After an early start, we cross into Botswana and drive to Ghanzi. After setting up camp we meet with a local Bushman (San) community and experience some traditional tribal dancing.
Optional activity: Bushman walk
Meals: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
6th January 2014
Today is once again all about the drive, about 9 hours in total today. Having said that although we had lost four great family members last night we were gaining another six members, anticipation was high as to who they were. They were late at getting to Marilyn, but when they did arrive it turned out it was a group of friends all the way from BrisVegas. Two couples and two single guys, I haven't learn't their names as yet so mate will always do.
We hit the road after a brief welcome speech from Shingi, Dipti then went about the business of introductions on the bus.
The only thing of note for the rest of the drive was the border crossing, out of Namibia and into Botswana. We spotted bucket loads of these dead dung bettles, they were huge! I'm certain that you could have thrown a saddle on them and ridden them to glory in the Melbourne Cup if they were alive. By the way the border crossing was painless.
When we arrived at camp we setup our tent and then headed off for a walk with the Bushmen (San people).It was brilliant these people (three young guys, three older ladies and a toddler) showed us lots of natural medicines and various important plants and how they make fire. They were all very slightly built and not very tall.
The amazing things were the clicks in there language, (we tried and failed to pronounce various San words) the second was how expressive they were at describing things and what they were used for. They were so good at it whilst I could not understand a word they said I was able to get the jist of what they were talking about. For example one of the young guys described with words and actions (Marcel Marceau style) the process of tanning and water proofing Kudu skins and I could actually follow along, it was only when the translator explained it did I really get everything, but I also realised how much I had actually followed along.
The sad thing was that only four of us did the walk, Christoph, Martina, Lisa and me. However this walk did tie in nicely with the Boesman's desert talk as he explained their history really well and these guys covered how they survived.
After that we had dinner at the camp, a briefing from Papa (Zenzo) and then headed off to watch some traditional dancing. It was entertaining, Lisa got all the quiz questions right. What is ...? Aardvark etc etc. Next was the group participation section of the evening, women sitting in the dirt clapping whilst the men stamped their feet in some sort of rhythmic way. Once again we failed miserably, but it did make everyone laugh.
 |
| Digging for roots |
 |
| Starting a fire the traditional way |
 |
| Success |
No comments:
Post a Comment