Tag Archives: Botswana

The wonder of ideas

Ideas, , ,
They say everyone should have a hobby. Mine is debating. Not just arguing, informally – although analysis of everything, all the time, comes naturally now – but formal, competitive debate. One of my favourite quotes is from Ursula le Guin’s novel, The Dispossessed:
“They argued because they liked argument, liked the swift run of the unfettered mind along the paths of possibility, liked to question what was not questioned”
Debating is fast, competitive and intense. It requires concentration, quick thinking, engagement, knowledge, confidence and wit. It’s a great way to feel alive. That’s what people say about adventure sports. I suppose this is a little bit like an adventure sport, testing yourself, pushing your limits, adrenaline coursing through your veins.
It’s also addictive, in a way. Once you first learn the joy of being in the thick of that logical argumentation, of the shared experience of contemplating different solutions to complex real-world problems, with the tools of analysis, argumentation and persuasion, you either love it or you hate it.
Debate was the reason I went to Botswana at the end of last year. Every year, University students from around the world gather together to test their skills against the best in the world. For almost 10 days, they argue, in debate venues, over drinks, on game drives, immersing themselves in the incredible intellectual stimulation of coming head-to-head, on a contentious issue, with someone from a completely different context, paradigm, continent. The experience is so all-consuming that, for that little time, the world outside that bubble seems to fade away.
The events are part of the reason debating hooks people in. The people are another part. Because debating is an adversarial system, you learn, if you are a debater, to enjoy an adversarial relationship without it becoming unpleasant. You can handle friendly competition and disagreeing is not the end of a conversation, it is the beginning. You process news and information (especially news and information about far-away places) through the lens of a debating – “how will that help my argument?”, “hey, that is a clear violation of this international treaty I first heard about in a debate last night!”, “there are such strong normative arguments against those new tax breaks”, etc. You find yourself wanting to discuss news, politics, economics, with other debaters, for the logical analysis they will bring to the situation, because they will be interested in seeing both sides, because they will probably all have different perspectives, because they will argue about it and in the arguing, in the testing of ideas, you will form your own opinions and learn.
After years of constructing funding proposals and media releases about debating, years of talking about how it teaching people research skills and produces exceptional public speakers, I know, deep down, that that is not the point. It’s true, but it’s not the point. The point, the real reason we debate, happens in the room. It is that moment, after just a few minutes of thinking about it, when you stand up and present, in 7 minutes, the best arguments, using exactly the right information, constructed perfectly, delivered with wit and eloquence, the best, most persuasive arguments, and you sit down – adrenaline still pumping, feeling incredibly alive – and you know you’ve gotten it right or you’ve done better than ever before and (or) you’ve won a tough room.
Putting yourself out there every time, using your intellect, your experiences, your knowledge and your emotions to build a case and then putting it out there for others – whose skills and intellect you respect – to attack and tear down, takes courage. Doing it again and again takes determination. Doing it well takes training and practice and time. It’s worth it when it works. And it’s worth it because debating lets you slowly fall in love with the wonder of ideas and “the swift run of the unfettered mind along the paths of possibility”.

They say everyone should have a hobby. Mine is debating. Not just arguing, informally – although analysis of everything, all the time, comes naturally now – but formal, competitive debate. One of my favourite quotes is from Ursula le Guin’s novel, The Dispossessed:

“They argued because they liked argument, liked the swift run of the unfettered mind along the paths of possibility, liked to question what was not questioned”

Debating is fast, competitive and intense. It requires concentration, quick thinking, engagement, knowledge, confidence and wit. It’s a great way to feel alive. They say that about adventure sports. I suppose this is a little bit like an adventure sport, testing yourself, pushing your limits, adrenaline coursing through your veins.

It’s also addictive, in a way. Once you first learn the joy of being in the thick of that logical argumentation, of the shared experience of contrasting different solutions to complex, real-world problems, with the tools of analysis, argumentation and persuasion, you either love it or you hate it.

Debate was the reason I went to Botswana at the end of last year. Every year, University students from around the world gather together to test their skills against the best in the world. For almost 10 days, they argue, in debate venues, over drinks, on game drives, immersing themselves in the incredible intellectual stimulation of coming head-to-head, on a contentious issue, with someone from a completely different context, paradigm, continent. The experience is so all-consuming that, for that little time, the world outside that bubble seems to fade away.

The events are part of the reason debating hooks people in. The people are another part. Because debating is an adversarial system, you learn, if you are a debater, to enjoy an adversarial relationship without it becoming unpleasant. You can handle friendly competition and disagreeing is not the end of a conversation, it is the beginning. You process news and information (especially news and information about far-away places) through the lens of a debating – “how will that help my argument?”, “hey, that is a clear violation of this international treaty I first heard about in a debate last night!”, “there are such strong normative arguments against those new tax breaks”, etc. You find yourself wanting to discuss news, politics, economics, with other debaters, for the logical analysis they will bring to the situation, because they will be interested in seeing both sides, because they will probably all have different perspectives, because they will argue about it and in the arguing, in the testing of ideas, you will form your own opinions and learn.

After years of constructing funding proposals and media releases about debating, years of talking about how it teaches people research skills and produces exceptional public speakers, I know, deep down, that that is not the point. It’s true, but it’s not the point. The point, the real reason we debate, happens in the room. It is that moment, after just a few minutes of thinking about it, when you stand up and present, in 7 minutes, the best arguments, using exactly the right information, constructed perfectly, delivered with wit and eloquence; the best, most persuasive arguments, and you sit down – adrenaline still pumping, feeling so incredibly alive – and you know you’ve gotten it right or you’ve done better than ever before or you’ve won a tough room.

Putting yourself out there every time – using your intellect, your experiences, your knowledge and your emotions to build a case and then putting it out there for debaters, whose skills and intellect you respect, to attack and tear down – takes courage. Doing it again and again takes determination. Doing it well takes training and practice and time. It’s worth it when it works. It’s worth it because debating lets you slowly fall in love with the wonder of ideas and “the swift run of the unfettered mind along the paths of possibility”.

Botswana trip, part II: Hot in the city

Botswana, ,
Botswana trip, part II: Hot in the city
My lasting impression of Botswana will be one of heat. Not that heat is always a bad thing. I like heat. But even I, with the memory of a snowy New Year’s still far too close for comfort, found it a little oppressive to begin with. Once the first few days had passed, it was glorious. It is worth noting, though, that sunscreen and plenty of water are not optional on a December/January trip to Gaborone.
The beautiful heat also makes for beautiful rain. The thunderstorms can be spectacular. The first few days there was no rain. Clouds built up but nothing happened. The middle of the afternoon was the hottest, most uncomfortable time of day. Hot and oppressive, waiting, waiting, waiting for the storm to break. And then, finally, a few days in, we were all sitting in a hot, stuffy room when suddenly there was the sound of rain on the roof. The skies opened and it rained. People rushed outside and danced in the brief shower.
After that, it rained almost every day. Perhaps the most spectacular was New Year’s Day, mid-afternoon when the heavens opened in a great cloudburst and water poured down for ages. It was so beautiful and so welcome that the South African guys rushed into the rain – a picture-perfect moment of rain in Africa.
The event I was in town for was hosted almost exclusively at the University of Botswana, so I didn’t see much of the country. The UB campus is nice, with several new buildings and several more in progress. I couldn’t help noticing that an awful lot of the construction is being done by Chinese companies. I suppose South Africa’s economy is sufficiently complex that it is less obvious here, so I notice far more when I’m in other countries the extent of Chinese influence in Southern Africa.
Which is not to say that South Africa is not playing its own fairly significant economic colonialist role. The Mall we visited a couple of times was filled with South African chain stores. The supermarkets, the restaurants, the movie theatres all brands from home, their ownership pretty much all South African. We had lunch one day, a fellow South African and I, with a couple of Scottish visitors who were a little taken aback that the steak house in Botswana’s capital advertised as the ‘Favourite restaurant of the South African family’. As convenient as this kind of travel can be – there are ATMs in Botswana of my own bank, for example – it always leaves me a little uncomfortable.
One thing we seem to have definitely exported successfully is our liquor laws, particularly the ones about not selling alcohol on a Sunday or public holiday. In fact they seem to be more serious about it – some regions of South Africa have passed by-laws relaxing these laws a little in recent years. The only reason I know about Botswana’s draconian approach to alcohol is because we found ourselves trying to make a traditional punch over the New Year’s weekend. Twice. The first time was on New Year’s Day (a Saturday), which is a public holiday in South Africa, too, so not that surprising. The second was on the following Monday, when, much to our surprise, it turned out STILL to be a public holiday. Liquor prices have also increased 40% in recent months. Apparently the president is a teetotaller.
The time was too short, the schedule too hectic to form much more of a lasting impression, except to know that this is another Southern African country to which I have no doubt I will return. I sat in the departures area of Gabs airport, waiting for my flight, with several new friends, from the US, from Ireland, from Russia, from Cuba. Many of them would never be back. I would. I will. For me, Botswana is part of my world, part of my reality, perhaps even a part of my identity I hadn’t found until now. So I leave knowing I’ll be back, a smile at the heat and the tiny airport and pocket full of pula to bring back the next time around.

My lasting impression of Botswana will be one of heat. Not that heat is always a bad thing. I like heat. But even I, with the memory of a snowy New Year’s still far too close for comfort, found it a little oppressive to begin with. Once the first few days had passed, it was glorious. It is worth noting, though, that sunscreen and plenty of water are not optional on a December/January trip to Gaborone.

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Botswana trip, part I: East London to Gaborone

Airports, Botswana,
Botswana trip, part I: East London to Gaborone
My trip to Botswana was largely unplanned. I had been thinking and talking about Namibia for months, but the subsequent Botswana trip was last-minute. It wasn’t going to be a trip with much travelling round and tourist travel – I’d be at an event at the university – but I imagined it would still be possible to get a sense of the country, so I jumped at the chance, booked a flight and started packing.
I left South African on the 26th of December, after Christmas with my family – a joy after being so far away the previous year, although I will admit to feeling some sense of nostalgia for the crazy international Christmas of 2009. East London airport is looking very new and shiny after the World Cup make-over, all except for the fact that not one of the flashy new information boards was working. I wondered if my flight would be on time. East London flights so often aren’t – both arrivals and departures. Just in case, I sky-checked my pack instead of checking it in. I normally check in my luggage. Yes, I’m one of those people who flies a lot but still checks in luggage. Why? Because it makes my life easier in two ways: firstly I don’t have to think about making sure I have no liquids or metal things in and secondly I get to get rid of my bag for the period of time between checking in and boarding the plane.
Sure enough, after a quick cup of coffee with the family and a rush through security, boarding was delayed. Luckily, it appears the airline has reached the point of simply accepting that East London flights will be delayed and now builds in extra time. This sounds bizarre but quite seriously, by the time I was supposed to land, according to my booking and the website, I was already in Johannesburg, through arrivals and heading for international check-in.
Air Botswana was checking in through Terminal A, so I still haven’t had the opportunity to go through Terminal B (the ‘Africa’ Terminal) at OR Tambo. I still have high hopes it’ll happen soon. For now, I breezed through check, security and passport-control and headed for the shops. I don’t normally shop on the international departures – past security, duty-free section – mostly because at this stage I cannot afford to add any more weight to my luggage. This time, however, I was in search of an adaptor. I found a very useful universal adaptor that was no help on this trip. In fact, it will be of limited help unless I can find a second adaptor to go from South Africa’s 3-round-pin to the kind of 2-pin plug that can actually go into the universal adaptor. Botswana uses 3-flat-pin plugs, for the record, of, I am told, the British type. This despite the fact that many of the appliances appear to imported from South Africa and therefore require an adaptor to plug into electrical outlets.
The flight to Gaborone departed from Gate A2. Gate A2 is a dark, secluded corner of international departures. By 5 minutes before boarding, there were still only about 10 people at the Gate. Not that I’m complaining – I’d prefer an empty flight to an overfull planeload of annoying people and small children, any day. The plane wasn’t that small – thankfully – I’d expected one of the tiny planes pictured on the Air Botswana website. The number of people was, in fact, small for the plane, so small that there wasn’t even assigned seating. It took about a minute and a half to find other people heading to the same event, with whom I spent the next 36 minutes – the whole flight to Botswana – chatting.

My trip to Botswana was largely unplanned. I had been thinking and talking about Namibia for months, but the subsequent Botswana trip was last-minute. It wasn’t going to be a trip with much travelling round and tourist travel – I’d be at an event at the university – but I imagined it would still be possible to get a sense of the country, so I jumped at the chance, booked a flight and started packing.

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