Submitted by SafariADV on Sat, 2017-10-07
Today we left our campsite near the Mahango Game Reserve at the Botswana border, and after passing Rundu, we arrived at the Roy's Rest Camp, near the town of Grootfontein in Namibia, at lunch time.
In this area there are several traditional San villages, the San or Bushmen, are the population of this desert land, that is the basin of the Kalahari, and many of them continue to live here following their ancestral traditions.
About 90 km from the Roy's Rest Camp there is a San village and so we decide to visit it; the San define this village a "live museum" so we have pretty low expectations, as we are almost sure to engage in a tourist trap.
The village is about 85 km from the main road, the B8, that connects Rundu to Grootfontein, for the first 80 km the road is in good condition, while for the last 5 km the bottom is sandy and you need to proceed slowly.
When we arrive we realize that, fortunately, the village is not so touristy, although obviously there was an area where to buy items made by them.
The village consists of a few huts covered with grass, that is dried under the strong Namibian sun; we notice an old man who is trying to turn on the fire by using two little sticks and a bit of sand, used to increase friction, and dry straw.
He was the village leader and, as soon as he is able to turn on the fire, he welcomes us with a greeting in his traditional language that is characterized by a series of "click" consonants, pronounced by emitting a series of "snaps" produced with the tongue on the palate or on the teeth; it is an extremely nice and fascinating language, but especially difficult to pronounce.
The San men and women in the village are usually dressed in traditional clothes, these costumes consist of a small men's thong and a short skirt for women while the children are running around the village completely naked.
After showing us how the village is built and how they live their daily lives, a San hunter accompanies us in the savannah where he shows us what plants are used in the traditional medicine and to get the poison they usually use to envenom the arrows during hunting.
It was an interesting experience, that allows to approach this ancient people and its millenary traditions, still living according to customs similar to those of our ancestors
