AFRICA - NAMIBIA - DAMARALAND--------------------THE KALAHARI DESERT The common name of this tree is, a Shepards tree, as it is the only thing in this barren landscape that offers herdsman shade from the intense noon day equatorial sun. Many antelope will lie down in the shadow spots created by this tree during the day, still as statues. Their coloration blending them so well to the desert floor you do not even know they are there. The image was taken in Africa, the country of Namibia in an area known as Damaraland. This area is the southern edge of the Kalahari Desert that stretches for thousands of miles into central Africa. The Kalahari Desert is the ancestral home of the African bushman, tiny of stature dark black and almost naked these noble little people cross this desert on foot. They carry all that they own with them, a few spears, some ostrich eggs to store water and very little else. They are experts at finding water where one would think there is none. Often having stashes of Ostrich eggs full of water buried in the sand one days walk from each other. There is a rainy season in the Kalahari but the rest of the time it is a scorching oven of endless desert. The bushman follow the storm clouds and rainstorms across the desert. For food they hunt the small antelopes such as the Steenbuck, drying the meat over small fires and carrying it in skin pouches tied to their waist. They pass their history and religion down from generation to generation-in tales about themselves, the desert, the animals and the universe. Their church is the desert they live in and they treat it and all that lives there with great reverence. The Bushman kills nothing without need for survival. They have a special story about how each and all the animals were created and why, such as the honey badger. They are great stories about the creation of life at the beginning of time. The fabric of these stories weaves an endless tapestry of how all life in the universe is tied together and how they fit into it so well. The stories in their rock paintings are some of the most beautiful and primitive art I have ever seen. So simple in form and yet so complex in meaning and thought as to boggle the mind. I am sorry to say the culture of these wonderful little nomadic people is fast being destroyed by the encroachment of civilization. They could teach us so much about how to live in harmony with each other and our environment. There is an excellent book written about the African Bushman by one of my all time favorite writers and authors. It is called The Heart of the Hunter by Laurens Van Derpost. It is currently in soft bound print and easy to find. It was this book alone that early on inspired me to travel to the Kalahari, despite the fact there is no water. Besides the ocean I most love the desert in its barren simplicity. It is an environment that requires all who live there to specialize in adaptive survival, much like the ocean all deserts once were. The oceans legacy to the desert it left behind. Laurens Van Derpost has written many books about his travels in Africa, all of them gems.