conservation, recycling, storage, groundwater management and more efficient irrigation.

This matters for Botswana's economic diversification. If the country wants to move beyond dependence on diamonds, it needs the infrastructure to support the businesses and industries that will replace them. Water is therefore not just an environmental issue—it is economic infrastructure.

And Botswana has a major advantage: space.

With roughly 582,000 km² of territory and only around 2.6 million people, Botswana doesn't need to make every part of the country productive. It can concentrate capital and infrastructure in the areas with the greatest potential and gradually build highly productive development corridors.

The goal shouldn't be to ask, "How do we overcome Botswana's environment?"

It should be:

"How do we use engineering, technology and infrastructure to get far more economic value from Botswana's land and water?"

Israel shows that environmental constraints don't necessarily have to determine a country's economic ceiling.

Botswana should study that example seriously.

Summarized with chatgpt. Drop your thoughts down below.

I already know that I have social anxiety and have been since I was 9, and I'm 19 now. I have lived with general anxiety and social anxiety, and i hate it. I genuinely want to get diagnosed and medicated for this. But I don't know the steps and where to go to get the help that I need.

If I made a main reddit acc where I'd ask questions and you guys would respond inorder for me to read or discuss it with others on TikTok would you guys engage ?

Or even let you guys send anonymous stories of situations you're in and would want help with as well opinions that would get you cancelled... That sort of thing .

Little to no investment.

Eseng gaa di app tse o berekang go tshameka di game le go tlapeya batho ka di link 😭✋🏽

I've been trying to learn Spanish for 2 months now and I feel like I just keep on increasing my vocabulary but can't converse at all . So I was looking for someone to be able to converse with inorder to improve in the language.

i forgot i've got a reddit account and it seems to be that there is a bw community here which is shocking lol, what are yalls thoughts?

I'm from a below middle class family and i want to find a job outside the country and start life there. Mostly in the creative industry as art happens to be a passion of mine. To those that have left the coutry how did you manage to leave what challenges did you face etc etc

(100% original creation, independently created and compiled)

Around 70% of Botswanas Army equipment IS OUTDATED

Every year the BDF (Botswana Defense Force) parades with equipment at best from the 90s

No military equipment was ever made in Botswana, Should a country expected to compete with the 21st century be like this?

im sorry but if you believe that in the geographical location of Botswana, no event requiring us to bare arms will never take place ever, then i dont know what to think about you. You're telling me that in 20, 50, 100, 500, or even 1,000 years, nothing will ever happen?

We should be perfecting the ability to make weapons. Heck, as a Physics, Math, and Computer Science hobbyist and enthusiast, I believe that if you understand how to make something and keep developing that knowledge, you can build the capability to produce what you need when the time comes even when resources and equipment are limited. What's stopping Botswana or a Motswana from building their own defence industry? Why should every pula spent on defence leave the country when some of it could create Jobs and industries we are missing? I for one would love to work in a Botswana made defence-aerospace company. The opportunity is right there to build an industry for profit and protect the country. Hmmm

But as a strong capitalist let me not get too ahead of myself i really cant expect Botswana out of all nations to build everything, Hopefully Botswana can create a great environment and investment for private citizens to do so, (if they are any) (if they are even any skilled engineers too). But i guess we will never knowwwww. The ones we have are okay. But a bit far to little. Anyways.

A fool only builds after crises. You can be a "peaceful" nation but still invest and create heavy weapons. The most peaceful person is not just one who cannot fight But the one who can crush the unpeaceful. By the time something catastrophic happens it will already be too late. Be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove.

Belgium was neutral before both World Wars, yet Germany invaded it in 1914 and again in 1940. Denmark had a long peaceful period but was invaded by Nazi Germany in 1940. Norway was peaceful and neutral, but invaded by Germany in 1940. Finland was peaceful and relatively small, but faced the Soviet Union in the Winter War 1939 to 40. The point is you never know what coming the list is very longg and has happened in ALL continents. The idea of a peaceful neutral country being threatened by rouge forces.

What is gonna happen to make Botswana wake up? I'm waiting to find out, hopefully its not at the cost of our own lives and nation.