Botswana has the San Bushmen as one of its main tribes and the last morning we were at San Camp, we spent several hours with some Bushmen, learning a few of their traditional ways of doing things.  Super let us off in the middle of the bush early in the morning and these guys appeared.  We were in long pants and jackets--they barely had the essentials covered.

The little guy on the right looked and sounded like the one in "The Gods Must Be Crazy".  He was the only one who spoke English.

We followed them well away from the road into the bush.

They showed us how they made fire by twirling a stick in a hole in a larger branch.

They took turns spinning the stick to keep up the pace.

They also took turns blowing on the spark till it caught the dried moss that they put close to the sticks.

Finally it caught and they put some tobacco in little wooden pipes that they had made and all had a smoke.  I asked where they got the tobacco, thinking they grew it in their village, but he said they got it at the store!  So much for living off the land.

Then they showed us how they dug to catch scorpions which they eat.  After they find a scorpion hole, they dig very carefully, following the tunnel that the scorpion has made until they catch him.  They said they never got bitten.  Then they played a game, which seemed to be hilarious, but we didn't 'get' it at all really.  It was sort of like paper, rock and scissors I think.  It went very fast with lots of laughter.

They showed us how they made snares out of grass twine they made hung on a bent-over bush so that when an animal steps on a certain camouflaged place along the animal's normal pathway, the loop is sprung and catches the animal's leg, but the animal can still graze a bit till they come collect it.

They showed us how they track animals using footprints, scat, crushed grasses, etc., to tell how long ago the animal passed by.  They demonstrated their hand made weapons and tools--spear throwing, bow and arrow shooting, and how they made their little knapsacks out of steenbok skin which is more supple.

One played tunes by rubbing a stick on his bow and humming with the end of the bow in his mouth.  He seemed jealous of us paying attention to the one who spoke English and began this right in the middle of our trying to understand what was being explained.

All in all a very nice, informative morning--something else only available at San and Jack's Camps.  It's nice to mix these cultural things with animal viewing and to learn more about other peoples and their ways.