making clothes

Our Young San Cultural Group uses as
their clothing, skins, just like in the old way.
The San cannot hunt anymore as was their
cultural/ancestral way. So to get skins it's not
like the way it used to be where the hunters
would go out and of course bring them back.
Now, how one gets a hold of skins is to
request it from the local game farms or
from the game hunters.
There is game hunting allowed and it is done
in a controlled manner so as to not deplete
the animal population.
Our cultural group has grown a little and we
were in need of a few articles of clothes for
the boys.
In the picture you can see one of the managers
of the group sewing a skin into a piece of
clothing.

There were a few things that happened this
week. One actually happened and the other is
a promise for something to happen.
First, the promise of what may happen. That is,
that we may get the opportunity to take the
cultural group kids to a game park. This will
be accomplished with the help of one of the
Lodges which are along the Okavango river.
The owners are from South Africa and they
are interested in working and supporting the
San people.
They have promised to provide two game
watching vehicles and the kids ought to be
looking pretty important riding in those. None
of the kids have seen many of the game animals
and this should be a huge treat. Here it is a
bit different as there isn't much transport
available for these types of activities.
To say the least, this will be big.
As a way of saying thank you to the Lodge
owners we are hoping to go to the place
itself and perform an appreciation program.
This will also get the kids to see this Lodge
which is a really nice one.
So, as it goes time and time again. This is a
promise and nothing has happened and
seeing is believing but this one seems a
little more sure than usual.

The thing that did happen was on the 7th it
was National HIV testing day. Man, there was
at least 150 people that showed up. The other
years there were like 15 tops. Don't know
what happened but it was crazy.
Knowing one's status really is the only way to
plan.
If one is negative they can continue to protect
themselves, or, if they were just plain lucky, then,
they can think seriously about protecting
themselves.
For those who have contracted HIV, then, they
can be monitored until or if, they may need to
start taking ARVs.
But to have that many people come out is
close to a miracle.
It was a good week and really pretty satisfying.