‘Wow, you are looking so bright today!’ said Matti, my familiar barista behind the counter at my local café in Dartington, in his South African twang. ‘That figures’, I said, ‘I’ve just returned from the Kalahari.’ At this point his eyes misted over and he shared his longing for his homeland. ‘There’s nothing quite like the wild out there is there?’ he said, and I concurred.
I’ve been on a deep dive of a health journey over the last couple of years, and perhaps it was my heightened sensibilities these days that helped me discern the deep medicine I felt I received from the long exposure to wild Africa on the recent ‘Tracking the Kalahari’ expedition to support the San Ju/’Hansi Bushman of Namibia.
It’s a potent recipe. Living in an eco-system that lacks nothing, one that is complete with mega-fauna, and of course everyday sunrises and sunsets and a confection of bright starry skies every night. But its not just this that drip-fed the nutrients into my constitution. It was the people of the Nyae Nyae Conservancy. The original people. They who have always been there, doing what they have always done there. Hunting. Gathering. Crafting.
And our group of 20 Europeans and North Americans were amongst them, 24/7. We were again privileged to be taken hunting and tracking and gathering traditional foods. We were shown traditional crafts like grass hut building, hide-tanning, arrow making, beadwork and jewellery making. The Ju/’Hansi people were gathered there to welcome us with dance and song, from a number of different villages spread throughout the Kalahari region. At our pop-up village of huts and tents near a borehole, they shared their lifeways and we of course shared ours. We sang songs for them, and they reciprocated – but with the extra dimension of polyphonics, harmonies and embodied movement. These songs I realised (usually about animals) must be the oldest songs on earth because this is the oldest continuous culture on earth, from whom we all directly descend. I can’t tell you how moving it is to bear witness to this sort of village business – knowing the games and songs and stories and lifeways are so ancient and yet so alive in these people.
And the children…..bless those cheeky, spirited, effervescent children. They go pretty hungry for most of the year, such is the plight of the ‘forgotten people’ who suffer the indignity of centuries of exploitation and abuse. And yet, they shine so very brightly with a vitality and depth of connection it is rare to come across on the streets of Britain.
This expedition is part of a wider project, Kalahari San Master Tracker Programme, aiming to support the San Bushman, and is one way to contribute meaningfully to the preservation of many aspects of their culture. WildWise feel honoured to be a small part of this initiative and are particularly proud of Robin Bowman (of the Hunger Games notoriety!) for his inspiring leadership.
The lead scientist Louis Liebenburg who developed CyberTracking, was asked by the San elders in 1985 for his help in coming up with a sustainable way that would enable them to pass on their tracking culture to the next generation. Louis responded by creating the Kalahari Master Tracker Project. At last count there was only 15 San Master Trackers left. By participating in the Tracking the Kalahari program, we were, at their invitation, economically supporting those trackers, their culture and the passing on of tracking knowledge to the next generation by living in a village made of people from six different Ju/’Hoansi communities for ten days.
Sadly, Louis suffered a stroke earlier this year and the whole project is on a critical threshold while it reconfigures its future without Louis as its figurehead. You can read more about it all here, and there is also somewhere to donate much-needed funds to various initiatives to support the people there on the TTK website.
Another way to support them, is to join the next expedition in spring 2026. These trips put economic value into the villages and critically, they also support the Kalahari Master Tracker programme which is a vital cog in the wheel of sustaining their culture.
If I haven’t tempted you to join already, then let me add a few more details to colour in the experience…
We spent evenings under starry skies by the fire with the San village, which included the San elders sharing some of their wisdom. I also initiated an evening for storytelling, sharing from our rich heritage and receiving in return what must be some of the oldest stories on the planet. (An interesting sidenote here, as the designated Ju/’Hansi storyteller was repeatedly hijacked by the village who would take turns in telling parts of the story, and argue over what really happened. This was a rare form of storytelling as part of ‘the commons’ i.e. it was embedded into their culture in a way it would have once been in ours.) We went to sleep at night with those ancient stories and songs reverberating through our dreams, and listening to the nocturnal soundscape of Southern Africa, which included the bass rumblings of nearby elephants.
Part of our time there culminates in an Indigenous Evaluation process where the Master Trackers guide us through a 2-day course to test our knowledge. It’s a learning process, conceived by Louis Liebenburg, to enable indigenous trackers around the world to gain certified credentials to work with conservation organisations. However, the process itself adapts to anyone wanting to learn tracking, and succeeds in speeding up the learning and enjoyment.
We tracked leopards, cheetahs, elephants, warthogs, wild dogs and aardvarks to name but a few of the celebrities out there. But we also fine-tuned our observation skills to notice the tracks of gecko, baboon spider, scorpion and snake. There is a teeming profusion of wildlife to discover through tracks, and then the final flourish is to see the animals we’d been tracking at the stunning Etosha national park on the way back to Windhoek.
All of this bathed in the constant soundtrack of the myriad birds and insects that prevail in this part of the world, a reminder of just how much we’ve lost here on our denuded islands.
There is a longing in me for Britain to be wild again, as wild as it once was. In an unexpected way, part of that deep longing in my heart, was fulfilled by dwelling amongst the original people and animals of the Kalahari desert. There really is nothing quite like the wild out there….