Okavango: another life

by George Macpherson

Adventure and passion in a country where the historical prejudices and injustices, still entrenched in all its neighbours, were being challenged as a new African nation emerged in 1967. The dangers of wild animals, power of traditional beliefs, hatred and love between races and tribes, as well as the hazards of international politics made Botswana a melting pot for the Africa of the future. Alan Black is a third generation Rhodesian starting his career in Ngamiland, one of the world's last unspoiled habitats encompassing the vast Okavango Swamps. His job is to work with the newly independent Batswana people, in this vast area of the Northern Kalahari, achieve higher incomes and standard of living from their livestock and crops. He becomes close to an Afrikaner family whose safari company faces radical challenges; and to a beautiful African woman whose natural boldness has been given the extra confidence of university education. Together they experience success in their work and their passionate but how can it all end? There's someone else in Alan's life with whom he seems inevitably and mysteriously linked. This is a gentle story of African enchantment in the most exotic of settings, in which love challenges racial boundaries breached only by the few despite the conflicts of religion, politics, race and class – as President Seretse Khama guides Botswana, despite its wide diversities and contradictions, towards proud nationhood.

334 pages, Paperback

First published December 28, 2010