On Thursday night Ngaire and I ventured to the No 1 Ladies Opera House just out of town. You might remember that this is where Heather and I went to see the Okavango Macbeth opera last year. Anyway they have recently renovated the space to be a 50 seater theatre. The performance we saw this time was titled Flamingos of the Makgadikgadi. It was a mime performance with 5 local Batswana actors interpreting the wildlife seen in Botswana’s Makgadikgadi region. It was a great performance with my personal favourite being one actor’s mime of a cheetah. He even had the short fast breathing down pat.
Here’s some of the actors in rehearsals.
Then yesterday we went to see the Botswana Zebras play South Africa’s Bafana Bafana in the African Nations Championship. It wasn’t the best game with a 0-0 draw but it was a fun afternoon. Botswana’s national stadium is currently being renovated so the game was played at the University of Botswana stadium which is a lot smaller. It was disappointing and somewhat surprising to see such a small turn out. Even considering Botswana’s small population I would have expected to see more people show support for their national side.
Ngaire and I wore our Zebras tops to the game. We might be terrible at speaking the local langauge but at least we support the national team!
Similar to Aussie Rules, the senior players were paired with junior players as they ran out onto the pitch. Then the national anthems were played and everyone shook hands.
The Zebras came out hard and I thought it was going to be a one sided game. But unfortunately it didn’t last long and and the game turned into hot potato.
These kids were very cute. The halftime entertainment was fantastic. Hmm is it bad to say that it might have been the highlight of the game? They had a bunch of dancers performing around the pitch. To say they were break dancers is an understatement – they were like rubber men. Well these kids were just as entertaining as they performed their own dance moves. The kid on the right certainly had the attitude right!
The crowd was way less vocal than an Australian crowd at a sporting match which surprised me. There was no abuse hurled at the umpires instead the crowd just enjoyed the spectacle. I guess this may be the result of the lack of alcohol. It was a dry event.
A Zebras fan.
Oops I should mention (otherwise I’ll be in big trouble) that these images are courtesy of Ngaire.
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