The Kalahari desert dunes tell a fresh story each morning, encoded in the sandy tracks of nocturnal animal visitors and their encounters.
The Bushmen, or San, decipher these tales daily in the same automatic manner in which urbanites read the morning newspaper posters while driving to work.
To these most ancient inhabitants of southern Africa tracking is still an instinctive skill, honed over centuries of hunting and gathering. Even in a modern society, where this art is seldom a necessary survival tool, the San are still living close to nature, reading the encoded messages.
Take Petrus Vaalbooi, chairman of the San Council of Southern Africa and member of the Khomani-San family group.
On a recent visit by a group of journalists to his Kalahari home a messenger arrived, bringing news of death in the family. A cousin of Petrus, one of only eight women who could still speak the traditional language of the Khomani-San, had passed away. ”I already knew about her death,” Petrus said a while later.
”The owl told me last night when I was walking in the veld. It cried only twice, there and there,” he explained while pointing in the relevant directions.
As preservation of San culture becomes an increasingly global cause celebre, Petrus has had to acquire a further deciphering skill. Although he only has primary education, he learned to read the tricks of those attempting to misuse his people in order to make an easy buck.
Several of them have had to be fended off.
The attempted abuse materialised on all scales, says Jesse Strauss, former schoolmaster, political activist and land reform official.
Strauss, who also hails from the Kalahari, has been working with the San for decades, having been closely involved with their land claim. He says he has never seen so many incidents of misuse.
”It’s easy to abuse people if they are poor, hungry and illiterate.”
There were those suspected of pretending to collect overseas donations on behalf of the San, using photos or video footage taken on tourist visits to the Kalahari.
Then there was the case of the developer who tried to ”buy” Petrus for R2500 in an attempt to secure a possible lucrative contract with government. This company allegedly heard that houses and a school were to be built for the Khomani-San.
They arranged a meeting with Petrus and eventually promised him a ”donation” of R2 500 for development projects in return for his goodwill, Strauss says.
Petrus, who represents around 10 000 San spread across southern Africa, has also noticed the many attempts deceive his people.
”The problem with us Bushmen has been that we trust people too easily,” he says.
He views this as the root cause to their persistent battle to survive both economically and socially.
This struggle continues despite the Khoman-San receiving 73,000 hectares in 1999 in the Northern Cape as part of the South African government’s land restitution program. The better part of this comprises of seven top stock farms bought by government from their former white owners. All are near the South African entrance to theK galagadi Transfrontier Park.
The rest of the restituted Khomani land, 27,500ha, lies in the park. The Bushmen are not allowed to live or farm there, but may exploit it for tourism in accordance with conservation principles.
To some this may sound like deliverance from poverty and subjection, but for the San things have not worked out yet, Petrus says.
Most of them are still living in almost abject poverty, with in-fighting and socio-economic problems eroding their indigenous culture. Only a handful still speak their traditional language.
They experience crippling water problems on the farms due to not being able to afford electricity to drive the pumps.
Petrus and his family now live in one of the farmsteads, a huge face brick building with thatched roof and braai area. Due to the lack of water, nothing is left of the beautiful green lawn. There is no money to recreate it into the luxury lodge it was
originally intended to become, earning foreign currency for its new owners.
”What does it help to live in such a beautiful house when you are hungry?” Petrus says.
He is nevertheless optimistic that matters are very gradually starting to improve for him and his people: ”The blessings are there. My ewes give birth to two, three lambs per year. I can still dig my own medicine and hunt in the veld. My father has taught me to ‘brei’ (knead) my own ‘riempies’ (thongs) and to shoot with the bow and arrow.”
He firmly believes that his grandchildren will speak ”Die Taal” (their indigenous language) again.
Efforts are underway to establish this language as a subject in school, ”after everyone said our children will never speak it again”, Petrus says.
He has also learnt valuable lessons in his dealings with consultants. ”Today, I get straight to the point and talk with a tape recorder.” – SAPA