WorldView Magazine - Summer 2009 - (Page 34)

Letter From Botswana FIRST TONGUES OF ThE KALAhARI The fate of majestic languages in a harsh landscape by Edward D. Pettitt II A n enormous golden sun was The majority of San living today, over from the Central Kalahari Game setting behind the cloud of 50,000, can be found in Botswana, Reserve (CKGR) by the Botswana dust kicked up by our 424 many of whom reside in Ghanzi government as part of the largest as we raced to get back to the village District. Although the San share physical resettlement program ever undertaken before nightfall. I was crammed in attributes and dialects featuring unique in the country. Many of those resettled the back of the Toyota Landcruiser click sounds and tonal variations, the hoped for a better life, but the G/ui that served as our village ambulance different sub-groups have distinguishable and G//ana ended up becoming totally and the only reliable transport in and identities, languages and cultures. dependent on government handouts, out of New Xade. I was sitting on the These San sub-groups include the resulting in poverty, marginalization, spare tire in the back cab with about Ju/’hoansi, Khwe, Naro, Hai//om, !Xun, and exclusion from the decision 12 other adults and children, most of Tshua, !Xoo, G/ui and G//ana, among making process. whom were patients returning from others. The family of click languages The government justified the the 140 mile round-trip journey to the that includes the San dialects is called relocation in order to conserve natural main referral hospital in Ghanzi, the Khoisan. Altogether, there are more than resources and to promote community nearest town with electricity, telephone 35 Khoisan languages, representing three development amongst the San. Other and other modern conveniences. main language groups, as well as some groups, including a local San rights From the beginning, I had told Peace isolated language varieties in East Africa. organization called First People of the Corps that I wanted to be placed in New Xade is home to the G/ui and Kalahari and an international indigenous a remote site and, indeed, New Xade G//ana ethnic groups. From 1997 rights group called Survival International was one of the most remote villages to 2002, more than 1,200 G/ui and claimed that the G/ui and G//ana in Botswana, situated amongst a G//ana were relocated to New Xade were relocated to make room for the sun-scorched landscape of undulating sands dotted with thorn scrub. Even the Batswana, Botswana’s majority ethnic group, considered New Xade to be “tengnyanateng” or “deep within the deep.” New Xade was a San village, home to one of the world’s oldest surviving indigenous groups. The San (also referred to as “Bushman” or “Basarwa”(“without cattle”)) are the first people of Southern Africa and have lived in the region for at least 30,000 years. Over time, the hunter-gatherer San have been displaced and have lost the rights to their ancestral lands and natural resources to farming, cattle herding, mineral exploitation and the development of game an elderly San woman in new Xade thatches the roof of her grass hut. reserves.  Summer 2009 Ed Pettitt

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of WorldView Magazine - Summer 2009

WorldView Magazine - Summer 2009
Contents
More Peace Corps Campaign: Better and Bolder!
Africa Rural Connect
Readers Write
You Too Can Be Bill Gates
Taking Peace Corps Back into the Field
Come for the Information, Stay for the Dancing
A “Green” Community Rising
Microfinance Pioneer Receives 2009 Shriver Award
The Colombia Project
A Voice for the Unheard
Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Microfinance Podcasts
Selected Microfinance Resources
Bicycle! Bamenda! Orange!
Luck and Fame
A Step in the Right Direction
Bringing What She Loves
Letter from Botswana: First Tongues of the Kalahari
Letter from Tanzania: Homo Sapien in Africa
In the Beginning (There Was John)
The Peace Corps Community Making a Difference
Community News
Advertiser Index

WorldView Magazine - Summer 2009

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