Safari Journal (part 2: Through The Looking Glass)

Safari journal (part 2: through the looking glass)-

Day 6 started at the crest of dawn and a sunrise bush walk with local guide. As lame as the first tour was I was cynically pessimistic of this being more of the same. This one couldn’t have been more different and was nothing short of amazing. The most educational and interesting tour I can recall. It helped give further justification of my decision to visit Africa. There’s a quote I love from Saint Augustine; “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page”. To expand on that thought I believe the experiences you have and places you come to know are the window for which you view the world from. Never leaving your hometown you have a narrowed view of everything. Perhaps like looking through a peephole. Not leaving your country maybe one of those circular yellow submarine size windows, and it grows from there with every experience. Africa is turning my oversized windshield into a floor to ceiling glass wall. In a recent post I mentioned the conversation I enjoyed with the South African Xhosa woman who helped me understand something as tedious as a career is a privilege not all are afforded. The guide for the bush tour flipped society itself on its head. He was a white guy that went by the name Bushman. He has a formal education and previous career as an insurance salesman before forfeiting his earthly possessions to return to the bush he loved (hence the name he now goes by). It’s been 16 years, and counting, since he’s worn shoes. It’s difficult to condense such an informative day into a blog post size journal entry, therefore much will inevitably be omitted. He talked at length about the animals that inhabit the Namibian desert. About the formation of sand dunes, the shifting mountain and ocean winds, how to read the desert landscape for use as a compass and how to survive on your own. He went on to describe how detrimental rain is to the abundant life in the desert and the circle of life itself. He was childlike in his passion and was inspiring. I referred to him as the desert Yoda, but it fell in deaf ears and received with a nervous laugh because my 20 year old German sidekick has never seen Star Wars.

The thing I found most interesting was his detailed description of the African Bushmen. Dating back 40,000 years the Bushmen called the African desert home. Natural selection eventually made these Africans yellow skinned and small instead of black skinned and big. What most cultures would consider the runt of the litter the Bushmen saw as their hunters and providers. Their size and color enabled them to more easily blend in with the surroundings giving them an advantage while stalking desert game. They were chosen for marriage and procreation, eventually breeding the dark skin out of the society. Because of the harsh desert environment and scarcity of food the Bushmen evolved to having loose skin and elastic stomachs so the family can consume the entire carcass and not forfeit any to decay nor scavenging animals. They are said to have been able to eat as much as TWENTY FIVE pounds in a single day, then go weeks again without eating. In the family communities (of usually 5-8 people) water would go to the women and children, the hunters would get the majority of their fluids from the organs and stomach juices of the fresh kill. It should go without say (but I’m saying it anyway) that nothing went to waste. They had great respect for the land and animals they shared it with. Mothers would teach children at a very young age how to read footprints in the sand, the constellations and animal behavior. The children’s only toy would be a small bow and arrow set. As the mother took the kids out gathering with her they would practice shooting at targets. Eventually they would progress to their first small game kill of mouse or lizard at which point they were given up to the supervision of the fathers to hone their hunting skills. They had small and relatively weak bows and had to get within 15 meters for a kill. To achieve this they would hide behind bushes and patiently wait motionless for prey to come to them. Resourcefulness turned waiting behind a bush to taking a bush with them and hiding behind it, cartoonlike, as they stalked. This was the reason the western world gave the previously unclassified people the name Bushmen. This would later become thought of as a derogatory term and eventually changed to the San People.

The harsh conditions created harsh realities. Wherever there was a game kill the entire family would move to it and that would be their camp for the next few days. They were true nomads. When the family woke up each morning they didn’t know where they would sleep that night. They had zero possessions. This fact gave the San people intrinsic and unlimited wealth. They had the earth. (Or as Tony Montana would say; ‘The world Chico, and everything in it’). The necessity to move nimbly made some of the harsh realities horrific. You need to be able to fend for yourself to survive. The elderly would be left behind regularly. During times of famine the malnourished family would leave small children behind to die in search for food and water. The practice was to walk away. That’s it. The entire family would simply walk away and nobody would look back or ever speak of it again. No matter how much the starving child cried and pleaded to be taken with, if they couldn’t make it on their own there was no making it. When this happened the mother would assume a nightly position directly facing the smoke of the fire so tears in her eyes would be socially acceptable. Once the famine was behind them the mother would have more children. When hearing this one member from our group walked a few steps away, turned her back and broke down into tears. This seemingly barbaric fact, combined with the physical adaptions for storing food in their bodies caused them to be widely misunderstood and classified as animals. For centuries, as long as you had a permit, it was perfectly legal to hunt and kill Bushmen. In 1850’s European colonization brought with it firearms and more deaths for the Bushmen. They would wipe out entire families except for the youngest boy that was regularly kept as a “PET”! The killings were finally outlawed in 1937, but the displacement continues to this day.

And here is the biggest perversion of all that’s taken the construction tools out again on my looking glass: As reparations are made the government gives these nomads homes. Human rights groups come in and give them jeans, Nike’s and schooling. When they had nothing they were the wealthiest people that ever walked the earth. With handed down possessions they are now some of the poorest. With no prior written language, a western education, in 2 generations, has effectively wiped away 40,000 years of bush knowledge. Lost and gone forever.

Give thanks for the things you have, develop a better understanding of the things you actually need, and never take for granted the ability to keep your loved ones cared for.

Bob