visiting home

Ok, I caved and posted one picture. Dance Festival.

Just a quickie to say that I'm going to be AWAY from Botswana from Sept. 6 - Oct. 9, making a GLORIOUS visit home. Hopefully I'll manage to post some kind of "wrap up the year" blog before I go (or from the airport); however, I'm really not good at that kind of deeply introspective wrap-up entry, so I probably won't.

I also need to write about the Kuru Dance Festival, which happened 3 weeks ago (argh, I'm so behind!) and was amazing... The basic gist of the Dance Festival, which is one of the "flagship events" of the KFO, is to bring traditional dance groups from all over Southern Africa to one festival. The focus is on San traditional dance, but I hear that there were a few other groups represented at the previous festivals. In the past, the dance festival has been hosted at the Dqae Qare game farm, and involved groups from South Africa and Namibia; however, Kuru decided that it was getting too big and in some sense too commercial. I wasn't there for last year's, but the criticism they received was that the festival was being put on more for the showiness and the publicity, rather than for the sake of the dancers. Also, the growing number of dance groups meant that each one had a very, very limited time to dance. The main aim of the festival is not to put on a show for tourists, but to allow traditional dance groups to meet, mingle, and celebrate their art form together... So Kuru decided to switch up the format: one year, two small dance festivals to allow all the dance groups to have enough time to really showcase their talent, and then the following year, a bigger festival with more publicity, involving only the "best" of the dance groups that performed at the mini-festivals.

The first mini-festival was in West Hanahai, and I attended... The second mini-festival is next weekend, in Qabo, and I very sadly will NOT be attending, because I'm going to be on the bus to Gaborone... and then the bus to Jo'burg... and then the airplane!

I may or may not post photos from the dance festival (oops, I just posted one). Use of photographs of the San is a very touchy issue here; the only reason I didn't have to pay a fee and register my camera was that I was the "official" photographer for Komku. I know that some people here wouldn't be happy about me posting photos on the internet for all to see; on the other hand, I think they're beautiful photographs and the best expression of this vibrant art form. On a philosophical level I find the idea of having control over, or rights to, all images of oneself to be very strange... We cannot own or control the world's perception of us, and woe be to anyone that tries. On a more practical level I understand completely why the community here is angry about having their images used - not only because the photographer may be capitalizing upon their images of San culture for profits that the people here never see, but also because the images often promote unfair representation of the San as primitives or savages - the ubiquitous Noble Savage, in fact. This is a huge issue, but I'm not going to delve any deeper into it right now.

Lots of things to finish up before I go! I have to try and more-or-less finish a disbursement request and quarterly report for the ADF before I leave... But I seem to be spending my time doing much more indulgent things, such as planting some last minute vegetables (tomatoes, squash, peppers, cucumbers, cabbages), and trawling through more fashion blogs (face hunter, sea of shoes, etc...). Incongruous pairing of activities, but such is life in D'Kar.

And finally....

Bad news: Kimchi the cat is LOST, and most probably gone forever. She hasn't been around for a week, and I'm pretty sure at this point that she's been killed.

Farewell, dear lost cat. I miss you.