It is a funny world of its own - the town of Orapa. Approx. 10.000 people in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by bush and sand in an extremely hot and dry place. And Why? Because sometime ago somebody found - just there - little stones that were transparent, shiny and very hard...
Everything is dominated by the mine. De Beers controlls basically the entire village. Don' get me wrong, it is definitely not a bad place to be - in fact one of the safest in southern Africa - it is just so different to other places. It remindes me a bit of Asterix and Obelix, only that their village was surounded by a wooden wall and this place is by a big fence.

The entrence gates to Orapa look like big border gates or so. Booms, security etc...

Well one thing is for sure, once you are there you can relaxe and sleep a lot. Because in the evenings there is nothing else to do. So your days basically look like: getting up at 5.30, breakfast 6.15, 7.00 start working, if you are lucky knock off time at 17.00, supper at 19.00, a couple of beers afterwards and sleep! Easy!

At least in English it seems to be clear that the country's name is 'Botswana'. But in German it is not that easy. Still don't know what the correct spelling is like.
Anyway, Tuesday afternoon I left Johanesburg for Gaberone (Capitol of Botswana). It was an interessting experience because only another 10 people were waiting with me at the gate. The little 2 propeller machine gave more than enough space for all of us. A nice little thing you have to do in these countries is to identidfy your luggage before you enter the plane. All the bags and suitecases are nicely placed next to the plane. You as a passenger just walk to your stuff and make sure that one of the guys loads it into the plane.

Gaberone airport is a fascinating place! It has got the size of a standard school gym (basket ball field). If you remember that this is the capitol of the country...
For my connection flight I had to sit down and wait somewhere. Who ever I asked where I had to go, told me, that I must just sit down and the pilot will find me... (That's a new idea!!) But it worked! Half an hour later a guy with papers in his hands came to ervery single person to ask if he/she wanted to go to Orapa.
My next problem came with the check-in, cause my standard suitecase didn't fit into their x-ray. So what I had to do is to walk across the airport and get it scanned at the fright gate. Afterwards I just walked back to my gate - with my suitecase. Doesn't that make sence? SECURITY!!

Well, I will tell about my stay here in the middle of nowhere a bit later...