A Great Grandmother Bushman of the Kalahari
Post Author: Adele
What defines a transformational experience and how do we articulate a feeling into words? This is the story of a journey into the Great Kalahari Thirstlands in the early 1990’s where I met a great grandmother Bushman who left an indelible imprint within my heart that influenced the entire course of my life.
I was in my early 20’s and had answered an ad in Getaway Magazine for a group of likeminded adventurers to join an expedition into the remote Central Kalahari in Botswana where few dared to venture and those that did sometimes did not return.
We set out with one of the pioneers in the safari industry, Penduka Safaris, led by the renown adventurer Isaac Barnard and his son, who had been traveling in this area as one of the few white people since the 1950s, when the Bushmen were still living their traditional way of life in the wilderness and wildlife reserves in Botswana.
I found myself in Johannesburg hopping on board a big overland expedition truck across the border into Botswana and into the vast incredible expanse of Africa. With temperatures in the high 40 degrees Celsius I spent my time mostly outside on the top of the truck catching the breeze and a kaleidoscope of passing landscape colors in the shape of thorn trees, scrubby bushes, blue skies and palettes of red browns.
As we moved deeper and deeper into the Kalahari I felt more and more removed from everything in my known world and fell in love with the pure wild beauty of the dry wilderness that enveloped us. We adapted to our conditions with strict water rations for drinking and sponge bathing and at night, we would sleep on stretchers under the stars with just our lone campfire in over 5 million hectares of African wilderness. In our entire time in the Kalahari we did not see another vehicle.
After many days of traveling, we arrived in an area much like the surroundings we were now familiar with, full of sparse Acacia thorn trees and red Kalahari sand, long golden grasses dotted with grey shrubs. As the truck stopped seemingly out of nowhere the Bushmen emerged, a family of maybe 20, young men, women with children and elders. The headman, also their medicine man, was a man of real stature and presence. He welcomed us and we were warmly enveloped immediately into the hearts and presence of the entire family with gestures and smiles.
My memories of this time come in lingering feelings and images.
My first experience is just walking with the Bushmen in the day, walking through the sand. It’s hot, as you can imagine. They’re walking barefoot. We are following quietly. We are looking at everything they’re pointing out, plants, animal and insect tracks. The sounds of their stories clicking like music in my mind.
One of the women stops, a mom with a baby on her back, and she’s got a digging stick. She points to a thin looking creeper vine coming from the ground at the base of a bush, and then rapidly starts digging with her digging stick. Another two women come to join her, and the three start digging and digging and digging. Around 20 minutes later, they are probably a meter and a half down into the soil, and there this incredible white tuber is revealed, a massive tuber, the size of a watermelon. Everybody gathers around in great joy and jubilation, and they immediately slice off a chunk and offer it to us to taste. It tastes like a watery potato, so juicy and fresh! I learn this is one of the ways the Bushmen sustain themselves in this semi desert environment with very little rainfall to depend on.
My next memory sees me sitting in a circle of Women. There are little babies with round bellies, crawling on the sand, picking up things. One of the women gives a baby a small rattle made from a seed pod, where a little stick has been glued on with the intestine from an animal and there are seeds inside. And here this tiny little baby is shaking its rattle and digging its toes into the sand, so connected and at one with the earth.
The next morning I woke up in my tent at first light. The Bushmen are sleeping in their reed shelters, and we are now in dome tents as the night time temperature has dropped. I awaken to a gentle, harmonious sound filtering through the canvas of the tent and I feel like I am still dreaming. I open up the tent flap, and there sitting outside is this very old, wizened Bushman lady with the gentlest eyes who’s playing a traditional instrument, and it’s making such a warm, welcoming and melodious sound.
There is something about the simplicity and innocence of this moment that overwhelms me. The birds are singing, dawn is breaking and a grandmother Bushman lady has chosen to sit and play music outside my tent.
I just smile at her and she stops playing. She takes my hands between hers and looks into my eyes, and then she smiles a warm, wise smile, and in that instant I feel a deep connection and recognition. I feel like this is my ancestral grandmother welcoming me home, home to a place that I hadn’t realised I had lost.
This instant transmission between great grandmother Bushman and myself continues to shape the course of my life today as the very fabric of my being is rooted deeper and deeper into connection with and love for the Earth.
Again and again I have been drawn back to the essence of the Bushman’s way of life intimately, instinctively, and spiritually interconnected with nature. The Kalahari desert sands have whispered a message to share “connect to Nature, connect to your Soul” and around a campfire to the dance and song of the Bushmen the spirit of Great grandmother says “Child of the Wilderness you are greatly Loved”.
Footnote: I got to meet the Bushmen, the first people of Africa, who were still living in the traditional old ways in Botswana. Sadly they are no longer allowed to live within game reserves and wilderness spaces there, so this was a rare and privileged experience I had.
My wish is to support the Bushmen elders whose culture is precariously on the verge of extinction to pass on the “old ways” where still possible to the younger generation and to allow us to bear witness to their extraordinary symbiotic and spiritual connection to Nature.
A personal invitation from Adele
If your soul longs to slow down, to listen, and to remember what it means to truly belong to the natural world, I invite you to join me for our Journey deep within Botswana’s Desert and Delta. Together, we’ll walk with the Bushmen across the ancient sands of the Kalahari, drift through the quiet waterways of the Okavango, and rediscover the simple, sacred rhythm of life in harmony with nature.
To learn more about this experience, explore the full itinerary and upcoming dates here.
