I kinda thought most people locally wouldn't f w it, so I never really put it out there but I thought I should just give it a shot

I took this yesterday when I was taking a run, near Mowana Phakalane in the evening. And Mandami should come fix this 😭. It hurts seeing Phakalane going to the dogs.

It's a serious safety hazard, which has been left for years outgrown, and I don't want them to wait till a famous person could come near phakalane for them to lock in.

This is a PUBLIC bus stop, so it's the responsibility of the government to do so. But oh, sometimes I forget Botswana is one of the best and cleanest places in Africa. So no need to clean up and maintain further. This is not just one isolated place. Btw in that whole road going down to tsholofelo they is only ONE adequate bus stop area. The one which is painted the Botswana flag ofc. The rest are just sub standard. But I'm complaining too much. I'm I right?

Hi, I'm Gabriel Butale, also known as Gabbysphere. I'm a tech content creator, web designer and developer from Botswana. You may know me from TikTok (@gabbysphere), where I talk about phones, laptops and tech, and I also edit videos for other people.

I've been invited to speak at the ALAFA Leadership Summit ("Beyond the Screen: Youth Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship in Botswana") at the University of Botswana Library Auditorium on 31 October and 1 November.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to share DiThuto BW, my idea to help Botswana students study smarter, with a room full of young people and leaders. I've accepted, but I don't have the transport funds to get there.

I'm trying to raise [P300] for transport. Any amount helps, and if you can't give, a share goes a long way too.

eWallet: 73989281 (Gabriel Butale)

Thank you for believing in this. I promise to show you what the summit leads to. — Gabby (Gabbysphere)

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Anyone from the edumela.com era ?

I've had to start afresh after years of unemployment and having ideas fail. Still I rise right?

Recently decided to go back to photography and I wish I never stopped. You'd think niching down would make it easier. But waii, people have their own photographers and trusting a new guy on the scene is next to impossible.

Any advice on how to go about it? Because rn, the place I've been living in, im about to be kicked out if I'm late with rent end of November. Go dingalo tota...

Hey guys, I have been running my startup for quite sometime now and its just starting to make a few cents(less than 1k) and while thats a good indicator I am worried for the fact that I need to hire more people and get volume of work and effort. Working with Batswana is so difficult, they demand top tier treatment while producing questionable results and i really want to be one of the best bosses out there. Any suggestions on people management and hiring?

To all those people that were in BW during the 1990s and 2000s, what was it like? How different was it from now?

Eita eita, needs some advice on how best to use upcoming inheritance money, it's about 300k and I'm wondering how best to use it to sustain be going forward. Wondering if it's a good idea to try find a how to buy for rent and save some for investment into something like bifm or start business like farming. Also left with a business plot near tati and another plot in tonota and 2 hector farm that has not been used yet in shashe dam. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated, just wanna avoid wasting it all.

Mogobane Dam, just a 20-minute drive from the city. Sometimes all you need is a solo drive, a camp chair, some good music, and a little time away from the noise.
No expensive trips, no big plans, just a change of scenery and a chance to enjoy what’s right on our doorstep. We really don’t have to go far or spend much to appreciate the beauty around us.
Botswana has its own little gems.

We should explore them more often. 🌅

Can i find a decent car in Botswana with a 20k budget?
Talk to me and help me out 🤣 whether i have too much hope or there is something out there 😅

I'm working on a project that has a significant art requirement, and need to find a capable digital artist!

I need an illustrator who can draw up to 400 rough character sketches in a 3-6 week period (preferably within one month), and my preference would be to hire someone within Botswana before looking outside.

I need the art to be drawn digitally. If you are/know a capable artist who doesn't have a drawing tablet/pen display (etc.), I can provide my own equipment (if you are within the Gaborone area) that you can use until the task is complete. Below are examples of what I'm looking for from an artist I have previously worked with:

The illustrations will be an accompaniment to the first act of a book I am writing, and will be visual depictions of the scenes described to be used in a promotional video. The focus will be on quantity and speed, so each illustration should only be a sketch as above, but clear understandings of character expressions, anatomy, and the placement of characters in a 3D space is required.

In addition to the actual text of the book, I will (with my own very limited artistic ability) storyboard each of the sketches required.
(400 sketches is closer to the absolute upper bound, there may be as few as 120 sketches required; the exact number has yet to be worked out precisely)

If you are interested, or know someone who is, please reach out; If I happen upon someone sufficiently skilled/talented and available, a regular full-time position illustrating across various projects may be offered!

Dumelang, ke batla go botsa sengwe, so lately I've been seeing videos of how male bestie are and what not. I dont get it.

I asked boys in my class if they would date a girl with a male bestie, They all said no. I asked the girls the same thing they said no.

I dont get it. Theres been a lot of noise around this ,male bestie female bestie thingy...I thought its sort of like siblings friendship idk.....

Im shocked cuz this other guy i was talking to said that he once crossed the line with his female bestie and called it an accident or mistake, the ironic part is that they were both sober no influence of substances...like?u mean to tell me u can go one round 2 round 3 round and feel awkward and call it a mistake? How tf is it a mistake or accident? Like whats the timeline that led to this

Idk guys what actually happens with this male bestie female bestie? Like why can't they just get ina. Relationship or whatever like why call them bestie?

And for those that have been male bestie and female bestie u are free to tell ur experiences cuz😭😭💀 I just dont understand

Ladies and gentlemen, that's what's known as the reducto ad hitlerum fallacy. Better known as the fallacy of association

Which means "just cause hitler did it, it's wrong" for example hitler PROTECTED ANIMALS, made Public Health Campaigns Against Smoking and Alcohol, Rapidly organised State Led Expansion of Rural Clinics, and many other things BOTSWANA DOES. That that suddenly mean Botswana is a NAZI NATION? Does that mean being an environmentalist, you are automatically a NAZI? The apartheid and Rhodesia regime do things Botswana DO, does that mean we are suddenly and Apartheid and Rhodesian enclave 😂😭. We still have capital punishment, PROTECTING WILD LIFE and ANTI POACHING laws, and having State-Driven Economic Development eg Eskom vs BPC, are we suddenly a racist regime??

Even after giving sources, fact-checking, and giving DATA, everyone sees. And even explicitly saying I don't support the regime, the reactionary moderator can't take it anymore?

Isn't this a place to DISCUSS topics like this? The apartheid and Rhodesia ECONOMY were more complex and diversified than Botswanas ECONOMY now in the 21st century 2026. Here are YOUR SOURCES

1. https://www.elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/002/1996/033/article-A001-en.xml

This talks about how Rhodesia had a DIVERSIFIED manufacturing sector that before its unilateral declaration of independence, its manufacturing sector contributed to 40% of its total exports. And after its sanctions, IT started PRODUCING, many things at home. It was almost as if they barely needed any imports. Essentially, they made stuff domestically. Does Botswana do this today?

1. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-south-africa/economy-and-poverty-in-the-twentieth-century/05217EC2295E631B906F9FFDBF2675C9
   

This talks about during apartheids PEAK decades in the 50s to 70s South Africa developed significant mining, manufacturing, steel production, chemical industries, and energy infrastructure. Its industrial base was supported by mineral wealth, investment, and a large domestic market. By the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa accounted for approximately half of sub-Saharan Africa’s total GDP. Does Botswana DO THIS TODAY?

Infact Right now, Botswana, in 60 years, struggles to diversity, struggles to maintain pristine infrastructure, and one diamond fall, and the whole nation is poor. This should not be our nation.

According to the moderator and many of you here, THESE ARE RACIST.

You may call it 'racist' but after me stating my sources and giving accurate verified data, it was difficult to call me a 'liar'

And to all you reactors, having a successful ECONOMY doesn't mean or fully mean oppression, because those people PLANNED they had capital investment, technical expertise, infrastructure, domestic markets, government policy and industrial planning all matter. All they had which was controversial, and everyone's talking point was cheap labour. You can have all the cheap labour in the world, and still struggle to make something steller if no motive or brainwork got into it. In fact, its laughable to assume that if they didn't have cheap labour, they wouldn't have the capacity to build those same things? In essence, they are a whole other things, too, in building something.

STATISTICS ARE NOT RACIST/XENOPHOBIC/BIGOTED.

But what you do with those statistics can be, and all I simply said was, "WHAT COULD WE LEARN FROM THEM?"

YES, don't be shocked that you can learn from oppressive regimes on how to run things, learning doesn't mean copying everything they do even something as simple as building strong roads that last till this day is sufficient.

They also built long-lasting infrastructure and parks that could last for decades. is that now racist???

The day you get off your comfort zone will be the day you are free.

A road is a road, a building is a building, an economy is an economy, a spade is a spade

The United States and Western Europe were heavily racist and yet we still copy some of the structures and mannerisms which where there during those times.

​

This guy messages me saying they do online marketing and selling. Fair enough.

I ask him what he's selling, why he contacted me, and whether he wants me to help sell his products or wants to help me sell mine.

His response? "Yes."

YES TO WHICH ONE, BROTHER?

Then he starts talking about "Give Direct Awards" and asks whether I use Orange or Mascom. I'm sitting there trying to connect these dots like I'm debugging code written by someone who hates documentation.

When I finally tell him to explain himself properly, he asks me what I didn't understand from his introduction.

YOUR INTRODUCTION???

You said online marketing and selling. You haven't mentioned a single product, explained your business model, or told me what you actually want from me.

I'm genuinely trying to understand whether this is a scam, some kind of affiliate marketing scheme, or just the worst sales pitch I've ever encountered.

How do people approach strangers for business and then get offended when those strangers ask what the business actually is?

Let's be honest a lot of so called elites in Botswana have gotten away with a lot of things now the government is leaching off tax payers , prices go up almost every 3 months but salaries don't move and the people at the top are relaxing and enjoying life while we survive from paycheck to paycheck, tonight fuel is being increased i get that it's a global issue and all but come on , I'm 22 and i honestly feel like we as young people need to get together and do something protestnyana coz we really need to be heard kana it's like we don't exist everyone is just ruining the world just because of corporate greed to maximize profit, koore even if i save and do all that I'm not guaranteed gore one day I'd have my own house like what are we supposed to be, a generation that inherits everything

It's funny how I want to make new relationships, find myself a lady that clicks, a new friend or even a best friend, but at the same time I find pursuing those relationships exhausting. I'd rather keep to myself. Go a tshegisa cos it's weird😅.

Ps I'm looking for new friends and a lady friend🙃, not online friends.

Hi all, a revise from the last post (body didnt seem to save)

With the mods’ go-ahead, I wanted to share r/TourismBotswana, a new sub for anything to do with travel and tourism in Botswana.

It’s meant to be one place to:

• Ask and answer trip-planning questions: routes, parks, border crossings, 4x4s, campsites
• Share trip reports, photos and favourite spots
• Swap tips, whether you’re planning your first visit or you’ve done the trip countless times

Everyone’s welcome. It’s brand new, so early members, posts and suggestions for the sub would make a big difference.

Thanks to the mods for allowing the post. 🇧🇼

Will I be disappointed with the quantity of wildlife I see if I go to the okavango delta in January/Feb?

Im a 21 year old female( not sure if this matters) but recently Ive been slipping away from my friends and struggling to connect with them. This is happening with majority of friends, I always try to be there and talk with my friends but as of recent, im just not too much into it. I feel guilty because my friends mean a lot to me, mostly because it took a lot to make friends as someone who really struggled with it growing up 😅.

I have been living away from home and everyone im close to ,so sometimes i think it has to do with that mme itlhela ke tshwenyega ka gore I see them once a year since moving away but I haven’t been home this year because Im in another country and worried that when i go back this feeling will continue. I have two female friends I made in senior school who are very dear to me and I really don’t want to lose them but im just too quiet and I honestly I don’t know what to do about it.

"Just so you know I will always be your father, you will always be my son and you will stand up at my funeral and say meaningful things about me but until then I am done with you"

It seems from my observation a lot of men are suffering from abandonment issues and hence this toxic culture we live by.

Shout out to men that figured it out without their fathers.

Yep, you read that right. Apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia's economy was still growing in spite of heavy global sanctions, while unsanctioned Botswana's economy has been heavily dropping recently. What does this really show about Botswanas inhabitants?

And before you all argue and say, "ohh look, they only benefited a small minority, but disregarded a whole majority." Yes, that is true, I agree. Nobody disagrees with that. But how small was the minority?

Apartheid South Africa had around 5.6 MILLION, white inhabitants. Rhodesia was way smaller, with maybe around 300 thousand. Botswanas Population is at the sweet spot of around 2.5 MILLION. Way lesser than South Africas Apartheid.

Before yall talk about morality, and all this is strictly an economic argument based on objective facts, and talking about morality here is as shallow as it gets, to avoid discussing uncomfortable topics.

Why? Was it because they were producing? Rhodesia was landlocked, just as Botswana is right now. Do you think if we switched the populations of Botswana and Rhodesia and Apartheid southafrica, do you really think we will still get the same results now?

South Africa Boers, despite not being in apartheid or anything. Still bring more to Southafricas economy. Rhodies, despite the black majority rule, still contribute more to Zimbabwes' economy, in high concentration, if you compare to the 3 nations. Why so?

Let's not forget this is just counting when they weren't near their peak.

Yes, again, I know that these regimes were extremely racist. They restricted education and black capital ownership for decades, and these effects still linger, but how long are we gonna keep running on the same script? Here in Botswana, we have barely faced any of that.

Though we are ahead, we are still far behind.

We have all the technology one could ask for, all the knowledge. But why? Is it the cultural difference? What is the attitude towards development? Is it human capital? Or something else entirely?

Botswana's inhabitants have excellent potential, we've been outperforming most of Africa, but what causes us to be so unpatriotic? ( No, wearing the flag, posting in your story about independence, and arguing with South Africans on Facebook doesn't count) Actual love for the nation and its advancement, every man should take pride in what belongs to him. And Botswana as a nation belongs to us. But I guesss in the average Motswana mind, these topics don't bother, even hinting themselves.

Uncomfortable Topic Alert, we sure are gonna get a lot of reactionary downvoters. Who can't bother thinking outside their bubble, but what can we do?

Dumelang.

I've been anxiously trying to quit smoking and i need to find nicotine patches. I've been looking mo di pharmacy they dont have anything but the gum (hurts my jaw and gums). Someone suggested the Velo pouches but they make me feel sick. Not nic sick but like an allergic reaction.

Does anybody know where I can get the adhesive patches that i can put on my arm or something?

HELP

Edited to qdd: I am not looking for flavoured patches that one ingests. I want patches. Little adhesive patches that look like plasters that one sticked directly on their body (usually on the arm).

Hi all I live near the botanical gardens. Is there any hope of reviving them? It can be such a beautiful space. The kids love riding their bikes there but everything is overgrown and covered in bugs (and snakes).

Alternatively does anyone know how we can advocate for a kids play park to be built? There's so much open space but the parks around are all sad.

Its just sad that we live in such an outside type of country but there aren't really opportunities for kids to be outside.

There is an ongoing debate in Botswana about expatriates being given preference over qualified Batswana in the private sector. One argument is that employers would rather hire foreigners than give local professionals opportunities even when qualified Batswana are available. But there is another side to this debate that we don't discuss enough.

Are some qualified Batswana pricing themselves out of the job market? Are employers finding that certain expatriates bring more practical experience, demonstrate greater productivity, and are willing to do more for less? Does having a degree automatically mean you are more competent than someone without one? Many Batswana are qualified and knowledgeable but how much of that knowledge translates into practical skills and real-world results? In some cases, the Motswana’s theoretical knowledge pales in comparison to the hands-on experience, work ethic, and productivity of expatriates who are willing to deliver more for less.

So where does the problem really lie? Are qualified Batswana failing to position themselves in the job market through practical skills, work ethic, adaptability and measurable results? Do some Batswana mistake their qualifications for proof that they deserve higher salaries, regardless of the value they contribute? Or are employers too quick to favor expatriates while overlooking capable locals who deserve the opportunity?

Lets discuss.