By Roxanne Reid
When you visit the Makgadikgadi pans and Jack’s Camp Botswana, you can tag along on a San experience to learn from the Zu/’hoansi Bushmen about their culture and way of doing things.
When you visit the Makgadikgadi pans and Jack’s Camp Botswana, you can tag along on a San experience to learn from the Zu/’hoansi Bushmen about their culture and way of doing things.
The Makgadikgadi pans area of Botswana is an intriguing landscape of dry savanna and featureless salt flats that are among the largest in the world. Here you can go on game drives into the Makgadikgadi National Park to see wildlife like lions, eland, zebras and gemsbok, as well as Makgadikgadi specials like brown hyena and aardvark, or venture onto the pans themselves to discover the giant baobabs of Kubu Island.
The San experience
The San experience is something different, a chance to learn about the culture of Botswana’s first people. Jack’s Camp in Botswana has been working with the San on this cultural tourism project since 1993. You can also join this cultural experience if you're staying at Natural Selection’s other Botswana lodges near the Makgadikgadi pans – Kalahari Camp and San Camp.
The San experience
The San experience is something different, a chance to learn about the culture of Botswana’s first people. Jack’s Camp in Botswana has been working with the San on this cultural tourism project since 1993. You can also join this cultural experience if you're staying at Natural Selection’s other Botswana lodges near the Makgadikgadi pans – Kalahari Camp and San Camp.
The group of Zu/’hoansi we met included all ages from babies to young mothers and hunters, even two old men. Luckily, two of them spoke English and could translate the complex click language of the others.
In the past, we’ve been tracking wildlife across the Kalahari with the Khomani San, but this was nothing like that. Although the experience on the edge of the Makgadikgadi pans was described as a bush walk with the Zu/’hoansi, we barely walked 100m, just enough to give them a chance to show how they trap birds, make fire or ‘tame’ scorpions, and how important a digging stick can be.
In the past, we’ve been tracking wildlife across the Kalahari with the Khomani San, but this was nothing like that. Although the experience on the edge of the Makgadikgadi pans was described as a bush walk with the Zu/’hoansi, we barely walked 100m, just enough to give them a chance to show how they trap birds, make fire or ‘tame’ scorpions, and how important a digging stick can be.
We learnt some of the things they eat too, crowding around a purple-pod Terminalia as they plucked gum from it to chew. I tried some and it wasn’t sharp or bitter, as I’d expected. It was just a chewy texture that tasted of nothing at all. ‘We also use the pods to make tea,’ our interpreter told us.
They found a scorpion burrow and two young men started to dig it out. I’m all for leaving nature untouched, but they seemed excited to show it to us. It wasn’t easy, because scorpions are clever; they make a zigzag burrow to confuse predators and slow down the passage of rain water into their burrow.
They found a scorpion burrow and two young men started to dig it out. I’m all for leaving nature untouched, but they seemed excited to show it to us. It wasn’t easy, because scorpions are clever; they make a zigzag burrow to confuse predators and slow down the passage of rain water into their burrow.
How to make fire
While the digging continued and sand flew, the rest of the clan sat in the dust a few metres away and started to make a fire. They use acacia wood for their fire-lighting sticks. One stick has a sharpened end that fits into hole in the other, which is laid flat. The idea is to create enough friction by quickly twisting the vertical stick between your palms to create a spark at the point where they meet.
Three people took turns to keep rubbing the sticks together, taking five or six minutes of hard work to get a small spark. Once there was a whiff of smoke, they sprinkled grass and dried zebra dung on it and blew gently until it grew into a small fire.
While the digging continued and sand flew, the rest of the clan sat in the dust a few metres away and started to make a fire. They use acacia wood for their fire-lighting sticks. One stick has a sharpened end that fits into hole in the other, which is laid flat. The idea is to create enough friction by quickly twisting the vertical stick between your palms to create a spark at the point where they meet.
Three people took turns to keep rubbing the sticks together, taking five or six minutes of hard work to get a small spark. Once there was a whiff of smoke, they sprinkled grass and dried zebra dung on it and blew gently until it grew into a small fire.
The scorpion whisperer
At last the scorpion was dug out. A self-appointed ‘scorpion wrangler’ grabbed it by the pincers with one hand and the stinger in the tail with the other. Then he started licking it – ‘washing its eyes’, he told us. A scorpion has eight eyes, eight legs and two jaws. Two small wings on the underside are used to feel vibrations in the soil, so this creature would have known something was digging to find it and have tried to outmanoeuvre its opponent.
At last the scorpion was dug out. A self-appointed ‘scorpion wrangler’ grabbed it by the pincers with one hand and the stinger in the tail with the other. Then he started licking it – ‘washing its eyes’, he told us. A scorpion has eight eyes, eight legs and two jaws. Two small wings on the underside are used to feel vibrations in the soil, so this creature would have known something was digging to find it and have tried to outmanoeuvre its opponent.
While we looked at the scorpion and thought about what it takes to put a venomous creature anywhere near your face, a young man started digging another hole with his stick. Turned out, it was for the scorpion – a new hole for it to hide in, replacing the one they had destroyed. Released, it scurried quickly away and disappeared down the hole.
Setting a bird trap
The Zu/’hoansi demonstrated how they would set a trap for a bird like guinea fowl. Plant a flexible twig, about three feet long, in the soil and bend it over, attaching a rope made from the fibres of a plant called mother-in-law’s tongue. Use either a piece of gum or a few berries as bait in the centre of a small noose, with short sticks to hold it open.
The Zu/’hoansi demonstrated how they would set a trap for a bird like guinea fowl. Plant a flexible twig, about three feet long, in the soil and bend it over, attaching a rope made from the fibres of a plant called mother-in-law’s tongue. Use either a piece of gum or a few berries as bait in the centre of a small noose, with short sticks to hold it open.
One of the young men mimed the bird getting caught, first scratching around in the dirt, then getting his hand (aka the bird’s head) caught in the snare.
Games, song and dance
Fire lit and ‘bird’ caught, it was time to play a game around the fire. To my eyes, it seemed a bit like rock, paper, scissors. Much more dangerous, though, because the concept was that they were throwing lightning from one to the other. There was lots of laughing and singing until it was almost too dark to see.
Fire lit and ‘bird’ caught, it was time to play a game around the fire. To my eyes, it seemed a bit like rock, paper, scissors. Much more dangerous, though, because the concept was that they were throwing lightning from one to the other. There was lots of laughing and singing until it was almost too dark to see.
Back at the small encampment in a clearing, the women settled to a game played with a stone, singing a repetitive tune all the while. To the rhythm of clapping, one bashed a fist-sized stone on a piece of wood while a second slipped her flat hand quickly under the stone and out again. The rhythm was everything; get it wrong and you'd get your hand bashed by the stone. Later, they danced in a line, mimicking the movement of a caterpillar.
These are the things they do to entertain themselves when there is no TV, no books to read. There in the dark, under a vast canopy of stars, it seemed like a good way to pass the time.
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Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
Makgadikgadi, Botswana: like being on the moon
Highlights of the Makgadikgadi, Botswana
Copyright © Roxanne Reid - No words or photographs on this site may be used without permission from roxannereid.co.za
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