Next Time Perhaps?

But let’s run too fast if you will kindly forgive the expression. Makwala was all over the British press last week with his photo appearing on the front page of the Guardian. And that’s where I come in. Because the last time that Botswana was so featured was with my photo of the pocket-sized ‘Elvis’, which I took in Mochudi.

This photo was published on the front page of the then Manchester Guardian in April 1966 with the caption, ‘Freedom Song ...from a boy in Mochudi, Bechuanaland, which is to become Independent later this year.’ It has to be said, however, that in the intervening 52 years, this country has only rarely got a mention in the press abroad. It has been frankly regarded as boring with no multiple deaths because of drought and famine, no revolutions, no coup d’etats – only Seretse and Ruth, the San and 50 or so years of relative peace!