Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 126
This fence divides the ecological reserve where the Nxaro live from a hunting
preserve run by Europeans.
But Botswana is an enormous place, and many confl icting trends are
taking place simultaneously. The Nxaro group that I visited live outside the
boundaries of the Central Kalahari Reserve, in a region that is a patchwork of
farming, ecotourism, and private game reserves.
White rhinos have recently been reintroduced into the area, and other
large animals are starting to become more common. But the artifi ciality of
the whole jury-rigged arrangement is striking. At the same time as we were
photographing antelope and giraf es near the Nxaro village, a few kilome-
ters away the same species were being shot by European hunters at a cost of
thousands of Euros for each trophy.
Because of these recent changes, only fragments are left of the unimag-
inably ancient San hunting tradition. On the evening before our foray into
the bush, we had watched as the Nxaro tribespeople gathered around a
fi re and danced a re-enactment of an ancient hunt. A young boy, wearing
