Place Names � Who and Why?
Monday, October 16, 2017
As it is, I have enough of my own posers to keep Gasebalwe in business for a year or so. I am, after all, remarkably, unhappily ignorant. But that’s me. What about you, the other two million or so? Are you any better informed? But let’s make a start with the Marina category, anything that is named after British royals. The most obvious is the George V Memorial Hall in Kanye, then the Athlone Hospital in Lobatse, then the old Jubilee Hospital in Francistown, which must have been named after the jubilee of some very important person? Then there is the Pioneer border Gate which is a puzzle. Who pioneered what? And then, in a category of its own, the oncology clinic in Ext 10 in Gaborone which used to be named after Lady Liesching who opened it in 1957. Now it is called something else.
Then comes some names that I do know something about – Gaborone and Tlokweng, the Ann Adams Park in Phikwe named after a Quaker NGO adult education worker in the 1970s, Mochudi named after Motshodi, Francistown after Francis, Deborah Retief after an early missionary, Lady Mitchison School after Naomi, the clinic in Gaborone named Julia Molefhe. But after that it becomes, for me at least, a bit of a muddle.
The recent Vaccination Day in Motokwe, orchestrated through collaborative efforts between UNICEF, USAID, BRCS, and the Ministry of Health, underscores a commendable stride towards fortifying child health services.The painful reality as reflected by the Ministry of Health's data regarding the decline in routine immunisation coverage since the onset of the pandemic, is a cause for concern.It underscores the urgent need to address the...