Monong

What a crazy week! From Monday to Saturday, I went on a settlement visit to Monong for a Master Producer Workshop. Monong is a San settlement located about 600 km from Ghanzi, in the middle of the Kalahari, only accessible by sand roads. On Monday, Sarah and I helped to load the truck with lots of food and supplies for the workshop and started the journey. We rode in the back of the truck which made for a pretty bumpy ride. As with any trip I have made here so far, there was plenty of cattle, donkey, goats and horses walking along the road. We also had to stop a couple times due to getting stuck in the sand. Even with 4 wheel drive, these roads are difficult to drive on and it makes for a long trip.  

Monong is a settlement of about 270 people. There is no electricity and the people live almost entirely off of the natural environment. In the settlement there is a pre-school, primary school, clinic (although the doctor is currently not there), and a small cooperative that sells basic supplies such as sugar and flour. Sarah and I spent the week in our tent pitched outside the house of one of the producers. The closest hospital is approx. 40 km away in a Ncaang. This workshop was attended by producers from Monong and the nearby settlements of Ncaang and Ngwathle.



While it was all an entirely new experience for me, I'm going to highlight the most memorable parts of the week. For starters, I was able to make my own jewelery entirely from scratch!! I know I explained the process in a previous post, however after making the beads myself I have a whole new appreciation for the hard work the producers put into each and every craft. It took Sarah and I five days to produce a bracelet and an anklet (but it was definitely worth it). Here's how we did it:

First, we had to break apart the shells into tiny pieces. This is done by pushing two outside pieces of shells against each other until the top one shatters.

Then, we had to drill a small hole into each individual peice. This takes an incredibly long time and the because the shells are fragile, we broke alot of them. My hand were definitley blistered after this.

We then put each piece onto a string. The string is actually made from torn apart plastic feed bags. Somehow strands are rolled together back and forth until you have a thick thread. It was really fascinating and I tried to do it, but my string just fell apart. After the pieces are strung, you then have to cut each individual one using nail clippers into small round shapes. The idea is to have them all the same size, but that is MUCH easier said than done. Ours were very misshaped, some of them were circular..others not so much. Again, we broke a lot.

After all the pieces have been cut, it was time to smooth. Every step I could not get over how much effort is required. There was two of us working on the beads and we still were at least 10 times slower than any of the other women! The string of round (ish) beads are placed across a piece of wood. We then went over and over them, back and forth, with a smoothing rock. Every time we thought they were smooth enough, Mmamaswe (the field coordinator) just laughed and said keep going.



Finally the beads were smooth enough to use. Throughout the smoothing process, we lost many more. I think we started with about 600 beads and after all of the steps we were left with under 400. At this point, we could colour some of the beads so that we can make interesting patterns in the jewellery. To colour them, we put them in a tin with a tiny bit of oil and then fried them to the colour we wanted.

Finally, it was time to make the finished product. I decided to make a bracelet and Sarah made an anklet. We also have some beads left over to make some matching earrings.  

After spending 5 days on one bracelet, the other woman had to laugh. Throughout that same amount of time they were able to produce countless pieces of beautiful jewelry with many many more beads. My bracelet was made with something like 70 beads but many of the jewellery pieces that they produce use upwards of 2000 beads!

In addition to learning how to make the crafts, I also facilitated another workshop on Natural Resource Management. The women were full of ideas about ways they can better conserve their resources. They also brought to light different challenges they face with gathering the various licences required to collect certain resources. This issue I am going to look further into and perhaps we can find a solution to allow them to have full control over the resources in the settlement. Sarah and I also conducted a session on HIV/AIDS. The health coordinator could not make it to the workshop so we were asked to fill in. The discussion went well and the women were all very open to discussing the topic.

All of the children at the settlement were fascinated by us. Every day after school they would just come sit around where we were working and slowly inch closer. After two days of silence (the language barrier is slightly challenging) we decided to teach them some games. We sang different songs like Head and Shoulders and the Hokie Pokie and they taught us a lot of the games that they play. It was also a great way for us to learn basic Setswana vocabulary. They also LOVED having their picture taken. Any time they saw the camera, they would get so excited and quickly form to all fit. 

 One night, we drove out to the salt pans. From a distance, they it looked like a lake but they are actually just huge salt deposit. Qosa, one of the field workers, told me that they can use the salt for cooking.

The food over the course of the week was the biggest challenge. All the meals were cooked in large cauldrons over an open fire. Although we brought lots of food for the workshop, there is no electricity in the settlement and thus nowhere to refrigerate the meat. After a day in the heat, I already knew that it was a bad idea to eat it. Almost all of the food was cooked kind of like a stew with the meat so we avoided most of it. By the fifth day, the meat was very clearly rotting but was still being used (some people were sick from it). Sarah and I just ate plain rice and pap for the week but it wasn't so bad. This is one of the traditional meals.

All in all though, the week was a huge learning experience. I really enjoyed being able to spend time with the producers and have definitely gained a new appreciation for what they do. Also, seeing a lifestyle so much different than my own definitely made me thankful for some of the things in my life, and question others. I think going into the field has been my the best part about my work here so far and I look forward to having more opportunities to visit other settlements in the future.