ECW-NC
Episcopal Church Women in NC
Author: ECW-NC
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Like the Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of North Carolina, the Mother’s Union of Botswana rotates the place of its conference. In August 2010, Tsabong, on the southwestern edge of the country in the Kalahari Desert, was the home for the annual event.
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A journey of a 1,000 miles may begin with a single step, but the 324 miles between Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, and Tsabong, the administrative center of the Kgalagadi District in the Kalahari Desert, is best begun with a reliable vehicle and trailer.
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Within a few days of the tornadoes that tore through North Carolina on April 16, 2011, I began receiving e-mail from Botswana. The people there had begun to get word of the destruction wreaked by the storms and they were concerned.
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The Mother’s Union, active throughout the worldwide Anglican Communion, is one of two primary women’s ministries in the Diocese of Botswana. The Episcopal Church Women of the Diocese of North Carolina has unique relationships with both these groups as they focus on different things at different times.
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Botswana is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast. One afternoon, while on a leisurely ride through the countryside with a few friends, the driver suddenly veers off the road and makes his way through mounds of reddish brown sand, halting abruptly at the edge of a clearing.
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Though English is the official language of Botswana, Setswana (also spelled Tswana) is the dialect spoken most widely across the country. Four million people across southern Africa use it, and it is written in the Latin alphabet.
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‘I want you to have your own business,’ he said to her on his death bed. ‘You’ll get a good price for the cattle now. Sell them and buy a business. A butchery maybe. A bottle store. Whatever you like.’ (From The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency)
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In Botswana, whether in city, suburb or village, there is the strong sense that all of us — the two-legged, four-legged, and winged ones — are in this together.
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Of the many benefits of traveling, especially to places that don’t look or sound much like the place you’re from, is the reminder of the infinite variety of God’s creation. It’s a good thing to not get too complacent – or smug – about where you and yours are in the scheme of things.
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Whether it’s refugees from countries torn by strike, immigrants seeking better opportunities or a church-sanctioned visitor, Botswana welcomes. It’s a country where an emerging middle class is bookended by great wealth and grinding poverty.