Current Time in Botshabelo, South Africa

Botshabelo lies in the Free State province of South Africa, about fifty-five kilometres east of Bloemfontein on the road towards Lesotho. The setting is high, dry grassland at some fifteen hundred metres above sea level, with flat-topped hills on the horizon, wide skies and a climate of hot summer afternoons, dramatic thunderstorms and cold, clear winter nights. The town spreads over the veld in long rows of houses divided into numbered sections.

The population is generally estimated at between two hundred thousand and rather more, which makes Botshabelo one of the largest townships in South Africa and the second largest urban settlement in the Free State. Since 2011 it has formed part of the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, together with Bloemfontein and Thaba Nchu. Its importance is above all human: it houses a very large working population, many of whom travel daily to jobs in the provincial capital.

The town is young and its origins are sombre. It was established in 1979 as a resettlement area during the apartheid period, when families were moved from farms, from urban areas designated for other groups and from the surrounding districts, and were placed on open ground with minimal services. The name chosen, Botshabelo, means place of refuge in Sesotho. The settlement grew with extraordinary speed, and in the 1980s the government offered incentives to manufacturers, particularly textile firms, to open factories nearby, though many closed after the incentives ended. Since 1994 the town has been steadily upgraded, with electrification, tarred roads, clinics, schools and housing programmes.

Botshabelo is not a conventional tourist destination, but the surrounding region has genuine attractions. Thaba Nchu, a striking black mountain a short drive away, gives its name to a neighbouring town and offers hiking, a game reserve and a resort, while the Maria Moroka Nature Reserve protects zebra, wildebeest and springbok in the hills. Bloemfontein, less than an hour away, has the national museum, the Anglo-Boer War museum, Naval Hill with its game park and giant Mandela statue, and the Oliewenhuis art gallery. The mountain kingdom of Lesotho lies within easy reach to the east.

Local culture is overwhelmingly Sesotho-speaking, with strong traditions of choral music, gospel singing and church life. Football is followed intensely, community radio is popular, and the town has produced musicians and athletes who have made national reputations. Street markets, informal traders and small businesses give the main roads a lively daytime character, and traditional dishes such as pap with meat and morogo are everyday food.

Transport depends on minibus taxis and buses running to Bloemfontein along the N8 highway, a journey made by tens of thousands of commuters each week, and the railway line passes nearby. Schools have expanded greatly since the 1990s, and further education and training colleges operate locally, while universities are concentrated in Bloemfontein.

Botshabelo tells an important part of the South African story, and it is a community that has grown from displacement into a settled, self-aware town with its own identity and ambitions.