Finding the Prince of Mines

The place from which Botswana would draw so much of her wealth had a single borehole when the prospectors arrived. Around Jwana Hill, in the shallow, grass-covered Naledi Valley, a rural community kept its cattle and went about its life. The men searching for diamonds also used the water as they worked to establish what lay beneath the surrounding ground.

There was no Jwaneng mining town then, Norman Lock recalls. Families lived at cattle posts and tilled the land around them. As the search turned into a mining project, some would move from their homes, whilst workers and traders arrived to seek opportunities in the emerging settlement.