Being a Tourist in Your Home Country: Morag Neill (Botswana)
Being a Tourist in Your Home Country: Morag Neill (Botswana)
It’s fascinating to experience your country as a tourist.
What you are used to seeing on an everyday basis holds different meaning. What you take for granted as normal, you begin to realize how important it is to your people and cherish it so much more.
You are also able to appreciate the inconsistency of culture, now that we are so easily affected by outside influences…
I had the opportunity to meet with the wife of the former President, Sir Kitumile Masire. She explained our culture as she was taught to know it, and how she lives with it today.
She told me of the traditional schools that were attended by boys and girls on their journey into adulthood, and the lessons they were taught. It had nothing to do with algebra or chemistry, or how to construct a sentence appropriately.
They were taught about life, which morals to hold onto and to pass onto their children when the time came.
They were taught to look after their children and to provide for their families.
The one aspect which she told me breaks her heart for not seeing any more, is the importance of respect, especially for one’s parents. She grew up honoring her parents for bringing her into this beautiful world, and will forever owe that to them.
However, in Botswana today, the youth, my generation, are slowly moving away from this notion of respect and desire to give back to their parents as they have given all they can to them.