The first thing that hits you when you step out of Sir Seretse Khama International Airport is not the heat — it's the light. August in Gaborone is winter, and winter here means a sky so clear and a sun so bright that everything looks like it's been washed and hung out to dry. I landed on the first of August, 2026, with two suitcases, a backpack, and a plan to stay for two years. The air was crisp, about 20 degrees, and there was a slight dustiness to it, the smell of dry earth and bush that you don't get in airports back home. I stood there for a moment, just breathing it in, watching the combis and taxis jostle in the pickup lane, and I thought: dumela, Botswana. I'm here.
Now, I should say right away — this isn't a holiday. I'm not here for a two-week safari and a few photos of baobabs. I'm here to live, to work, to set up a base, and to spend the next two years travelling this country slowly, season by season, from the capital up through the Makgadikgadi pans, across to the Okavango when the floods come, and up to the Chobe River. But first, the boring stuff. The paperwork. The admin. The getting-settled bits that nobody puts in the brochure, but which make all the difference between a trip and a life.
Day one was permits. The visa part is easy — most Western and Commonwealth passports get 90 days as tourists, no fuss. But I'm staying longer, so I needed a residence permit from the Department of Immigration. I won't bore you with the queue — though it was real, and it was long — but I will tell you this: bring your passport, bring proof of address, and bring patience. The office is in the Government Enclave, a cluster of ministries and the National Assembly building from the 1980s, with a statue of Sir Seretse Khama in the gardens. There's something reassuring about seeing the first president there, watching over the paperwork. By the end of the day, I had a stamp in my passport and a letter that said I was allowed to stay. I celebrated with a coffee at Cafe Dijo, just off the Main Mall, about 30 pula, which is roughly two dollars. For a day that changes your life, that felt cheap.
The next task was money. You can't do anything in Botswana without a bank account, and the banks here are serious. I walked into an Absa branch — it used to be Barclays, before the rebranding — and opened an account with my passport, my residence permit, a letter from my landlord, and a reference from my employer. It took about an hour, and the staff were patient with my questions about online banking and international transfers. The currency is the pula, which means 'rain' in Setswana, and it's a beautiful name for money, especially in a country where rain is life. Right now, the pula is trading at about 13.5 to the dollar, so my budget for a modest flat in the city centre is around 4,500 pula a month — that's about 330 dollars, which feels almost absurdly reasonable for a capital.
Then the SIM card. I went to a Mascom shop near the Main Mall — Mascom is the big network here, though Orange gives them a run for their money. A prepaid SIM costs next to nothing, but you must bring your passport, because they register every subscriber. Within half an hour I had a number, a data bundle, and the ability to call a taxi. The taxi came, a blue-plated special, and the driver quoted me 50 pula for the ride to my new flat in Extension 9. That's about three and a half dollars, and it took us past the Three Dikgosi Monument — three bronze chiefs, Khama III, Sebele I, and Bathoen I, who went to London in 1895 to keep this land out of Cecil Rhodes' hands. I'd read about them, but seeing them there, big against the sky, with the city spreading out behind, it made me think about how this country held onto itself.
My flat is in Extension 9, one of those leafy east-side suburbs where the streets are quiet and the gardens are full of bougainvillea. It's a modest one-bedroom, but it's mine, and the rent is 4,500 pula a month, as I said. The landlord is a retired teacher who lives in Tlokweng, across the Notwane River, and he came by with a key and a plate of biscuits. He told me to be careful on the roads because the government has been shutting down filling stations for safety violations since May, and some of the usual petrol spots are closed. So if you're driving here, don't assume your regular stop will be open. Check the signs, and fill up when you can.
Once the flat was sorted, I needed food. I walked down to the Main Mall — that's the pedestrian-only strip that runs from Parliament down to the Pula Arch, the independence monument. It's a proper African market street: vendors selling fruit and phone chargers, stalls with printed fabrics, a man roasting corn on a portable grill, and the smell of fried dough mixed with exhaust from the combis. I stopped at a place that does seswaa — that's pounded beef, slow-cooked until it shreds, served with pap and maybe some morogo greens. A plate with a drink cost me about 90 pula, which is around six and a half dollars. I sat on a plastic chair under a tree, ate it with my hands the way you're supposed to, and watched the city go by. And I thought: this is what I came for.
The Main Mall isn't just food, though. It's also where you get a sense of the city's rhythm. There are street vendors selling crafts, and I noticed the Botswanacraft baskets — those beautiful ones with the tight coils — going for anywhere between 150 and 500 pula depending on size and age. I didn't buy one yet, but I made a note to come back with a backpack. Later, I found the craft market in Broadhurst, near Maru-a-Pula school, and I'm told it's the place to go on a Saturday morning. I also saw the No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency tours mentioned in a flyer — they take you around Gaborone and Mochudi, following Mma Ramotswe's footsteps. I'll admit, I might do that one for pure pleasure.
For the first few days, I was all admin. But by the third day, I needed to stretch my legs. Someone at the bank — a teller I was talking to about opening hours — told me about Kgale Hill, the 'Sleeping Giant' that looms over the southwest of the city. It's a 45-minute to an hour hike to the top, and the path is dusty and rocky, but the view is worth every step. You can see the whole city spread out below: the dam, the CBD skyscrapers, the suburbs like Phakalane in the north, and beyond that, the dry brown bush stretching to the horizon. On the way up, I passed a group of schoolkids on a field trip, and a baboon family watching us from a rock. The baboons looked unimpressed. I took a photo of them, and they ignored me. The lesson: read the signs, go with others, and don't try to feed them.
One evening, I went to Mokolodi Nature Reserve, about 10 kilometres south of the city. It's not a tourist trap — it's a real conservation space, with white rhino, cheetah, giraffe, and zebra. I took a game drive at dusk, and the guide pointed out a family of giraffes moving through the acacia trees, their shapes like something from a prehistoric painting. The reserve has a restaurant, the Mokolodi Restaurant, right by the waterhole, and I had dinner there as the sun went down. A three-course meal for two came to about 400 pula, which is around 30 dollars for both of us — and the antelope steaks were grilled over open coals. It's the kind of place where you can hear the waterbirds settling in for the night and the crickets starting their chorus. I sat there, alone but not lonely, and felt really far from home in the best way.
August in Gaborone is the cool, dry tail-end of winter. The days are warm — around 20 degrees — but the nights drop to single digits, and you need a proper blanket. The jacarandas aren't blooming yet; that's October, apparently, and the streets turn purple with them. But the veld fires are already being talked about. The government issued warnings about the fire risk before the October rains, and you can see the hazy signals in the bush if you drive anywhere near the edge of town. It's a dry, sharp, ready-for-rain kind of season, and the locals are all hoping the first storms will come early.
I've also been watching the city's cultural calendar. This weekend there's Compton Fashion Week Botswana at Molapo Crossing, a two-day showcase of local designers — I'm told it's backed by the tourism board, so it should be a real scene. Later in the month, the Maitisong Festival returns to the theatre at Maru-a-Pula for three days of music, dance, and storytelling, ahead of the theatre's 40th anniversary. And the Gaborone Book Festival is back after a three-year break, with a children's writing festival and an environmental theme, which fits perfectly with Botswana's 60th year of independence. I'm planning to be at all of them. And there's the Old Naledi Fiesta in early August — a music and arts festival in the heart of the city, sponsored by Maitisong, which sounds like exactly the kind of grassroots energy I want to capture.
So this is episode one. I'm Kabelo, and I'm here in Gaborone, building a life while the winter sun warms the city. In the episodes to come, I'll take you north, up the road-and-rail corridor towards the Makgadikgadi pans, where the salt flats stretch white to the horizon, and then west to the Okavango Delta when the floods arrive and the mokoro canoes come out. I'll show you what it costs to live here, what it feels like to move through this country, and who the people are who make it work. For now, I'm going to walk down to the Main Mall again, buy another plate of seswaa, and watch the evening settle over the city. The nights are cold here in August, but the stars — the stars are something else. Until next time, tsamaya sentle. Go well.
And if you're thinking of doing something like this — moving somewhere new, or just travelling slowly through a place that's completely different from home — don't wait for the perfect moment. The perfect moment is the one where you've got stamped paperwork and a SIM card and a plate of food in your hand, in a city that's beginning to feel like yours. Pula. That's the word for rain, and for money, and for luck. I think we'll all need a bit of that. See you on the road.