30th September: Botswana Independence Day

Botswana became independent on this date in 1966 so here are 10 things you might not know about Botswana:

1. The name comes from the main ethnic group in the country, the Tswana, and the prefix Bo, meaning country. In their language, the prefix Ba means people, and so people from Botswana are called Batswana collectively. There is a different prefix for one person, Mo, so one person from Botswana is a Motswana. Se, meaning language, provides the name for the language they speak, Setswana.
2. The word “lekgoa,” which the Batswana often use to refer to foreigners, was originally translatable to “spat out by the sea.”
3. The Kalahari Desert covers up to 70% of Botswana's land surface.
4. The country's currency is the Botswana pula, subdivided into 100 thebe. Pula literally means "rain" in Setswana - rain is a particularly precious commodity in a country with so much desert. The sub-unit, thebe, means "shield".
5. It's the place to go if you like Elephants. Botswana has an estimated elephant population of over 133,800, the largest in the world. 50,000 of them live in the Chobe National Park.
6. The capital, Garbarone, was chosen because it is close to a source of fresh Water, and because it has a central location among the central tribes, but isn't particularly associated with any one tribe.
7. The highest point is Monalanong Hill, at 1,494 m (4,902 ft).
8. Botswana is home to the two biggest and richest diamond mines in the world. Orapa (meaning "resting place for Lions"), owned by Debswana, a partnership between the De Beers company and the government of Botswana, and Jwaneng, which means “place of small stones”. 17.7% of the total world production of diamonds comes from Botswana, and the revenue from them funds free education for every child up to age 13.
9. The Okavango Delta isn't, as often quoted, the largest inland delta in the world. although it is one of the seven wonders of the Natural World. BUT During the wet season the Delta can grow up to three times its permanent size, and about 70% of the islands found in the Delta started out as termite mounds.
10. The Scottish writer Alexander McCall Smith, author of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series set in Botswana, is also a co-author of the only book on the country's legal system, The Criminal Law of Botswana (1992), which he wrote while teaching law at the University of Botswana. 

Check out my fiction titles:

Death and Faxes

Several women have been found murdered - it looks like the work of a ruthless serial killer. Psychic medium Maggie Flynn is one of the resources DI Jamie Swan has come to value in such cases - but Maggie is dead, leaving him with only the telephone number of the woman she saw as her successor, her granddaughter, Tabitha Drake.

Tabitha, grief-stricken by Maggie's death and suffering a crisis of confidence in her ability, wants nothing to do with solving murder cases. She wants to hold on to her job and find Mr Right (not necessarily in that order); so when DI Swan first contacts her, she refuses to get involved.

The ghosts of the victims have other ideas. They are anxious for the killer to be caught and for names to be cleared - and they won't leave Tabitha alone. It isn't long before Tabitha is drawn in so deeply that her own life is on the line.

Paperback - CreateSpace or Amazon 

Or get the E-book: Amazon Kindle (Where you can use the "Look Inside" function and read the first few pages for free!)

Glastonbury Swan

Every few weeks, there is a mysterious death in Glastonbury. They seem completely unrelated - an apparent suicide, a hit and run, a drug overdose, a magic act which goes horribly wrong - but is that what the killer wants people to think?

The police are certainly convinced - but one of the victims is communicating to medium Tabitha Drake that the deaths are linked.

Who is killing all these people and why? 

This is what Tabitha has to figure out - before it is too late to save someone very dear to her.

Paperback CreateSpace or Amazon

E-book Amazon Kindle

Jigsaw

The first ten short stories from my writing blog. Within these covers you will find murder, mayhem, ghosts, romance, dungeons and dragons and alien vampire bunnies.

You can, of course, read all these stories and more on the blog for free by following the link above, and you're welcome to do that, but if you find you'd like to read them over and over without looking at a screen, or you know your friend who hates technology would absolutely love them, the book is available.

Paperback CreateSpace or Amazon 

E-book Amazon Kindle