Road to Qangwa

With the 4X4 a new range of routes and possibilities has opened up. From Maun to Tsumkwe, Namibia, the place I wanted to be would take a long haul with a small car. The closest way along a more or less straight line requires the machine that I've got but it's still a bit nervous. The road is not known to me and things can happen through the bush.

The first issue is gas so jerry cans are required. Through deep sand the diesel goes quickly. The second issue is rains. The road might be a bit deep. The third issue is deep sand.

From Maun, I made it more than 200 kms to Gumare, a place to refuel. I'd passed the turn heading to Namibia at Nokaneng. 37 kms farther and I could fill the tank and the cans.

I stopped at the turn on the first pass and found three men waited. I recognized by their faces that they were Ju/'hoansi and I greeted them in the way that they'd find appropriate. I pantomimed that I would go to fill the tank and then be back at half two to collect them. This brought some smiles as the wait at this spot, to make it 122 kms to the major centre, Qangwa, can be two days at times.

As I made it back at 2:40 I found two the men, Bo and //ao. Since //ao has the same name as I've been given I can say that he is like my brother.

We set off and I was glad to have two San people with me. I know that they know precisely two things that I don't. How to unstick cars and the exact route to wear I wanted to head, the borderpost at Dobe.

Conservative estimates placed the voyage at about 2 hours 10 minutes. Perhaps with less water it could have been but it wasn't.

The first way was fine and //ao from the back seat was advising me how to handle the deep water or 'metsi tata' in Setswana. 'Shoot straight' he kept advising. This was about the extent of his English but I was admirably filling the gaps with limited Setswana and more limited Ju/'hoansi. I ran through what was probably my whole vocabulary by the time the trip was through.

At certain points we'd be confronted by the road and decisions to make, mostly left, right or straight but occasionally also back up.

Bo was the assistant driver and I noticed which way his hand would sway and trusted his judgement more than my own. At a certain point I took a decision on my own and ended up well stuck in mud past the wheel wells.

It was obvious that this was a normal challenge since Bo and //ao were out of the car while I waited idly.

The first task was to pare a tree. Branches were taken off and the guys, now with their shoes off and pants rolled up past the knees, began to hall the mud out from in front and behind the tires and filling the space with the twigs.

Bo was particularly efficient taking one large branch and paring it neatly to fill the spaces. //ao chose the volume approach, shoving whole branches into the same space.

With a bit of back and forth at //ao's urging I was back to wear I started before I'd entered the mud. This time we consulted about the best approach and made it with no problems.

The route was a bit treacherous all the way along but we made it.

The first place we reached of any interest was one that I'd been to before, a place called G!ooshe. My friend Royal had brought me here before for the wedding of his niece. The wedding never happened that weekend or ever but I met some nice friends who I was pleased to see on my return.

I quickly bought some crafts and slowly ended up chatting about the issues at hands with my friends. It had become clear that I wouldn't make it to the border anyways so I took my time.

The next issue was where to stay and an old friend called Joyce let me know that she would allow me set my tent up in her compound.

Bo and //ao are patient fellows but I could read by their brows that they were ready to go as well. So we made it the next bit to Qangwa with Joyce added to the team.

Bo it turned out was Moruti Bo, Moruti being like a pastor. This explained why he disapproved of the content of my Ju/'hoansi vocabulary. The easiest first words to learn can often be naughty ones and for me they included the names of tobacco (shoro), a certain type of alcohol (khade), a certain type of weed (zoan), etc.

A woman started chasing us upon arrival at Qangwa and I wasn't sure what she was on about so I accelerated away. This brought peels of laughter as it was //ao's wife who seemed anxious for something now that he'd returned so he popped out of the car.

Moruti's place was next stop. A river was flowing at Qangwa and the Surf managed to make it through with no problems except one complaint about speed by Joyce. Future attempts at half mast proved more comfortable.

So having made it far enough I though next to look for cold drinks which were available. I took three.

A bath and sleep were next on the agenda.

Tsumkwe, Namibia

From Qangwa to Dobe was only a few kilometres and I made it with the help of somebody who I gave five pula to make sure I made the last little bit. I'd been warned that the last

Tsumkwe is a place that I've been a few times so more friends were on the agenda.

It's a bit tricky to know who's where all the time but luckily Royal, Paula, Benjamin and Charlie were all around.

Charlie is my agemate and we get along well together. In school, his nickname was Teddy due to a resemblance to a particular kind of bear. We enjoy hanging out together and talking mainly about the differences in our respective homes. Comparing and contrasting two opposite sides of the world.

Talk can turn to animals. For me a beaver or moose is a strange thing to describe but I find and eager audience to hear about these things.

Charlie's dad is a hunter. Charlie speaks english well and tends to have jobs here and there acting as a guide for different programs and projects that happen in the area.

At a certain point towards the end of the days, Charlie will bid me farewell and wander off some few kilometres to the place that he's staying. He has a girlfriend there who I haven't met and a baby somewhere too.

Royal knows me from two sides. He's seen me in and around his places, Windhoek and Tsumkwe and also at my places when he came to Canada last year. The trip was good but a bit muddled because two things happened.

All the crafts and curios that I'd purchased from Africa came late last year. For a list of reasons the shipping company did not expedite things and in the midst of Royal's visit one tonne of curios, many from Tsumkwe, arrived.The last problem was that Canada Customs for some random reason decided to take and interest in the shipment. More specifically they called the Canadian Wildife Services to inspect. I ended on the phone to as close to the headman as I could get explaing that Royal, a Member of Parliament from Namibia, was there to promote the crafts that were currently kept from us a few kilometres from my house.

A man called Lonnie was sent from Brampton and arrived dressed in a khaki coloured coverall with badges on the sleeves. Lonnie proceeded to look up and down taking little interest in the Gemsbok horns or the ostrich eggshell beadwork. He sifted and sorted until he was satisfied we didn't have anything rare or endangered and let us go.

That was a Thursday at 1 pm. The problem was that the next day we were due in Chicago. So the next hours were spent carting the contents of the package to our warehouse, unpacking and repacking and setting off at 9:30 that night. We had a packing list and this and that and all the things you need to cross a border.

By we found that crossing a border loaded with African crafts is much easier when you cross past midnight with a visiting dignitary and his dimplomatic passport. We were waved through by a very disinterested border guard. He asked where we were going and thenif we had animal products. The answer was of course yes, lots. I just said yes. He shrugged and waved us through.

At certain points we'd stop for catnaps but eventually made it Chicago in time for rush hour.

The second problem on was a bit on Royal's side. The plane ticket he'd brought with him was good for two things, coming and going. He made it coming but on the going part he noticed that he didn't have the ticket. After some days things get harder to trace and we'd done quite a lot of moving here and there in the meantime. So it was that he was due to fly out Sunday but the ticket was not around. Air Canada was not helping saying that we need to have all the information from his missing ticket.

At this point, Nharo implemented a new policy, all plane tickets are to be photocopied.

Sunday was also the day of Afrofest a very large festival held yearly in Toronto with a focus on African music and culture. In Southern African music there are a few big names. One of the biggest is Oliver Mtukudzi. Oliver was playing Sunday night.

The Afrofest organizers were very keen to have Royal play a roll in the event and have Royal, a big fan, introduce Oliver that night both in English and Ju/'hoansi would have been a great deal all around. Even to put a plug in for our extensive line of Bushmen crafts to the 60,000 assembled before the stage would have been nice. Oh and also to have the name of the company mentioned on the broadcast the thousands more listening later to the broadcast on the radio would also be great.

But as life had it that day, we were at the airport pleading with a very difficult and uncooperative woman who seemed to be a bit short in the mercy department.

At this point Royal had been in control but he indicated that he might soon become uncontrollable which was worrying.

Royal likes to be called a San. So I think I can say something I've noticed about San people. Home and family are most important and at this point Royal was missing both. By midweek he was off and seemed happy that he was able to clear each small hurdle in that last day. Getting a boarding pass was a milestone and crossing through security was the finish line in my mind.

As a bonus the lady who was taking the baggage was able to allow a few extra kgs. At first she started to squawk about it but Royal and I started on the story of the trouble to that point and she relented.

It's amazing how much stuff Royal was able to accumulate in a short time in Canada and the US. His bags were manageable at first but soon became unmanageable. Part of the problem was that it seems that custom for a visiting dignitary is to gift them a book. I think the heavier the better of so it seemed. Royal was left with a hefty bit of reading about Canada and about Kitchener-Waterloo, my home village.

Getting back to Tsumkwe I noticed different bits of nik-nak and paraphenelia related to the trip in Royal's home. The nicest thing being a framed prayer from one of Canada's first people, it talked about land and our connection to it. It felt appropriate seeing it where it now hung.

Paula, Royal's wife, was the first person I'd found when I arrived at Tsumkwe. She's a school teacher and the school is at the crossroads of the place. On the way I found five school aged children hiking from somewhere in the bush into town. I decided that I'd better stop at the principal's office first.

Normally, this might be considered rat-like behaviour but I thought that these kids should have a crack at the books. After some investigation the principal, a short San man himself, determined that it was actually the teacher at the other school who had bagged off and that he would be sent the form to fill out for a day of unpaid leave.

I found Paula inside here class room. I enjoy visiting because there are a lot of cute kids, 60 or so, crammed into a small room. I enjoy asking questions to hear the chorus in Unison. "I'm fine".

If I push they can be made to sing songs about the weather or the days of the week.

Paula was glad to see me and equally glad that I could give her a lift to her home a couple kilometres away for lunch.

Upon arriving Paula bustled around in the house and came back with a small present for me. It was a bracelet made from glass beads, blue and orange which said Paul thrice around the wrist. I put it on to find that it fit. She or somebody had made it some time back and Royal had forgot to put it in his bag when he came to Canada. Royal's matching bracelet was made too short which seemed odd to me since he was around when it was made. I was far away but found a close to perfect fit.

I wore the bracelet and it made introducing myself. Although Paul seems a plain name to us it sometimes difficult for the San to say probably because some have never heard it before.

Mind you it's the same for me. I need to practice to say Hwant/la or N!ae of N/isa or whatever a few times and the same is true in inverse.

With the bracelet I can just point, at least for those who can read and my name is known. I put it on so that the name is right side up for them and upside down for me since I already know my own name.

At the house I met the others who were staying there. The most interesting was 10 month old Mercy. She'd arrived shortly before Royal's trip.

Mercy was well versed in two things, pointing at different people and smiling. I didn't see her cry but she had no need since she got lots of attention all day from everyone around. When she wasn't getting attention she was sleeping.

There was a girl staying at the place, a relative of Paula's. She'd replaced the relative of Paula's, a man who was living there last year. It seemed that these relatives were there to do domestic tasks in exchange for the roof and free food.

When I wanted my car washed I had to look down the road to a hut to find that man to let him know.

Benjamin and his wife were staying at the place as well. In what had once been a screened porch. Benjamin was a relative of Royal's and felt on some level there was favoritism to the other side of the family which I felt might be true being as he was older but still out on the porch.

At some point there was a flare up and a bit of a fight about the matter but being unable to hear the language I wasn't able to get much more than that. I decided to diffuse the situation and surprisingly I managed to send all involved off to bed after a short meeting.

The next few days I moved around here and there buying this and that before making it back to Botswana by the way I'd come.