Also I helped build a bushman hut out of grass and trees. With out a doubt, my favorite part of the weekend was making crafts with the San women. They taught me how to make beads out of ostrich shell (an incredibly difficult process that leads to crazy blisters). I had the opportunity to share a little bit of North American culture with them by teaching them to make dream catchers. Some of the young girls caught on really easily. I told them the folk tale associated with the dream catchers. I was really great to be able to share this with them.

The weekend ended by dropping off the San at their homes in D'Kar, and experience entirely different from the idealistic environment they were staying in at the farm. Most of the houses were built with small sticks as the walls. The sticks were held together with a concoction of mud, cow dung and water which held the walls sturdy when dry. Roofs were made by laying grass atop, or if you were extremely lucky, you had a piece of corrugated steel for your roof. And for them...this was reality. It's funny how sometimes we see just a snapshot of the life that people live, and that snapshot is so far from reality.

The one thing I really came to appreciate being around the San people is the value of family. In their culture, you are always with your family. Every house (without exception) is composed of an extended family. They are always there for one another, through the best of times and the worst. Everyone in the settlement is a friend, and they are open to bringing us crazy foreigners into their lives as friends. It really gave me a new appreciation of my own wonderful friends and family.