Postscript for LEO

While this story is a work of fiction having been wrought and written from my involvement with the Southern Kalahari Bushmen Group over the last thirty years, and of my life in Africa, Kalai, Ou Leis, Antas, !Ou Jon and Dawid Kruiper (the traditional leader) are the real names of some of the Bushmen Group. Cait Andrews, from Cape Town University was the original ethno-musicologist (not ethno-linguist as written) who lived amongst the Bushmen studying their music and the Bushmen’s Trance Dance.
Auntie Doris and Auntie Jessie are real people, my maternal Aunt, and my godmother, respectively. The cottage in Putney is real and was once the home of my friend, Flo Stathers. The rough diamond is fiction but on a visit to South Africa in the late 1970’s I did naively smuggle a small pear shaped diamond out of South Africa in my washbag to mount into a necklace for a neighbour of my sister’s to make into a necklace for his wife. Being a jeweller in London at the time, this was exciting and challenging, little knowing the consequences if I had been caught.
Devon, I use merely because I like being there. Modbury purely off the top of my head and Salcombe because I love sailing. Dartmoor is very real and dear to my heart, and a favourite place always. Alston, I know very well and have spent many happy times there with the Ball family who owned the only precision engineering factory there, bang in the middle of the town.
Botswana, Maun, and the Okavango Delta I have visited albeit only briefly. Flying from Maun to the Okavango Delta in a small plane seeing herds of elephant below was an unbelievably special experience as was the Delta itself
I have lived in South Africa for the last thirty three years and have loved every minute of it. The Bushmen came into my life shortly after being in the country. It has been a great privilege to become involved with them at first in an educational context then later which led to their land claim. The Southern Kalahari Bushmen land claim was made up towards the end of 1990’s of which I was part, together with a human rights lawyer, and two other professional people and the Bushmen group, who worked together with the Minister of Land Affairs Derek Hannekom. The land claim was successful and in 1999, the Bushmen received six expropriated farms totalling 38 000 hectares, but this was not land within the Kalahari Park from where they had been evicted. In 2001 a second phase of the land claim was given to the Bushmen and Mier Communities totalling 25 000 hectares inside the Kalahari Park itself as described in the book. !Xaus Lodge situated in the !Ae!Hai Kalahari Heritage Park (land), which has been returned to the Mier and Khomani San communities is today a successful upmarket lodge (www.tfpd.co.za under lodges click onto !Xaus Lodge). The Kalahari now known as The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is a result of the historic 1999 unification of South Africa’s Kalahari Gemsbok National Park and Botswana’s Gemsbok National Park. Kalahari is derived from Kgalagadi word Makgadikgadi, meaning salt pans or the great thirstland.
The Mier community of the Kalahari mainly originated from the people of Captain Dirk Vilander, who more than 150 years ago settled themselves and farmed across the Kalahari from Rietfontein to the Orange River and Namibia. These people were not dissimilar to the Bushmen but traditionally, quite different. One day Mr. Dirk Vilander discovered an aardvark burrow filled with water. When he tried to drink from the water, he noticed the water was full of ants. He names the place Mier, Afrikaans for ant and it is so called today.
The Jwaneng diamond mine in the Kalahari is estimated to contain proven and probable diamond reserves of 166.6Mct. Owned by Debswana Diamond Company a 50:50 partnership between De Beers (a part of Anglo American Group) and the Government of Botswana. Jwaneng is considered to be the world’s richest diamond mine in terms of value. Today across Botswana and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park there is abject human poverty, hunger, disease, and illness. Four diamond mines are making Botswana one of the richest countries beyond their wildest dreams. Alas, this massive wealth has done nothing for the poor people of the country. Poverty in its worse form remains in Botswana today.
The Bushmen trance dance is started on command by the wife of the leader of the Bushmen group, when all the males dance naked around a huge fire wearing only a leather pouch thong. They strap bracelets of Mopani worm chrysalis pods around their ankles and wrists to make a rhythmic sound as the men perform their tribal trance dance while the women look on clapping to the rhythm. This can last for hours or days and can only be stopped when the leaders wife signals for them to do so.
Canned lion hunting and the captive-bred lion farming industry taking place in South Africa for many years now has not only been abhorrent to me but to millions of people around the world. On 16 June 2020, the book “Unfair Game” written by Lord Ashcroft (Michael Ashcroft) was published. The book, based on the results of his year-long undercover operation into South Africa’s captive-bred lion industry, makes for harrowing reading. No-one could have done more to let the world know what is going on at great cost to wildlife in South Africa at the moment. Hat’s off to Lord Ashcroft for uncovering the horrendous, vile crimes happening to one of Africa’s most iconic and majestic animals.
www.lordashcroftwildlife.com
The privileged lives of the lead characters hopefully portrays that they are good people, who have been born into it. They dispense their wealth to greater causes, that of the underprivileged of mankind, the saving of wild animals and conservation. Starting as this book did in March, at the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic lockdown, I wanted the main players to be charming, cheerful and good looking – some writers take on the persona of the subjects they are writing about, so during this strange period of 2020 it cheered me up to write of such people. Murder, Mayhem and Madness I believe, did not fit the bill.
Some of the characters and parts of the story are a figment of my imagination. Having said that they have, over the COVID 19 lockdown, become a family, not only to me but to some of the readers. A big “Thank You” to, The Really Exclusive (lockdown) Book Club who have been the largest part of this journey, with lots of praise and encouragement. 32 Chapters, 112 000 words later we have a full length novel. I could not have done it without you.