Vacation! The Living Museum of the Gentle People

looking back to September 2016:

As we headed east and south from Etosha, Kit and Karen and I enjoyed the view of a much more verdant Namibia, here in the primary cattle-ranching part of the country.  We were aiming for Grootfontein, where we would find the Hoba meteorite, at over 60 tons (estimated) the largest known meteorite on earth.  It is also, according to Wikipedia, "the most massive naturally occurring piece of iron known on Earth's surface."  Per me, it is not especially interesting to see.  I suppose I'm glad I did, though.

Not even all that large, really.  But high in iron.  Or something.

What was interesting, though:  a visit to the Living Museum of the Ju/'Hoansi-San.  The museum is well-designed, fascinating and beautiful.  It's akin to those living history museums we get all over the eastern US -- Plimoth Plantation, Old Sturbridge Village -- where 'interpreters' recreate the living conditions of some past time, churning butter and shearing sheep with straight razors or whatever.

My rondavel at Roy's.  No mosquito nets!

The manager of Roy's Rest Camp, where we were staying, drove us out to the museum as the road is deep sand, and Kit was very understandably tired after five days of gravel-road driving.  Once we got there, we had a choice of singing and dancing, crafts, or a bush walk, and chose the bush walk.  Our primary guide was /Kun, who introduced himself as Elias.  He introduced his colleague N/a!ad as 'the hunter' and referred to him that way throughout our walk.

/Kun, displaying arrows

N/a!ad preparing a fire, which he will start with two soft sticks he carries in
the quiver on his right, and a handful of dried grass.

N/a!ad with his covered quiver, bow, ax and drinking straw.

He's setting a snare for birds, rabbits, lizards.

Digging for water stored in the tree's roots.

Sneaking up on a pretend springbok.

Preparing to shoot the mock-springbok.  He missed!

I recommend the heck out of this museum.  I also really liked the gift shop, where I bought many Christmas presents, each labelled with the name of the maker (jewellery, fire-starting sticks, pipes for smoking bark and rabbit dung (you 'pow' the bark and dung together)) so that she or he would get a cut of the purchase price.  Also a cute baby.

She's in shadow, or you'd see how light-skinned the San are before they start
spending long stretches of every day in the sun.

And as we drove away south again, I thought I spotted monkeys.  But the only primates around here are humans and baboons, so I didn't like to say anything.  But no one wants to miss anything, so I mentioned it, and Kit asked should we turn around, and I asked would they be pissed if it was just baby baboons (we'd seen plenty of baboons at this point), and they said yes, and I said well, better turn around anyway, and we drove back a kilometer or two and found vervet monkeys, who do live here but not that many so not commonly sighted.  So you see.  Did I mention the rhino I said we had better check out in Etosha, even though it was probably just two suspiciously rounded ant hills (termite mounds) suspiciously close to each other?  Well, it was actually a rhino, surprisingly well hidden by tall grass.  Rhinos.  What kind of a morally-bankrupt idiot kills one of those things to pow its horn and snort it.  Save the rhinos, please!

There were a couple dozen on the other side of the road, but this one was close and eager to pose.
According to a Wikipedia citation from the American Journal of Human Genetics, "They have been noted for having human-like characteristics, such as hypertension, anxiety, and social and dependent alcohol use."