Learn Botswana before you go

10 phrases to learn

In Setswana. Capital letters show the stressed part. Tap the heart to practise a phrase later.

At the table

• Wash your hands before and after the meal. A bowl of water is often passed round for this.
• If you eat with your hands, as many people do with porridge and meat, use your right hand.
• When you are a guest, wait for your host to start eating before you begin.
• Accept food or a drink with both hands, or with the right hand while the left hand touches the right arm. It is a sign of respect and thanks.
• Food is often shared from common dishes, especially in villages. If you really cannot eat more, decline politely rather than simply refusing.

Local tips

Dishes to try

• Seswaa: The national dish: beef or goat meat, often from tough cuts such as the neck and legs, simmered for hours with just water and salt until it falls apart, then pounded with a wooden spoon into soft shreds. It is usually cooked by men in a three-legged iron pot for weddings, funerals and Independence Day, and served with bogobe, samp or maize porridge.
• Phaletshe: A stiff porridge made from white maize meal cooked in boiling water and stirred until thick enough to hold its shape. It is the everyday starch on many tables, eaten with meat, chicken, greens or seswaa, and a softer version with milk and sugar is eaten for breakfast.
• Ting (bogobe jwa ting): Sorghum or maize meal that is left to ferment for a few days before it is cooked, which gives the porridge a pleasant sour taste. With milk and sugar it is a breakfast dish; without them it is eaten with meat or vegetables for lunch or dinner.
• Bogobe jwa lerotse: Sorghum porridge cooked with lerotse, a local yellow cooking melon, and often sour milk. It is soft, slightly sweet and sour, and is a traditional wedding dish, when big pots of it are served alongside the meat.
• Setswana chicken stew (koko ya Setswana): Free-range village chicken, called koko ya Setswana, slow-cooked in a three-legged pot over a wood fire until tender. It is thought to be much tastier than shop-bought chicken, and cooking one for a visitor is a sign of special hospitality. It is served with phaletshe or dumplings.
• Dikgobe: Samp, which is dried maize kernels broken into pieces, cooked slowly with beans until thick and creamy. Dikgobe is a comforting everyday meal and a fixture at weddings, where it is served with seswaa.
• Serobe: A dish of tripe and intestines of a goat, sheep or cow, washed carefully, cut into small pieces and boiled until soft; for goat or sheep, the trotters go in too. It is a popular dish at ceremonies and is eaten with phaletshe or sorghum porridge.
• Letlhodi: Mung beans, a small green bean grown in Botswana, boiled until soft and often cooked into a thick stew. It is a cheap and nourishing dish, eaten with porridge, and letlhodi is also sold dried in shops and markets.

Cities to see

• Gaborone (capital): The Three Dikgosi Monument, Main Mall and the government enclave, Kgale Hill, with views over the city.
• Francistown: Old gold mines around the town, The only city in Botswana with an English name, A busy trading and railway centre.
• Molepolole: A large traditional kgotla, The Scottish Livingstone Hospital, A gateway to the Kalahari.
• Maun: Scenic flights and trips into the Okavango Delta, Safari and air-charter companies, The Thamalakane River.
• Serowe: The royal graves of the Khama family, Khama Rhino Sanctuary nearby, Swaneng Hill School.
• Kasane: Boat safaris on the Chobe River, The Kazungula Bridge to Zambia, Where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton remarried in 1975.

Landmarks and the city map are on the Botswana trip