Gaborone Main Mall still a hive of activity

Planned in 1963 in preparation for Botswana's independence, it is the oldest mall in the city, and is tucked in between the Civic Centre and the National Assembly. Defying the dire predictions, the Main Mall continues to be a bustling centre of business, with ongoing renovations and revamping of old buildings giving the mall a more modernised look.

Despite the facelift the Main Mall, unlike other malls whose cleanliness and orderliness border on blandness, remains a colourful, and noisy, hive of activity where you just never know what you are going to see, whether it's a preacher cautioning passersby of the perils of sin, or a government department celebrating its wellness day. The Main Mall gives its patrons a unique experience of an increasingly dichotomous city, with, on the one hand, modern-day trappings and aspirations of a developing nation keen to catch up to Western ways and on the other, a willful traditional Botswana.