In Touch with San People

Tomorrow, our Ghanzi visit ends when we board the 7:00 a.m. bus to Gaborone. It has been a week full of powerful experiences. Jim and I have just come from the Community Center where gifts were given to several orphans and used clothing passed on to other needy people. That was the climax of a two-hour meeting with many speeches but also hymns and prayers, surprising in a government-sponsored event but altogether common here.

Yesterday, we rode more than 100 km into the bush to visit a San village, New Xati. The ride itself was an experience to remember--that total distance in one hour over gravel roads. In addition to simply seeing such a bush village, it was interesting to learn that the San of that community had been moved from Xati, a location further east in the Kalahari Game Preserve, just seven years ago. The resentment at that forced move is still strong. A large concentration of government services, including a boarding primary school and a sizable hospital, are in Xati. We were especially impressed by a program called Permaculture, aimed at providing stable income for Xati residents--making jewelry, raising gardens, making cement blocks for house-building, raising chickens.

Certainly, the most mind-boggling experience was attending a San funeral on Tuesday here in Ghanzi. Jahn Wessels picked me up at 2:30 p.m. Our first stop was the hospital pathology lab, where, with several members of the family, we watched the dead person being placed in the coffin. The coffin was loaded into a Toyota Land Cruiser and taken to the man's home, a shack, where a large group of people of all ages waited for us. The service took place there, and then we processed to the cemetery for another short service and the grave closing by men in the group, accompanied by women singing. We returned to the man's house, listened to stories about him (all in Tetswana or Naro, of course). Finally, we were served tea and samp, which had been cooking nearby over an open fire. Altogether, it was an experience of enormous cultural distance that I would not want to have missed.

We will leave Ghanzi and the Lundeens sadly tomorrow. They face an interesting and productive two years with beautiful people who are genuinely warm, accepting, and caring. We will continue to follow their experiences eagerly.