Megan's Great African Adventure: Gone Camping

panorama of our campsite by Lara

After our week in Stellenbosch we spent two days camping at !Khwa ttu, a San culture and education centre about 70km from Cape Town. The San people, also known as Bushmen, are the descendants of the first indigenous people in southern Africa. This group of hunter-gathers is comprised of many smaller tribes who speak numerous distinct languages from four language families (Ju, Khoe, Taa, and !Ui). Today there are approximately 100,000 San living in southern Africa, with 6700 of that number living in South Africa.

The goal of the centre is to educate the general public about the San culture and provide job training for San descendents. During our time at the centre our guides taught us about traditional practices, gender roles, and hunting and gathering techniques. One of the things that stuck out to me was the San’s sustainable practices. For example, if the men were out hunting and found an ostrich nest, they would take on egg, drain its contents, and use the egg as a water bottle. If the egg broke, the pieces would be given to the man’s mother, wife, or sisters to make jewelry. In this culture everything was used and nothing went to waste.

After dinner each night, which usually included eland meat, we returned to our camp grounds across the road. Our camping was very luxurious… camping was honestly easier for me than living in the rural village! Each tent slept two and was sheltered beneath a grass hut like the San would sleep in. Inside the tent there were two mattresses with blankets and pillows and a solar-powered light. Our camp grounds also had bathroom facilities, which included a toilet, sink, and shower with hot water. I shared a tent with my best friend Lara and we had a blast! One might even say that we had too much fun.

As always, I enjoyed my experience learning about another cultural group that contributes to the complex society I'm studying in called South Africa!