Attention all parents: there’s a brilliant new playground in Francistown where adventure and fun await your little ones.
Nestled deep in Area W, opposite the clinic, Lent Amusement Park offers a number of exciting outdoor activities for children, guaranteed to get the heart pumping and the smiles beaming.
Jam-packed with entertainment options, the centre houses three Disney-themed jumping castles of varying sizes, each suitable for different age groups. Fitted with slides, tunnels and ladders, there’s enough to keep the kids interested for hours.
For those after a bit more bounce, there’s also a trampoline.
The action extends to an inflatable pool, where as well as swimming, children can go for canoe rides, a wonderful wooden fort, complete with extended deck, and a five-a-side football pitch laid out on a bed of soft river sand.
Quad bikes also feature heavily, with big bikes available for the older kids and smaller scooters for the younger ones to zoom around the spacious, well-swept park.
All takes place under the watchful eye of the owner, 52-year-old Daisy Kalanke, who runs the establishment full-time, while her husband, Kopano, helps out on a part-time basis.
For the couple, Lent Amusement Park is a dream five years in the making, when Kopano, 58, travelled to China to buy the jumping castles.
After several unsuccessful attempts, the Kalankes believe they’ve finally found the perfect location for the venture.
Although business has been slow since the official opening on 29 June, Daisy is confident that once word spreads, the clients will come.
“The difficulty is in attracting the customers but we feel it’s a viable business. At the moment, it’s mostly children from the neighbourhood. However, with summer coming, we hope things will pick up,” the qualified counselor tells Voice Money during a tour of the facilities, well-maintained by the gardener, who is currently the sole employee.
“It’s a calling for us. We are both Sunday School teachers, we play with kids, take them out for day trips. It’s what we’ve been doing for many years,” continues the Restoration and Healing Word Ministries member, who like her husband is a Minister at the Area-W based church.
On top of a P10 entrance fee, charge for the whole area is P50, plus an extra P20 for those wanting to use the quad bikes.
Currently there is no time limit, with kids – the target market is ages three to young teenagers – able to play for as long as they want.
Parents can either stay and watch or leave them under Daisy’s supervision.
“We are taking good care of them. The activities here are very enticing, there’s a lot for the kids to do and learn. It’s important for kids to be active, not just to sit and learn but to actually get involved. If you bring them here they will learn to do things on their own, interact with other children and play. Nowadays, children spend too much time on phones and watching TV, here they can run around, which develops their pscho and motor skills and even helps with their ability to communicate,” notes Kopano, who is a Head of Department at Francistown Senior Secondary School (FSS).
For the adults that do choose to hang around, they can while away a relaxing half-an-hour in the spa room, where massage chairs and vibrating machines are ready to soothe the soul.
“It’s P80 for a 30-minute session. People enjoy it; they feel rejuvenated and relaxed afterwards. It’s a great way to relieve stress, a real treat for aching bodies,” reveals Daisy, adding alcohol on the premises is strictly off-limits.
The couple, who are originally from Manyana but have settled in Borolong, also run a pre-school in Somerset, with registration on-going for next term.
“One of the benefits of going to Lent Day Care Centre is that the pupils get to come here for free,” reveals Kopano, adding the school closed in 2022 due to lack of students.
“For the five years of its existence, the pre-school obtained the following prizes: 1st place at the 2018 Business Botswana Northern Trade Fair and 1st position for Services Level Two at the Women’s Exposition,” the veteran teacher declares proudly.
Open seven days a week, Lent (taken from the Setswana word ‘Lentlwaneng’, which means ‘playing area’) Amusement Park offers something special for children, who are often overlooked when it comes to entertainments spaces in Ghetto.
A perfect venue for hosting children’s birthday parties, gates open at 9am every morning apart from Sundays, when the couple’s church duties means they start at 1pm.
Attention parents: it’s well worth a look!
