PICKING diamonds in the dirt has become a pipedream for many African nations, but Botswana, a landlocked nation mainly made up of the Kalahari desert, has continued to pick diamonds in the fray of socio-economical and political chanllenges facing other African countries today.

The fence at Maitengwe is barely high enough to keep foraging livestock from crossing to either side of the border in the dry region, and villagers leisurely leap over the rusty fence to buy basics, mourn their relatives, marry and make merry just as the Tswana did before Zimbabwe’s independence in the 1980. The area has well pronounced footpaths that lead to numerous crossing points, and animals grazing in the area have trampled on the fence in search of water upstream in the heavily siltated Maitengwe river, which meanders across the border.