Blog #58 – San Dance Festival

My time in Maun is finished. It is an odd feeling to have left Maun and instead of heading home, I am here in Gabarone. Gabs is the capital here in Bots, and that definitely has brought about a huge difference between the rural northern village of Maun and this very developed and amenity-based city.

It is as if my trip and Student Without Borders experience is coming full circle. After finishing my field course, I began here in Gabs with my training and in-country orientation. I would be spending my final Thursday back in the WUSC office going through some post-program debriefing and speaking with two other SWB students about their experiences.

The day went by quickly and it was really enjoyable to sit down with some of the local Batswana WUSC staff and the other students to talk about our experience and thoughts on the program, our placements, the people, the culture and the country. What I found most interesting were the similarities and agreements that we had on the unique cultural experiences and observations. Even though we were all placed in different parts of the country, doing very different work, all of us students had experienced similar interactions and relations with the local people.

However, regardless of our agreements, what was most shocking to me was how unique my experience seemed to be. I was the only one that had stayed with a local family (which is apparently quite rare), while the others had stayed in homes by themselves or with other ex-pat volunteers. It also seems that I was one of the few people that have developed some close friendships with the local people outside of my work. Most people enjoyed and were friends with those in their placement, but rarely knew or interacted with people outside of that experience in a meaningful way. It makes me treasure the friendships of Kenny, Alex, Hauona, Warren, Fred, Virginia, Vincent, and Marie all the more. This difference in experience, which may seem minimal, has actually had a profound impact on my interpretation and understanding of Botswana and its people. I have grown really close to my family and friends. It is nice to know that I have made some lasting relationships and if we ever come close to each other’s home (or countries) in the future, we will certainly be making contact!

There were going to be two vehicles and eleven WUSC affiliates attending the Kuru Dance Festival (of the San) in Ghanzi, Botswana. After all of the day’s activities, we purchased groceries and packed for the trip. It was going to be a seven to eight hour drive from Gabs to Ghanzi and an early start tomorrow morning.

At the crack of dawn we got up and loaded our bags into the car. I would be returning directly from Ghanzi to the Gabs airport to start my journey home, but before I got my mind to thinking about that I had the next two days of an amazingly unique cultural experience.

We arrived to Ghanzi just after lunchtime and spent the afternoon meeting Kevin, a long-term WUSC volunteer working with San Arts & Crafts, who showed us his office and explained the work they did. His organization is a member of the Kuru family, which I will talk a little bit more about later, and purchase cultural craft items from many different local San communities and provide wholesale services to the rest of the country and beyond. All of the funds and monies raised go to support the work of Kuru and the improvement of San culture and livelihood.

After picking up Kevin we settled in Ghanzi Trailblazers, a traditional accommodation in the rural bush outside of Ghanzi. I was SO STOKED! Some of my friends had stayed here back in early June and I was really excited to go here. The accommodations are traditional grass huts – made purely of grass and sticks, seriously!

We unpacked and settled in to our places. Next, we jumped into Kevin’s truck and he took us out to a local quarry. One of the prominent businessmen of Ghanzi owned a brick quarry that he used to extract stone and make bricks. He had hit water one day and the quarry had flooded making a very large and rare swimming pool! This was the first time that I had the opportunity to swim since Namibia and there was no way that I was going to be passing that up! The water was definitely cold, but it felt so good to be able to jump off the quarry edges into the refreshing pool – even though it was laced with interesting creatures including dung beetles! After swimming for a little bit and cooling my blood right down we headed back to Trailblazers and packed into our vehicles to go the Festival of the San.

The Festival of the San has been organized and held by the Kuru organization for over a decade. Kuru is a development trust NGO that works to promote and preserve the San culture – an amazingly difficult challenge. ‘San’ actually translates to mean ‘people’, and I still laugh whenever I catch myself saying the San people! The San, which have also been referred to as the Bushmen (due to living in the bush of southern Africa), are one of the oldest indigenous groups on our planet – second oldest if I remember correctly. They are our ancestors and have lived and hunted in the deserts and bush of southern Africa for a very long time. A people of no specific country, with tribes in Angola, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and a few other places, they have been at the unfortunate receiving end of government policies and practices that haven’t always been beneficial. They were moved out of their natural homes due to the development of national game reserves. HIV and AIDS have brutally ravaged their population. They are widely misunderstood and poorly respected indigenous people. They represent our past and heritage, yet their future survival is bleaker than you could imagine. Enough talk about that though – you can ask and engage me in a chat about it anytime once I am back :)

The Festival of the San is an annual event that takes place in mid-August during the weekend of the full moon. It is held in a small town called D’kar, just thirty kilometers northwest of Ghanzi. The actual site is a game park and it is quite rural, remote and unpopulated. This year close to 50 different groups traveled from as far as Namibia and South Africa to participate in the festival. No buses, no trains, no planes. These people walked, what must have been weeks, to come to D’kar – simply amazing. This year’s theme was “Proud to be a San” and showcased dances and games from all of the different tribes that came in.

The first night of the festival was as picturesque as it could have been. From what I heard there would be close to a thousand San present and another thousand visitors. Those numbers shocked me, but luckily it never seemed like there was that many people there. The set-up was surprising quite Roman; there was a large firepit in the centre of a sloped circular stadium seating arrangement. Instead of being carved out of stone, the seats were made out of packed sand, wooden logs and corrugated aluminum. The dancing began once it was dark and the San would come in and out of the presentation circle dancing in front and around the fire. Don’t get the picture of them as savages or wild bushmen – they are far from it.

All of the dancing is done to rhythmic clapping and harmonized singing – while I never had a single idea what they were singing about, it was unbelievably moving. The traditional dress includes various undergarments, aprons and beadwork all made out of animal or plant products found in the bush. The women are traditionally topless, but some had added covers, and the men really only wore a pair of animal skin underwear – which was astounding considering it was still quite cold at night. During this first evening there really wasn’t any young children dancing – which was sad because they are my favourite – but that might have been accounted for due to the late hours that they were dancing. It wasn’t particularly easy to see in the sole light of the fire, but it was quite captivating to just sit and watch these people perform.

I sat there for many hours completely enthralled with what I was witnessing and mesmerized by the sheer amazement of what was happening – a culture that goes back tens of thousands of years, of a people that had walked across the Kalahari desert to dance and reunite with other San groups, speaking a language few knew and a culture that was quickly dying in the face of modern development. It was right here, not more than twenty feet from where I sat. Easily in a few decades, this could all be gone, unless something is done to help these people. They are one quite commonly referred to and mentioned over my time in Botswana, but people that are rarely seen or considered important – they are not the focus or worry of the common person. Sadly.

Saturday was quite similar to Friday night, except today is was broad daylight. We got up relatively early and headed back out into the D’kar bush. I couldn’t have been more excited when we arrived as they were just starting for the day and the first group of performers was entering the stage. The first three groups were all children’s groups and it is not only amazing to see them dance because of their skills, but you can see on their faces their enjoyment and attitude toward dancing, their pride in their culture. These kids are the future; they are the only hope for these people. Their success will make or break the fate of the San.

Following the children was a very LONG and formal introduction and speak by the Botswana Minister of Agriculture and something something. Normally I would have remembered, but I was blown away by the situation. There were several government officials that were present all dressed in suits and ties, who standing next to the nearly naked San people just reeked of corporate politics and business. They all sat in high-backed padded chairs in front of the stage, a place of comfort and hierarchical power next to the squatting San in the dust and sand. I couldn’t believe the way that they talked so dispassionately about the cultural preservation and wellbeing of these people. The way that they plugged current government programs and initiatives and the very long prayer that followed which seemed just out of place. It was a perfect reminder of the divide in class and ‘importance’ that is so prevalently sought-after and then reinforced, just like today. That is all sad talk though and there was so much good and happiness in the day!

We sat and walked for nearly four hours straight all kinds of different dances and presentations by the San people. Regardless of the amount of time here, my skin stills burns with that amount of direct sunlight, but it was totally worth it. For one of my final lunches in Bots I was glad to be able to get the traditional meal – papa and seswaa followed by some fresh, sweet and greasy mogunas! I picked up a few different cultural craft items that were on display from different artists and then headed back for some more dancing in the afternoon. Some of the interesting observations that I made throughout the time about the dancing include:
-the role of women varied quite prominently between different tribes sometimes strictly dancing, but most commonly the ones who set the rhythm and sang while being danced to
-the number of women hugely outnumbered the men, with some groups having only a single San man
-the age demographics were quite skewed and almost bimodal, with a much larger proportion of older San and quite young children, but nearly no people of reproductive age (the result of HIV ravaging these communities)
-the different tribes interacted quite nicely, with other tribes’ members often jumping in to join in different dances
-sometimes the women and men also wore traditional undergarments with ‘developed’ underwear (bras, briefs, etc.) It seemed that the crowd would react quite loudly to the women who showed their nipples and breasts, which would often come out with some of the dancing and shaking movements of their presenations.
-the San idea of body image seemed much healthily than anything back home, or even here, but was definitely in the critical spotlight as ‘underdeveloped’ or ‘primitive’ by many of the people watching (as was observed through their verbal reactions to different situations)
-there is a huge value for family. The host of the festival, a relatively local elder San women just radiated with pride and love for her tribe, sisters and grandchildren that performed a dance.
-I will cherish and appreciate this experience and all of the observations and

Once the afternoon’s activities had mainly finished we headed back to Trailblazers to spend the rest of the time relaxing by the fireside drinking and snacking. We had some interesting discussions with the other WUSC people about the weekend’s events, their summer experiences and all things foreign aid and politics related. We had our meal prepared at the campsite and spent the night keeping warm by the fire. As people slowly drifted off to bed, saying their final farewells – for we had many different people departing at different time – I crawled into my sleeping bag and quickly tucked all of the edges and open parts under my body. It was a cold night, but I was filled with the warmth of satisfaction reserved only for the rarest of occasions.