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Published: June 25th 2017
Geo: -21.5667, 21.7833
Back in 1980 there was a successful feel-good movie called The Gods Must Be Crazy. The story revolves around a San tribesman who is trying to get rid of a Coca-Cola bottle that is thrown out of an airplane and falls to Earth unbroken. The surprise star of the movie was N!xau ǂToma (the symbols in his name represent different clicking sounds in the Khoekhoe language), a Kalahari bushman who had only ever seen three white people before being cast and was unaware of the value of paper money (he earned only a few hundred dollars for his work in the movie). We had heard the clicking sound language in parts of the Western Cape and into Namibia but, with our Coke bottle firmly in hand, we were now crossing the Kalahari Desert and visiting San tribes in the area. I thought Russian was hard to pick up but the clicking and clucking was virtually impossible.
As we entered the Kalahari and moved across the Namibian/Botswanan border we were stopped in no-mans land for an impromptu check for the current scourge of Africa- the dreaded Ebola. Since Ebola has been contained to a handful of West African countries (that are
nowhere near us), it seemed that a number of African countries had established Ebola checkpoints for public relation purposes vs any real control- perhaps to ease the concerns of geographically challenged tourists (who might be unaware that the U.S. has had more Ebola cases than any Southern African country). It was borderline humourous to be funneled out of our bus to stand in front of the hastily erected Ebola clinic (which was, in fact, a small wooden hut with a paper sign tacked over the door, a wooden desk and one wooden chair), and then sign a form that essentially stated that, through self-diagnosis, we had determined that we did not have Ebola.
A far more valuable Botswanan resource was cattle and as a result the efforts to block any diseases that might affect the cattle were a little more serious- the vehicles were required to drive through decontamination pools, and we were obliged to rinse all of our footwear in similar baths. The amount of cattle is the first clue that the Kalahari is an odd sort of desert. It is hot, it is flat, and it is dusty, but with huge tracts of excellent grazing land after good rains,
the Kalahari supports more animals and plants than a true desert (unfortunately the area is now used as grazing land for cattle and cattle fences are becoming a problem as they restrict the movement of wildlife).
The San people have lived in the Kalahari for 20,000 years as hunter-gatherers. They hosted our first stop in Botswana and showed us how they hunt wild game with bows and poison arrows and gather edible plants, such as berries, melons and nuts, as well as insects. The San get most of their water requirements from plant roots and desert melons found on or under the desert floor. They often store water in the blown-out shells of ostrich eggs. The San also live in huts built from local materials—the frame is made of branches, and the roof is thatched with long grass... and guess where we were staying for the night- Woo Zee was starting to look pretty good as we crawled through the tiny doorway.
If I hadn't seen them eating insects that they had dug out of the ground, I might have suspected that the San tribespeople (the same ones who had walked us through their culture and hosted a night of dancing)
simply went home, threw on jeans and T-shirts, and hung around the pool with a cold beer while making fun of the touristos who were making like desert nomads in minature wooden huts. That said, it was good fun and we survived unscathed- the next night we found ourselves in a reasonably modern motel and, of course, that's when we got sick (and when I say 'we' I mean me). When you travel the world for as long as we have it's inevitable that we would get sick occasionally (and when I say 'we' I mean DH). This was the first time I had to shut it down for a recovery day but thank goodness I had DH there to nurse me back to good health. Wait a minute... guess who just signed up for a two day mokoro (a dug-out canoe) adventure into the Okavango Delta area?? It probably doesn't surprise any of our loyal readers who can read deeply between the lines, but I tend to be the sensitive and nurturing one of this dynamic duo, and after the many past sick days that I had sat rubbing her feet and recounting tales of her heroic deeds while
on the Toronto Police Service until she had fully recovered, I guess I expected a more empathetic response when it was my turn. Instead my dearly beloved was in a dugout canoe with a complete stranger and a poler exploring the wilds of Botswana while I (and my very green complexion) was stuck in a basic motel room watching the one TV channel available (which, for some reason, was showing 24 hours of Australian club rugby). Not only that, but she stole my camera and came back with a number of artistic and colourful photos (all this time I had been telling Tina B that it was 80% photographic talent and 20% camera).
But since I wasn't there the Okavango Delta mokoro adventure didn't happen. There's nothing to see here. Let's move on.
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Amanda
non-member comment
The "man-flu" is always much more serious than the regular old flu that women get.