There is nothing to write home about, concerning the trip between the turn-off and Letlhakeng - the next town you pass through on your way to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), except a very poorly maintained road whose sides have been chipped away over time, until it became a single vehicle highway. Unless you are a regular on this road, you will consistently need to drive a part of your vehicle on the dirt and the other on the tarmac each time another vehicle approaches from the opposite direction. You can't shake off the feeling that each wheel rotation takes you further away from civilization. You are acutely aware that you may not be able to call or receive calls on your cellphone, check your email, visit your Facebook page, or fax to the office that important paper that you forgot to submit before you left for your weekend of camping in the desert, that is better known as Khutse Game Reserve. And so like most that have used this road on their way to the CKGR I had these ideas about the area. That was until last week when I had the opportunity to visit Kaudwane, a Basarwa settlement or resettlement village just outside the CKGR.
At 203 kilometres from Gaborone the drive should be considered short, by Botswana standards. But it was like a 500 kilometre drive owing first to the bad Letlhakeng road and then the long desert road to the CKGR. The village itself has nothing to announce to the visitor that you are entering a village - especially given the fact that it is the first village you will come across after Letlhakeng. You could easily miss the settlement. The traditional Basarwa huts made of sticks and grass - mogwaafatshe stand nonchalantly in the cold desert, owners and their children standing in apparent awe or was it appreciation of government four wheel drive vehicles and trucks that rumbled into their quiet settlement for the event that had brought me here.
