First Day in South Africa

The first day in South Africa I went on a SAS trip to the !Khwa Ttu Route (the ! is a pop sound made with the tongue and the top of the mouth). This is a group of San people or Bushmen that were the natives of South Africa. They use to be hunters and gatherers but aren’t anymore. They have created this place to show people how their ancestors lived. They tried to teach us how to make the different click sounds and gave us each a postcard with a description of how to make the noise on the back. We sat in a trailer pulled behind a tractor and went out into the bush where they had a village set up that maybe looked like what their ancestors would have had. They showed us different animal tracks and the kind of clothes they wore. One woman showed us how they made jewelry out of ostrich shells. They also showed us how to start a fire with just two sticks and a wad of dried grass. It wasn't a trip for my class but it might as well have been because my anthropology teacher was there and we had just finished talking about hunters and gatherers in my anthropology class. It was very neat. I got some ostrich shell earrings for myself. While there we also saw some wild ostrich, zebra, and a heard of Springbok, the national antelope that the rugby team is named for. It was a fun and informative trip.