Home » Zambia » Day 7. Fri 23rd April 'The Bushmen of the Kalahari'.

We are spending a day at the Bushman Farm, so we get a lie in until 7. After breakfast Ken heads into town for some last minute bits and pieces while we go on a nature walk with a bushman, a bushwoman and a bunch of bushkids. They chatter away in their clicking language, dig up roots and tubers to show us what is edible, what can be used as medicine, what used to make rope or thatch huts. They peel a huge thing like a big deformed spud and all chomp away happily. We all try a bit, it is eatable, but pretty tasteless.

Day 7. Fri 23rd April 'The Bushmen of the Kalahari'.

DaveMidgley
2005-10-22 10:16:57

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the Land Rover ready for the camp. Then Ken exhorts the San staff to set up the barbeque (they are not ones to do anything now if it can be done in ten minutes!) while I go and play frisbee with the kids round the back. They are lovely kids, and although they don't speak a word of English they obviously recognise a frisbee, as they all jump up to play as soon as they see it. Inevitably they get it stuck up a tree, but soon retrieve it. When it becomes to dark to play they sing and dance for me, and are more than happy to pose for the camera.

Meanwhile the barbeque has to be rapidly replanned when it is discovered that the gas in the farm has run out. Instead of just barbequeing the meat the whole meal now has to be cooked on the fire.

I am in my room getting ready for supper when there is a great commotion outside, and Blondie bursts in shouting that they have found a Black Mamba. Sunshine and Pirate, wandering back to their room in the dark, had seen the snake right next to the path where they were walking. Luckily they had not panicked, but called Ken, who raised the alarm. Everybody came rushing out of the house and beat the poor thing to death with a stick, and then stood around chattering excitedly and measuring it's length. As it turns out it isn't a Mamba, but an Egyptian Cobra, but still poisonous. Ken says they must burn it, as it will have a mate that will follow its scent to find it, but I'm not sure whether this is scientific fact or folklore.

After the barbeque Dina, the woman who came on the walk with us and seems to be in charge, tells us traditional stories in the San language while one of the guys translates into English.

We are off early in the morning, before the farm staff arrive, so we prepare breakfast and lunch now, get everything packed up and toddle off to bed. The farm has apparently changed hands since Ken made the booking, and they have somehow managed to double book us with a bunch of Americans, so Blondie must come and share with Ken and me. She puts in her earplugs and takes a sleeping pill!

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