Elephant art

That's what you are looking at in the picture above.
It was given to me by one of the other two white people
here, one of the Romanians, in fact. I just need to sand it
a little to make it smooth.
He works with art, carving and drawing/painting.and this
he received from some artisans that live in a town called
Kongola. The Romanian guy lived in that town for a while
and was able to make contact and learn how to do that
type of carving.
It is a possible project here in the village but at the moment
no one either has the skill or the desire to work with
those types of carvings.
This is where we come in as volunteers to try and give an
option to some of the younger people in the village. Over
the years as the San people have left their hunter/gatherer
ways behind, it has been mentioned many times by the
young, that they do not know the skills of their fathers.
All this happening within a matter of a generation or so.
With collaboration between the Romanian guy and me,
we hope to be able to grab the attention of a few younger
people. More of an awakening or bridge to their past.

In general the past week was a fair one. We have a new
organization sponsoring the HIV/AIDS support group
and it appears that it has energized the group. So that
is a step forward and more activity for me in the process,
that's what I'm here for.
The school finally received the computers promised to them
about 6 months ago. They aren't new ones but they run
fine. It is also a little bit of a challenge to get them up and
running in a network system. They have two different
operating systems so the work to integrate them is a
little bit of a challenge. I have been able to get about
half of them going in the right direction. It is a challenge
for me and I am really liking it. I have at least 7 weeks
to get it up to the highest standard, with luck ...

The choir group has made a series of songs that we are
going to put on a DVD. The group was just started up
a few months ago and I think that they are still in the
process of finding their way. There are members
coming and going, but I can see the core forming.
The reason for making the music video is so that they
can see themselves and critique their performances.
In a perfect entertainment world (I think, never been in
one) they would have a wall of mirrors to be able to
see themselves. So the video will be their wall of
mirrors for now. Some songs, they have sung well and
a few others they may want to re-do. But all in all, it
a fun thing to do and it keeps a group of young people
out of the bars for a few extra hours a week.

Actually somewhat of a miracle happened. I believe I
mentioned in a prior article that we had a solar system
radio receiver transmitter for the village. It hadn't worked
as it was designed to do for over almost 6 years. One
reason being is that the people in the village didn't quite
have the experience they needed to request the system
to be repaired.
Again, these are the San people and all the elders have
no experience to fall back on. They were living out in
the bush where there was no need of writing request
for repairs of anything. This is something that is going to
have to fall on the shoulders of the younger generation.
Within the San community there is still the respect for
the elders and village headmen. So, it is difficult for the
younger go take action because they feel that they may
usurp the authority of the elders.
What happened was that I discussed this with a young
man who has some responsibility to work with such
issues. Together we wrote a solicitation for repair and
he submitted it to the headmen. They approved and
then the young man submitted it to the company
supplying the service.
Personally, and also a few of my colleagues told me,
well, we all thought that I would be long gone
(in another year and a half) before anything was even
looked at. I was shocked to hear that the company
came down and fixed it within two weeks of receiving the
solicitation. Wonders never cease and I was actually a
little giddy upon hearing the news.
Sometimes things just go right and it makes ya feel pretty
OK for that day.

I may be leaning towards the glass being half full instead
of half empty, but, I am feeling that things are kind of
wakening up in the village. I can't put my finger on it and
maybe I am delusional about this, but I just have a sense
that things are getting a little more energetic. Hopefully
I am not too 'crazy' as far as this goes.

So that's it for another week, as far as giving a mark I
would say that it was a 7 out of 10.
I'm OK with that.