Life in the Kalahari
By “Awake!” correspondent in South Africa
“WHERE the water has dried up”—this is indeed a fitting name for a desert. And that is what some believe to be the meaning of the Tswana word Kgalagadi, or Kalahari.
“A lifeless waste” is the description that may readily come to mind when one thinks of a desert. But this does not fit the Kalahari, which covers a large area of the northern Cape Province of South Africa, the eastern part of South-West Africa and the central and western part of Botswana.
Some sections of this region are flat and sandy and covered with shrubby vegetation, large thorn trees and grass. Other parts, like the section inside South-West Africa, consist of miles of undulating dunes, with, roughly, the same kind of vegetation. Some of these dunes are over 100 feet (30 m) high. Unlike those of the Namib Desert on the west coast of South-West Africa, they are not pointed and irregular; they are long, rounded ridges comparable to gigantic waves. Flat stretches, known locally as “streets,” separate the dunes by a distance of between some 100 and 300 paces or more.
Driving through parts of the Kalahari, often over dry riverbeds, is like traveling through a game park. Apart from mice, gecko lizards and meerkats, or mongooses, that scurry across the path continually, one might suddenly chance upon a little furry bat-eared fox or a maned jackal, a cheetah or two, or even a small herd of hartebeests or some other antelope. At times a person may spot several ostriches. He should not be surprised if one of these birds keeps up with a vehicle moving over 35 miles (56 km) an hour. Leopards and lions are also to be found in the Kalahari.
Witnessing in the Kalahari
For Jehovah’s Witnesses in this area, the greatest joy comes from sharing Bible truth with others. People here are generally very hospitable and have a high regard for the Bible. So a visiting Witness may spend as much as an hour or two discussing the Scriptures with a person in his home. Even though the people may engage in a heated discussion with a Witness over some Bible subject, they will still invite him to share some food, if his visit is near mealtime. During the meal the conversation will be kept strictly on friendly generalities. Afterward, however, the previous argument will be taken up again with unabated fervor.
Getting to some of the farms is quite an undertaking. The homes are often 10 to 15 miles (16 to 24 km) apart, with the farms usually covering 19 or more square miles (50 square km) each. Traveling must be done over dunes where there are no real roads but simply the tracks left by other vehicles. A person may be able to visit only three or four farm homes in a day.
Farming in the Kalahari
Just what kind of farming is carried on in this arid region? The bulk of it consists of cattle- and sheep-raising. One particularly lucrative source of income is the selling of Karakul pelts. The wavy-haired lambs of the Karakul sheep are slaughtered a few hours after birth. Their skins provide the world-famous Karakul pelts used in the manufacture of expensive coats, hats and the like.
A big problem in this area is getting sufficient water for men and animals. Usually boreholes are sunk into the sand, sometimes to a depth of more than 1,000 feet (over 300 m). Windmills or engine-driven pumps are used to draw up the water.
Adapting to Desert Living
Needless to say, here men have to adapt themselves to desert life. When farmers first moved into the Kalahari, they often stayed in temporary shacks made of corrugated iron. These were unbearably hot during the day and uncomfortably cold at night. But the people seemed to get used to living under these conditions. On many farms, however, large modern homes have been built. These appear somewhat out of place in their surroundings and lack few modern conveniences.
For domestic animals, life in the desert presents its problems. When goats return from their grazing, one may at times see them walking on their knees instead of on their front hoofs. Why? Well, since these animals never walk on hard ground, their hoofs are not kept worn down and so they grow too long for normal walking. The same condition also develops in cattle and sheep. Hence, farmers must clip the hoofs from time to time.
Older ewes often do not have the strength to survive a daily walk to the pasture grounds when the hot sun is beating down upon them. This means that they must be fed at home. Buying fodder for them would, of course, be very costly. How is this problem overcome?
The abandoned nests of a kind of weaverbird known as the “sociable weaver” provide a ready source of cut grass with a high nutritional content. These birds build their gigantic nests in the branches of big trees. Scores of the birds live in the communal nests at one time, constantly fitting in and out of the multiple entrances. Eventually, however, the nests are abandoned for other accommodations.
Ingenuity in the Use of Motor Vehicles
Being able to keep a car going can sometimes spell the difference between life and death in the sand. Yet, Kalahari dwellers often show an alarming indifference with regard to basic items such as jacks, spare wheels or patching equipment. At the same time, they display amazing ingenuity in keeping a motor vehicle going under unusual circumstances.
The first rule of driving in the sand is to keep the tires very much underinflated. Although this is detrimental to the walls of the tires, it enables one to drive in virtually any kind of sand without sinking into it.
But what happens if a tire gets a puncture? Lifting the car with a normal jack would be virtually impossible, since it just pushes right into the sand. The obvious thing is always to carry a piece of plank to put underneath the jack. But when this is forgotten, the Kalahari farmer is not easily stumped. He may simply put a solid object, such as a steel toolbox, a stump of wood or a stone under the axle near the damaged wheel and then proceed to scoop out the sand from underneath the wheel. This enables him to remove the wheel, either to fix it or to replace it with a spare wheel. Next, he forces as much of the sand as possible underneath the wheel again and scoops out the sand underneath the solid object that held up the axle, thus putting the car back on its wheels.
But what if a person has neither a spare wheel nor patching equipment? After removing the inner tube in the normal way, one person will grab the punctured spot firmly between thumb and forefinger and then hold the rest of the tube in his other hand and stretch the punctured section away from it. This makes it possible for his companion to tie a piece of string or raw leather thong around the stretched section, pulling hard and winding and knotting it repeatedly. In this way the puncture will be bound off. The seemingly plausible solution of filling the flat tire with sand simply does not work.
When a vehicle develops starter trouble, Kalahari ingenuity is soon in evidence. It is quite impossible to push a truck in the sand to get it started. Faced with this problem, one man raised one of the car’s rear wheels as he would in the case of a flat tire. Then he switched on the ignition and put the car in high gear. Now it was simply a matter of firmly gripping the outside of the free rear wheel and turning vigorously. Soon the engine started running.
“Reading” Spoor
An intriguing ability developed by these sand dwellers is that of “reading” tracks. One elderly farmer stopped to examine some animal spoor, or tracks, and then told his visitors that these were jackal tracks. Upon making closer examination, he declared that there were two animals, a male and a female, and that the female was soon going to give birth. The visitors laughed. But then the farmer reasoned with them, saying: “Look! One set of prints is large and the other small. It is reasonable to assume that a male and a female are running together.” The visitors conceded that point. “But now,” continued the farmer, “if you look again, you will notice that the smaller one sank deeper into the sand. This means that the smaller animal, obviously the female, is relatively heavier than the larger one, which will be the case with a female carrying pups.” Sure enough! Three days after seeing this spoor, the farmer found the mother jackal with the newborn pups.
Hints for Survival
Kalahari farmers express amazement when they hear of people getting lost and then being found in their car in a state of collapse because of the intense heat and thirst. “Fancy nearly dying of thirst with the car’s radiator full of water,” they comment. Of course, one would have to be sure that there is no toxic antifreeze in the water.
The best protection against the midday heat is right under the car, not inside it. But why not a shady tree, if there is one? Because under a Kalahari tree there is the danger of tampans, venomous little ticks that make things unbearable with their stinging bites.
A person should never walk very far during the heat of the day. It would be better to sleep during the day and walk in the evening and at night, choosing a bright star by which to fix one’s course.
Memories
Few who have spent time in the Kalahari fail to look back on the experience with nostalgia. Never can one forget the sharp contrasts—the scorching days, the cold nights, and the vast stretches of grass-covered dunes, seemingly desolate, yet vibrant with an endless variety of life.
A person gets an incomparable feeling of peace as the heat subsides when the sun dips below the horizon. The sunsets are simply magnificent, with constantly changing hues of red, orange and purple. Meanwhile, the penetrating “clack-clack-clack” call of a gecko lizard receives a thousand replies from other geckos calling back and forth. The air is filled with their sound. Rounding out the symphony are the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle and the raucous cry of the korhaan flying up and down in a display of bird aerobatics.
Truly, life in the Kalahari has its challenges and rewards. This desert is no dead wasteland. It is a realm of fascinating life.
[Picture on page 17]
Abandoned nest serves as food for older Karakul ewes, who couldn’t survive the daily walk to pasture grounds