In the United States we have ghost towns, buildings that once housed a bustling community, now abandoned. Sometimes the buildings are maintained for tourists and historians. As the San Bushmen are forced away from their traditional lifestyle and into a more western one, someone has thought to maintain these traditional dwellings. They’re empty inside – nothing to see. Tourists take pictures and then spend the night in quarters that have plumbing and electricity.
Our evening’s entertainment came from a group of San Bushman who presented songs and dances from the old days. They dressed in traditional clothing. The women sat around the campfire and sang; the men danced around them and joined in the singing. The men wore rattles tied around their legs from the knee to the ankle with a leather thong. The rattles shook in perfect rhythm to the women’s singing.
(It was night, so my camera captured less than the eye could see, but the sound is good.)
I was conflicted with the idea of the Bushmen “selling” their traditional culture to make money from people like me, people who tried to be respectful but couldn’t really understand it and who would be gone tomorrow. The women sitting on the ground were a little cold – it was night, and they kept wrapping their blankets close – and there were small children to keep an eye on while they were singing. (One little guy, just old enough to walk, was trying to dance with the men.) On the other hand, they were choosing to do this to earn money. It was theater. The audience paid, was entertained, and applauded.
It’s hard to let both of those ideas stand there without choosing between them, but ultimately that’s what I have to do: both are present, the bad and the good. As long as the performance remains a choice for them, I can deal with it.
This collection of traditional San Bushman huts is now part of a hotel complex on the edge of the Kalahari Desert.
This video runs 3:10. In the past this dance was performed before the men went hunting. The video opens with the end of an explanation in English. During the video other photographers take flash photos, and you can see the dancers more clearly. It’s easier to see detail if you open up to full screen view.
In her 2009 TED talk African author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie relates the effect of stereotypes. When her college roommate in Philadelphia heard that Ms. Adichie was from Nigeria, she assumed that her family lived in a village of grass huts without modern appliances and that she grew up listening to traditional tribal music. In fact, Adichie grew up on a college campus and listened to music from singers like Mariah Carey.
Many of us learned what little we know about ordinary life in Africa from old movies. Inaccurate information and unsubtle racism shaped those images, and not much has replaced them. I found myself confronting my own ignorance on this trip. I’d like to present more recent images in case you, too, would like an update.
The city of Maun in Botswana has about 55,000 people, large enough for nearby villages to have become suburbs. I don’t know the name of this village that we drove through on the outskirts of Maun, but a simple drive was enlightening. The village has brick homes, a brick school, cars, power lines, planned streets, fenced yards, infrastructure in place. There are also homes built with cinder block, which I suspect stays fairly cool in African heat, and some built with corrugated metal, which wouldn’t stay as cool. There is one traditional round hut (at :30-:33). All of the other buildings are western in style.
Phone technology may leapfrog in parts of Africa. Cell phones were everywhere, and wifi was common, at least in our hotels. However, I didn’t see a lot of phone poles or wires, suggesting that parts of Botswana may skip landlines altogether. Solar water heaters were common. Solar power cells were not unusual. Not everyone had a car, but taxi service was readily available.
Cities like Swapkomund in Namibia showed more foreign influence. Namibia was colonized by Germany in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and evidence of that influence remains in placenames and architecture. Since the African nations have become independent, though, they have built on established infrastructure and emphasized local culture.
A hotel in Namibia looks like a Swiss chalet and reveals German influence. The tree in the courtyard is a bottlebrush.
Outside the old part of the city – the historically white part of town – things are different. In the older part of “The Township” – the historically black part of town – established homes show the results of economic opportunity and growth.
This Herero woman (whose name I regret I didn’t get) welcomed us to walk through her home in the oldest part of The Township. The back door opened into the kitchen, with a beautiful glossy white tile floor and standard appliances – stove, refrigerator, and microwave. Her living room (and I assume the rest of the house – I didn’t snoop!) was well furnished, with curtains drawn against the heat of the day.
This Herero woman invited us into her home in the oldest part of the township. The microwave oven, right, sits across from a standard refrigerator and stove.
The Township is growing as more Namibians leave villages and smaller towns, looking for work. The Namibian government is trying to help people buy their own newer homes using a lottery system, but the need outstrips the program.
Farther out in the township, laundry dries in sunshine. A little girl stands by the back door of her home.
In the newest parts of The Township, people live in whatever they can find or build, working when they can, saving what they can, and waiting for each year’s annual lottery, hoping to upgrade. Entrepreneurship is the rule. Workers often have 2 or 3 jobs or a job and a small business. Winning the lottery doesn’t guarantee money; it guarantees help with financing a home.
Township homes built from scrap and not intended to be permanent. Old tires partially buried vertically mark the edge of the street.
Third World poverty is real in Africa, but it’s not the only story. Grass huts are probably real in remote areas, but most people don’t live like that any more. Africa is working hard to educate its children, house its families, and develop economic opportunities for everyone. The growth is uneven, as it is everywhere, but it is real.
