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Report
from the Land Claim:
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We drove the long straight
road from Upington to the Mier community of Welkom/Hartbees
where we met up with Belinda Kruiper in 104 degree heat
at Oom Barend and Auntie Sophie's house, about a hundred
yards from the Red House where Oupa Regopstaan Kruiper lived
out his last years. |
| This is where the land claim had its beginnings.
Our elderly Mier (Coloured) hosts are the owners of Blinkwater,
an 1100 hectare farm which is the rented home of Belinda
and her artist husband, Vetkat Kruiper, youngest son of
Oupa Regopstaan, whose grave is not far from where we sit.
The elder brother, Dawid Kruiper is the leader of the "traditional"
group of !Khomani San who along with the "progressives"
led by Petrus Vaalbooi have occupuied the six farms of the
Land Claim since it was signed over to them in 1999. |
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Our rented VW Polo barely made
it along the rutted sand trail to Blinkwater before bogging
down in the bright red sand, but there we were, on the dune
that is Vetkat's "studio". Susan had met Vetkat
and Belinda previously near Capetown at the home of Leon
Lewis, but this was Andrew's first meeting with them. The
tiny homestead consists of two little grass huts, a makeshift
kombuis (kitchen), and a storage shed in front of which
sits Belinda's broken down VW Kombi, resplendent in a paint
job including Vetkat's artwork. |
| The picture is
completed by four or five emaciated dogs who came barking
up to us, a picturesque old donkey cart, a dense but stunted
tree surrounded by a cloud of white butterflies, and in
the little valley below, a metal windmill sitting motionless
next to a circular concrete dam which contains the brackish
Kalahari water, only good for the animals and the occasional
cooling swim. There was no sign of the donkeys, who were
off, wandering free in the surprisingly green vegetation.
We were told that it took our hosts two days in the cart
in the heat and the drought to fetch fresh drinking water
each week. |
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Susan and Belinda settled in
for a serious chat, while Vetkat stoked the fire and boiled
water for a cup of tea. Belinda's English is excellent,
but Andrew had quite a challenge to get his extremely rusty
Afrikaans up to speed in order to converse with Vetkat,
who was soon telling him what it entails to be a man in
that environment. |
| One has to fetch water by
donkey cart, gather wild foods from the veld, take care
of the landlord's horses, collect firewood, hunt for small
animals, and feed the dogs. Only then, he said, was he free
to pursue his career, painting. It seems that he is lucky
to get an afternoon or two a week, despite the fact that
he has become one of South Africa's best-known San artists.
The sale of his work makes a significant contribution to
paying the R1000 per month rent, and their other living
costs. |
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Meanwhile, Belinda was explaining
her dream of creating a centre for battered women and their
children, a place for them to do their art projects, clothing
designs etc, as well as her frustration at the difficulties
of trying to function in the wider San community without
transport or money. Belinda is clearly a social powerhouse,
having come from Cape Town and spending many years working
in the nearby Game Park before marrying one of the local
Bushmen and becoming deeply involved in their struggle |
| . More recently she has worked as local
coordinator for SASI, the South African San Institute, though
recently that position has been terminated. She is extremely
sensitive to and aware of the politics of the local situation,
and gave us some very pertinent insights into the status
of the San community and its difficulties now that they
are living on their long-awaited land, which consists of
six farms covering some 45,000 hectares and another 25,000
hectares within the Kgalaghadi Transfontier Part, to which
they have so far been denied access. The old apartheid attitudes
still persist. The Park continues to be run by Afrikaners. |
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It is immediately clear that
there are tremendous difficulties in this community, ranging
from rampant game poaching by the local police, blatant
corruption and alcoholism on the part of the elected leaders,
a serious lack of infrastructure and organization, desperate
poverty, domestic violence, rape, and HIV/AIDS. There are
serious divisions within the San community, who numbered
less than a hundred before the land claim. |
| Now there are an estimated
3000 who claim the right to live here, many of them quite
unknown to the locals, and many of whom do not seem to have
much in the way of San or Bushman blood. When the farmers
left the farms to their new owners, they took virtually
everything with them, including the water pumps. Much that
remained has since been sold for cash to buy alcohol. The
only services that the outside world provides are a liquor
store and a police station, right next to one another. |
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The people sit, stunned by
the heat and the hopelessness, without water, without food,
without much in the way of direction. The more motivated
ones make items to sell to passing tourists, but in almost
every respect this is a community in dire straits. It is
wonderful that they have had some of their land restored
to them, but without water, wild animals, or other livestock,
life is a struggle. The children are getting very little
in the way of education, and any suggestion of development
from the outside seems culturally inappropriate. |
| The people are clearly frustrated,
with a long list of broken promises. There are NGOs and
other organizations working to benefit the San, but all
the people themselves can see are white people getting salaries,
huge amounts of money spent on fancy conferences in plush
hotels, PhDs awarded and academic books being published.
Almost nothing of immediate value trickles down to the people. |
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After an amazing night under
the stars up on the Blinkwater dunes, we spent time visiting
the people selling crafts along the dusty highway. We sat
with groups of men sitting around the ever-present fires
listening for the cricket scores on transistor radios. We
visited Erin, the best and most functional of the farms.
There, the children played in the dirt in their filthy,
decrepit clothes, while the adults gathered in the shade
of the old farmhouse's porch to listen to Belinda, while
Vetkat strummed on his guitar in the background. |
| As social organizer, Belinda
is clearly a person of great value to her community. She
projects confidence, strength, and a clear vision of future
possibilities. |
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We were very impressed by the
manner in which she is able to relate to all strata of society,
and realized that any help that we could give her, at this
early stage in the development of our fledgling organization,
would benefit the whole of the
!Khomani San community. |
| In the midst of
the Erin conference, one of the men, Abraham Meintjies,
produced a letter written in Afrikaans. In Cape Town a few
weeks earlier, we had unsuccessfully tried to get together
with two Montessori teachers who were interested in starting
a school up in the Kalahari. The letter was from them, Sally
Hall and Jennifer Moore, of the Auburn House Montessori
School. Some years ago, Sally operated a school for the
Bushmen at the Kagga Kamma resort in the Cederberg Mountains.
There was difficulty with the management, who basically
used the Bushmen to attract tourists, and were not very
supportive of the school. The project eventually closed,
and the equipment and supplies went into storage. |
The Old Montessorri School at Kagga Kamma |
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Returning to Cape
Town, we contacted Sally and Jennifer, and had an exciting
meeting at Auburn House, their remarkable school. We left
them after ascertaining that what Sally needed to raise
the nessessary funds, was a letter from the Erin community
requesting a Montassouri school. With appropriate funding,
the Kalahari school would become reality. We put them in
touch with Belinda, who would see that the needed letter
was produced by the community. Jennifer is prepared to pack
up her life in Cape Town and work full-time with the people
of the land claim. Back in New York, we have just received
an email from Sue de Hutton, one of the teachers at Auburn
House. Belinda was just there, meeting with Sally and Jennifer
about the proposed school. |
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Also, Vetkat had given us some of his
work to sell, to raise funds, and on our return to New
York, we were able to frame them and have them included
in the Art Exhibition in the lobby
of the UN building, as part of the Indigenous Peoples
Conference happening there in the month of May 2003.
Click
Here to View Bushman Art
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Indigenous people from all over the world
were represented, and several hundred beautiful people
in their traditional costumes ate, drank, sang, and danced.
There was no mention or representation of the Bushmen,
other than our little section devoted to "The Bushmen
of the Kalahari", featuring four of Vetkat's works
and a large framed copy of a wonderful rock painting which
we had purchased in Cape Town.
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Finally, we were instrumental in getting
the Bushman Language Project (published by the South African
San Institute) included in a human rights manual. This
book, 'The Peoples' Report" was issued to coincide
with the final year of the U.N. sponsored "Peoples
Decade for Human Rights Education." (www.pdhre.org.)
All in all this has been an active and successful first
year for our fledgling organization.
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-Photos & Text by Andrew
Bailey
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2003©indigenousheritage.org
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