Botswana, Gaborone

Botswana

Gaborone

The beauty of this project is that sometimes I actually get close to people. Not really close as in that I know everything about them. That’s impossible given the limited time I can spend in each capital. But still you can get close to people when you meet them as a total stranger and you leave as a friend. That’s what happened here in Gaborone, Botswana. 

I’d been taking photos downtown for a day before I heard about what was going on at he bus station from friends I met. I decided to go and check it out. All bus stations are the same, or at least they start to look like that after seeing so many. But to my surprise the one in Gaborone was definitely something different. I mean, a bus station combined with a pool joint…?! They’re all over the place but somehow I ended up talking to these guys. They were super friendly and interested and told me a lot about their lives. They turned out to be Zimbabwean refugees of which Botswana has many. A Zim table in Botswana they said. Luckily Botswana and other countries are quite tolerant to people fleeing from Zimbabwe. But it’s not a permanent solution of course and they all want to go back.

An afternoon well spent with these friendly guys who really looked after me even when things suddenly got a little rough. Exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for with Streets of the World.