Enough

It has finally dawned on me why Gaborone is so different to Johannesburg. In Johannesburg, everyone is part of the rat race, endlessly striving, buying, scheming, getting, without end. In Gaborone, most of the people understand the concept of enough – enough work to pay for life without killing yourself, enough to own without becoming a slave to your possessions, enough time to accomplish things or there is always tomorrow.

A hard concept for someone who has worked in Johannesburg since the age of 17 – I was trapped on the treadmill and it paid me generously but now, for the first time in my life, I contemplate a life less greedy. I don’t need more or much at all – I have shoes I have never worn, clothes I have forgotten about, books unread, movies unwatched, recipes uncooked and time enough to accomplish this. I can actually spend time contemplating my garden, the birds, read poetry and work enough to pay for this.

Ah, but there is retirement and the need to have money then to carry on a lifestyle engrained in my psyche. I don’t have a ‘home’ with cattle in some more remote and quiet part of Botswana, where my village will support me in my declining years. I come from a Western culture, where the aged are tossed aside, forgotten and demeaned.

This gentle culture, which sometimes infuriates me because of its alternative time stream, has almost no child headed households, beggars, street children and starving forgotten aged members of its society. This culture believes that ‘all for one and one for all’ is a true motto, that helping your neighbour, even the stranded woman with a flat tyre is part of who you are and what you are. That beggars, orphans and widows’ behaviour reflects on their ability to protect the weak and that it would disgrace the village, the people and the country, if they publicly starved.

Yes, there are the lazy, the drunkards, the flotsam of society but even they are tolerated, perhaps in the spirit of “there, but for the grace of God, go I.”

It’s not an ideal world but perhaps here in Botswana, I too can recapture some of the freshness of a life less active and more contemplative, more music and art, less technology and ‘must have’. Giving, rather than getting, laughing rather than scowling, living rather than surviving.

It more clearly captures the concept of ‘Ubuntu’, which in Tswana language is called botho. Botho is one of Botswana's five national principles (the others being Democracy, Development, Self Reliance and Unity).

The Botswana people use the term botho to describe a person who has a well-rounded character, who is well mannered, courteous and disciplined and realises his or her full potential both as an individual and as a part of the community to which he or she belongs. Botho is an example of a social contract of mutual respect, responsibility and accountability that members of society have toward each other.

Botswana's Vision 2016 states, “Botho defines a process for earning respect by first giving it and to gain empowerment by empowering others. It encourages people to applaud rather than resent those who succeed. It disapproves of anti-social, disgraceful, inhuman and criminal behaviour and encourages social justice for all.”