Certainly it’s a grim, frightening prospect. Faced each morning by news of these almost daily worldwide disasters we need to be thankful for the country’s great natural beauty and for the peace that we still enjoy. Both, we must always realise, are so easily lost.
So I look around for more cheerful, recent topics to lighten the gloom and quickly arrive at two places, which have so dramatically emerged, from their contrasting pasts, Palapye and Francistown. The Sunday Standard reported (September 3-9) that Minister Olopeng, waxing positively lyrical, had commented (in the National Assembly) that Palapye is endowed with all the requirements of a capital city – a passing remark or something that needs to be taken more serious? He had reported that the government will build a multi-million pula horse-racing track there, and that four new shopping malls are in the pipeline. Further, it was made known that the government intends to construct an international airport in Palapye with a 5,200 metre runway for which 2,400 hectares of land had already been acquired near Moremi village. Both the horse racing track and international airport are startling ideas.
