D’Kar location scouting

If it wasn’t for the letter of invitation from the Kuru Trust in D’Kar, near Ghanzi, in the Kalahari dessert of Botswana, letting us know by e-mail that the local San elders were eager to meet me and listen to my story, it might have been the San in Namibia or Angola that I chose to focus on. But, before continuing with the story, some basic information on the Kalahari and the San people.

 DKar1

The Kalahari, Africa’s second largest Desert, stretches through six southern African countries, with Botswana at its centre. This is also where the Okavango River drains into the heart of the desert. The Kalahari supports one of the largest variety of animals, plants and other natural treasures of any desert in the world. No wonder that all available DNA research on human origins traces them back to this place. The San or Bushmen, are directly descended from the original population of early human ancestors, which gave rise to all other groups of Africans and are the oldest population of humans on Earth. Our very own forefathers thus, originated from this part of the world some 70.000 years ago, later crossing to the Middle East and then spreading to other parts of the world, to Europe and Asia, via Indonesia and Papua New Guinea to Australia, and via the Baring Straight to the Americas.

Starting in the 19th century, colonisation brought lots of misery to the nomadic people in this part of the world. Firstly, by establishing boarder lines between the colonial powers and defining those areas as territories and countries. Once they eventually pulled out, the newly established self ruling governments did not recognize or even make any attempt to differentiate amongst the variety of local ethnic groups and to divide the land appropriately. In Botswana there are four distinctly different ethnic groups.

DKar2

We received a warm welcome from the Kuru Trust co-ordinator in D’Kar, who offered us hospitality at the Dqae Qare farm during the time we stayed. In this period I met with the elders and staff of D’Kar and the Kuru Trust and presented the project. Not at the Kgotla, but at the coordinators office. They had many questions, were quite critical, and had a healthy attitude to forming their opinions. Altogather, we spent a fortnight at the farm and a lot of different things took place there, the details of which can be found in another cable.

It was clear that placement of the World in a Shell should be near to the centre of the village. The place I spotted is close to the local art centre and the Kgotla across the road.

DKar3

At the time of the visit in D’Kar an important event was on the agenda. The President and some ministers of Botswana announced a visit to the village. The coordinator of the Kuru Trust suggested that one should use the opportunity to personally present the project to the president, which I did later at the Kgotla. (thanks to the photo by John Sikalera).

DKar4

It saddened me that a San lady who visited the farm told us that she prefers to work for Europeans, because in her experience they treated her with much more respect than the local people. She was obviously trying to see if we had some work for her.

Schreibe einen Kommentar

Deine E-Mail-Adresse wird nicht veröffentlicht. Erforderliche Felder sind mit * markiert