Botswana

Individuals are expected to contribute to society rather than have the government support them. Cleanliness and neatness are important throughout the country.

Formal verbal greetings, accompanied by shaking the right hand while supporting one's elbow with the left hand, are used among Setswana acquaintances and when greeting an elder or one of higher social status. Elders and those approaching greet first. Greeting customs vary for other ethnic groups. For example, among the Kalanga the younger person always greets first.

Showing affection publicly is inappropriate. Botswana uses several different gestures to communicate "No thank you". Respect for elders during conversation is best shown by looking toward the ground.

Unannounced visitors are welcome especially if the visitor is a relative. Guests are offered water or a drink at first, anyone who arrives at mealtime is expected to eat with the family and usually helps with meal preparation.

Western dress is common. Despite the heat, urban men wear business suits with ties and women wear dresses or blouses. Rural women often wear a wrap over their dresses to protect them from dirt. Mothers carry their babies on their backs in fabric slings. Married women cover their heads with a kerchief, both sexes typically have very short hair.

Bogobe a porridge made from sorghum, maize, or millet in the northeast is a staple food. It is served soft and often soured for breakfast, and thickened for the midday and evening meals. A popular relish is made of onions, chicken stock, and tomato sauce. Goats and chickens are raised for meat. Cattle are slaughtered for special occasions such as weddings and funerals. Phane worms are a delicacy gathered from morphane tree in the northeast they are dried in hot ashes and eaten.

Eating habits vary between urban and rural settings, but sharing is the common denominator. For most, family meals involve eating from common bowls or plates. Children share a bowl between them. Everyone usually leaves a little food behind to indicate the meal has been filling. Drinks are never shared; each person has a cup. Smelling the food before eating it implies something is wrong with it. Leftovers are kept for later or given to departing guests.

Bogobe a porridge made from sorghum, maize, or millet in the northeast is a staple food. It is served soft and often soured for breakfast, and thickened for the midday and evening meals. A popular relish is made of onions, chicken stock, and tomato sauce. Goats and chickens are raised for meat. Cattle are slaughtered for special occasions such as weddings and funerals. Phane worms are a delicacy gathered from morphane tree in the northeast they are dried in hot ashes and eaten.

With high unemployment few men work in South Africa, and a continuous search for employment keeps families separate. For instance, married couples who are teachers might work across the country from one another. With men so often absent, women remain primarily responsible for the family and often pursue a home-based business to supplement income.

Living away from home villages (for work or schooling) has dramatically changed the way young people interact. It was once rather restricted, but the youth now meet at discos and other sites.

When a couple becomes engaged, the two families begin negotiations regarding the bogadi (bride price), which the groom's family will give the bride's family sometime in the future.

One of the most popular traditional games is called stalking, which is ideally meant to teach children how to be hunters. It is usually played by eight or more players and all that is needed are two blindfolds. It sharpens listening skills and reflexes, as kids pretend to be a hunter or the springbok (an African antelope) the hunter is pursuing.

Children choose a hunter and a springbok and ask the other kids to form a circle around them. The circle is told that they can be silent or make noises and set a time limit of five minutes for each round. Two children are blindfolded and put in the center and spun around. At the signal, the two must move around the circle, the hunter trying to catch the springbok and the springbok trying to avoid capture. If at the end of the round the springbok has not been caught, he remains to face a new hunter. If he is caught, he too is replaced.

Generally, people wake in the morning to a thinner version of porridge leftover from the previous day's meal, sometimes the porridge is enriched with soured milk and/or sugar, and tea. A thicker version of the porridge, known as bogobe, anchors the substantial midday meal, accompanied by a stew of meat and/or cabbage, spinach (or wild greens), or beans. People also use rice, but it is considered more expensive and associated with Europeans. Meats include chicken, goat, sheep, cattle, fish, a caterpillar known as phane, and various wild game.

Pre-school is a luxury, only these parents who are rich enough can afford to take their children to private pre-schools. Most children will not have the privilege of attending a preschool. For most children, the day begins between 4:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. when they wake up and prepare to go to school. Going to school involves some walking for the majority of the children and it is only those who go to private schools who may have the privilege of having some organized school transport. What time the child will wake up will depend on the distance they live from school as well as the number of chores they have to perform before they depart. Some of the chores may involve milking the family cow, tending the family garden as well as preparing the younger siblings for school, and before dawn, they will have left. The walk to school is usually a long one and can go as far as 10 kilometers (about 6 miles) in some villages, but the average would be about 5 kilometers (about 3 miles). As the children walk through the village paths they will be in groups as they collect each other on the way, those who live farthest always begin their walk earliest. School begins at 7:15 a.m. but before then there will be the compulsory general cleaning up of the school compound followed by assembly before the start of the day. For the lucky few, there is hopefully going to be just a little lunch but for the majority, lunch is a luxury. Concentration in school becomes a problem so most children will drink water during the day. The only meal that is guaranteed would be the evening meal that is eaten somewhere between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m.

The primary school program takes seven years and most children will begin classes at the age of six. Classes are conducted in two main languages: Setswana and English. Setswana becomes the language of instruction during the first four years of school and this greatly inconveniences those children whose mother tongue is not Setswana. The classes are usually crowded with every class having not less than 50 students.  When children begin they are about six to seven years of age. Some schools have a feeding program, and in many schools, each child is required to come with a piece of wood daily as their contribution to the preparation of the lunchtime meal. The lessons take between 35 and 40 minutes each and there are two short breaks before the lunch break. It’s during break time when children run to the washrooms, which are more often than not a few pit latrines. The rest of the time is spent playing a few local games. Due to the lack of facilities such as balls and other playthings, children will always improvise and have something to play with. Like in most other parts of Africa, boys will play soccer with their own balls made of plastic sheets and twine. The school walls are made of compressed earth and the floors are basically earthen. In a few cases, the walls are made of bricks. The children will either sit on the floor or share the few available desks. The rural areas are worst hit when it comes to the shortage of classes and other facilities including teachers. Children are keen to learn the English language and in the first years of learning, they learn English predominantly in an oral way with the help of pictures, chants, rhymes songs,  and actions. They also learn writing patterns using coloring sheets as they improve they will learn handwriting using stubs of pencils. Since English is a global language, a lot of emphasis is put on learning English because the children are told they will never secure employment in the future if they cannot speak English. There is an intensive teaching program in primary school known as "breakthrough" which is in its pilot stages and it’s creating a lot of good results since it encourages a lot of student participation, especially in the first years of schooling. The lower classes end at lunch hour and the children have to go home till the following day. The classrooms are made in such a way that there is a teacher’s corner which is likely to have a mat, a chalkboard, and other teaching facilities that may be available in the class. Class typically begins with a warm-up session that may include songs, questions, and answers just to emphasize what was learned earlier. Homework given in the morning may be done during the lunch break. The use of the library, where there is one, is usually timetabled with every class taking about 30 minutes per session. Computers are unheard of and many children will not experience computers until after high school.  The afternoon classes begin at 2:00 p.m. and may go on till 4:00 p.m. when the children and their teachers call it a day. The children will then begin the long trek home, which can take up to 2 hours.

The government provides limited support for performance and arts. Schools have choral and dance groups and young people may receive grants to develop song-drama groups. Praise poetry was highly elaborated in the Tswana peoples and there are still a number of older men proficient at it, but modern literary forms are not extensively developed. Crafts, particularly basketry, along with woven hangings and printed textiles, are developed for the urban and tourist markets. Choral groups proliferate, often associated with voluntary associations, and compete in neighborhoods, villages, and nationally; an annual Eisteddfod is held for the school choir and traditional dance groups. Song-drama groups are formed by the young; their performances focus on social problems facing youth, including pregnancy and HIV/AIDS. Some Tswana musical groups are becoming popular regionally.

One of the most popular traditional games is called stalking, which is ideally meant to teach children how to be hunters. It is usually played by eight or more players and all that is needed are two blindfolds. It sharpens listening skills and reflexes, as kids pretend to be a hunter or the springbok (an African antelope) the hunter is pursuing. Children choose a hunter and a springbok and ask the other kids to form a circle around them. The circle is told that they can be silent or make noises and set a time limit of five minutes for each round. Two children are blindfolded and put in the center and spun around. At the signal, the two must move around the circle, the hunter trying to catch the springbok and the springbok trying to avoid capture. If at the end of the round the springbok has not been caught, he remains to face a new hunter. If he is caught, he too is replaced.

Village evening meals may include leftovers from midday, but for many people is often just tea and buttered bread. After eating the older children will most likely do the dishes and try to do their homework and in most cases, it is unsupervised since some of the parents may not have advanced that far in school. About 8:00 p.m. or 9:00 p.m. there is total silence and the whole village has gone to sleep. Since there is no electricity connection in most if not all rural homes. The little kerosene that is available is usually saved so that it could last for a few more days.