Our visit to stay with the San Bushmen at Ju/’Hoansi was one of my highlights of the Africa trip.
The Bushmen are the oldest ethnic group in Namibia having inhabited Southern Africa for an estimated 20,000 years. Around 30,000 San live in Namibia, but only 2,000 of them still follow a traditional way of life.
The group who live in Ju/’Hoansi have established a visitor program, which they call The Living Museum. It’s an interesting way of looking at themselves, but not a bad description for what they offer.
The area they live is quite remote, so we had a long drive to get there – willing the truck not to get bogged in the deep sand roads. We camped close-by and that evening they performed a traditional healing dance. The next day we went for a walk with one of their medicine men and some of the women, learning about traditional hunting, and gathering plants for that day’s food and medicine requirements. We also got to sit with the men and make bows (to shoot arrows) – cutting the branches, stripping them, shaping them and then tying them with thin rope we watched the bushmen twist.
The adults and babies wore traditional clothing – very little in general – mainly beads and dyed animal skins. Most of the children dressed in clothes for school. The were happy for us to take photos and as you’ll see they are gorgeous looking people, petite and quite asiatic in appearance. They were some of the healthiest people we saw in Africa, and seemed happy and humourous. There were lots of laughs, many – no doubt – at our expense.
Oh – by the way. The San are the people who have clicking as part of their language. It is amazing to listen to them speaking!
Caro: Our time in Livingstone could be characterised by two main themes – adrenaline and beauty. 
