It’s mildly tempting to believe that I had something to do with that sudden development but government thinking and government plans can take many years to come to fruition. For instance, a start was made in Mochudi around fifty years ago, with a leather craft project which mutated into the various leather projects in Pilane, the clogs and sandals and so on, and the attempt to start a tannery there. Inevitably on a much more ambitious scale in the 1960s came too van Rensburg’s tannery project at Swaneng.
And now, fifty years later, the government is taking steps to ensure that Lobatse becomes a major leather producer! The reality is that fifty years or so are likely to pass, not just a few weeks or months, before the government feels ready to replicate what was, somewhere, earlier attempted. Perhaps Bokspit’s polka dance is the best possible example because it too has taken the same fifty post independence years to be known to the government and the rest of the country.
