Botswana Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Etiquette

#759
Title: Botswana Culture Smart!: The Essential Guide to Customs & Etiquette
Author: Michael Main
Publisher: Kuperard
Year: 2010
168 pages

This provides a basic introduction for the traveler to Botswana. At first I had high hopes, as the author writes more frankly than some in this series. However, I quickly became tired of the note of condescension toward Batswana that permeates the cultural sections.

There was too little discussion of how male and female travelers should interact with Batswana (a complaint I have about the whole Culture Smart! series), nothing about LGBTQ travelers (homosexual acts are illegal), and too little on HIV considering that Botswana has the second-highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world. A few Setswana phrases are offered, but without stress or pronunciation notes.

From a production standpoint, the photos are in too dark a register and with too little distinction between tones, and there are multiple typos.