Beer cans, the post office and my friend Jim In my first three weeks in Botswana I was taking Setswana language training and had breaks for lunch. My friend Jim Plewes, back in Winnipeg, collected beer cans. I thought he wouldn't have any from Africa. There were three types of beer in Botswana: Lion, Black Label and Castle. They cost about one pula each when full. I gathered up an empty tin of each and packaged them in a triangular formation and stood in line at the post office for thirty minutes on a Monday. Handed it to the postal clerk who handed it back saying it had to be a rectangular package. I responded "Oh no it has great strength Mma" and pounded on it with my hand to show the cans didn't buckle. She ignored me and went to the next person in line. That night I put the the three tins in an empty cereal box and carefully wrapped it in white paper so that there would be no issue about being able to read the address. The next day I stood in a long line for forty minutes and handed in the package. "Sorry Rra," said the clerk. "It has to be wrapped in brown paper." "Oh no surely not" I replied. "Look at how beautiful the writing is and easy to read." The clerk handed the parcel back from his barred cage and went on to the next customer. That night I re-wrapped the parcel in brown paper and wrote in large felt marker letters Jim's name and address. On Wednesday I stood in line for only twenty-five minutes and handed over the package. The clerk said "Rra you have left no space for the Customs forms" and shoved the package back. Then I knew why there were bars between the clerks and the people in line - so you couldn't reach over and grab them. On Thursday I didn't try to go back but that night l re-wrapped the parcel and wrote the name and address in small legible letters, on brown wrapping paper. On Friday I stood in line for 45 minutes and reluctantly handed the parcel to the clerk. He gave me some Customs forms to fill out and went to the back to weigh it. I had the forms all filled out by the time he returned. He said, "That will be 13 Pula." "What!" I exclaimed. "I don't want to send it air mail." The clerk advised "That is the surface mailing rate." "What!" I exclaimed again. "I am not paying thirteen pula to mail three empty beer cans." I took my neatly carefully wrapped package outside and jumped up and down on it until it was flat as a pancake. Then I put it into a 9" by 12" envelope with Mr. Plewes' address on it. On the back of the envelope I wrote "Dear Jim, F you and your beer can collection" and mailed it for 75 thebe.* *There are 100 thebe to a pula. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
GantsiCraft: Two Stories in One Introduction In the early 1980s the country of Botswana had eleven geographic regions with a Rural Industrial Officer for each division. Five were Peace Corp volunteers, five were Canadian placements and one was a Motswana. The idea was that eventually all the positions would be filled by Batswana (people of Botswana). I was stationed in Ghanzi District, the most remote of the eleven and the one with the largest area. There was no electricity, no television, no radio, and no news. There was a saying that if anything important was happening we would see it on the horizon. This applied to bushfires, thunderstorms, nuclear explosions and the arrival of the weekly bank plane. My role was to help rural entrepreneurs get started in business by arranging training, finances and marketing once in production. Successful undertakings included: tanning, leatherwork, metal work, knitting, sewing, bakeries, carpentry and brickmaking. Part One A large segment of population, the Bushmen or Remote Area Dwellers (RADs, also known as San or Khoisan) went unassisted. A RAD might spend half a day making a craft and then three days going door to door trying to sell it. There was reluctance in town to buy something for fear that they would keep coming back. Through the Production Promotion Committee, which approved projects in the district, I started GantsiCraft. It was a place where producers could leave items for sale on consignment and decide what price to ask. The Committee was doubtful that the San would leave things on consignment but it was an immediate success. There were three initial market groups: expatriates living in town; government officials flying up from, Gaborone, the capital; and tourists coming through on expeditions from Namibia (then known as German South West Africa) enroute to Victoria Falls (Musi-O-Tunya). The first month sales were $300 and the year after I left they were up to $300,000. Not only were producers selling more they were getting double and triple what they received for items than before. For example before GantsiCraft a Bushmen hunting set went for $8 – within two years they were selling for $24 (but still sold for $80 in Johannesburg, if you knew where to look). Many of the items were made from ostrich egg shells and occasionally whole decorated ostrich eggs. Each item was tagged with the name of the producer and his/her village. After a year we had a meticulous record of the number of items put through the craft shop. That turned out to be a good thing as the Wildlife department wanted to prohibit sale of ostrich egg shell products on the premise it was threatening ostrich numbers. I was able to research ostrich numbers and show that with females laying twenty eggs a year the amount going into crafts was less than 1% of the eggs laid. Moreover most of the eggshells made into beads came from already hatched eggs. A producer could get more for a decorated egg than any number of necklaces they might make from breaking an egg - not even taking into account all the labour that would have to go into making uniform size beads. The eggshell products that were being crafted were from hatched chicks they came across in the veldt. Using that argument and having researched the quantity of eggs being laid in the wild plus having a year's record of sales production we were able to get a permit to sell that many each year. Part Two Once the success of the consignment aspect was realized I expanded access of the operation to the remote communities. !Xade, in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, being the first. It was a long one day drive to reach there using rutted tracks through the Kalahari. It is said that more Anthropologists have studied the people of !Xade than there are people in !Xade. When I first reached there one Bushman started measuring my skull with his fingers, instead of calipers. Ngarie, the New Zealand nurse stationed in the community, explained he wanted to "get" me before I "got" him. They were only used to outsiders as wanting to study them. Ngarie had one of two houses in the settlement; the other belonging to the teacher. The only other cement building was the one room school. I was able to stay overnight in Ngarie's guest room. In the morning I arranged for a Kgotla meeting and explained through two interpretations (English to Setswana, then Setswana to Nharo) how they could leave their craft items for sale at a place in Ghanzi, rather than travel there by donkey cart. I would take the items back for them and next trip bring them money from sales. Rather than money from sales they wanted goods such as tea, sugar and tobacco. To oblige this request I helped them form a consumers cooperative, explained its principles and that they would make decisions on its operation. I had an arrangement with the district wholesaler to procure items at wholesale prices. This meant they could buy items at the same price as in town rather than pay a hawker a 200% markup. The operation went well and soon expanded into other items such as washing powder, oranges in season and salt. In a sense it became too successful. One on trip Ngarie wanted me to stop bringing sugar. It turned out the local brewmaster was cornering the sugar market and making a potent brew to be imbibed within hours. Ngarie explained if they got inebriated after my deliveries they beat each other up. She wanted the sugar deliveries stopped. Since she was my source of accommodation and fellowship for 200 km I wanted to accommodate her. However I didn't want to unilaterally cut off supplies as I had told them they get to make decisions about their operation: what prices to charge and what items to bring. In the morning I requested a Kgotla meeting. I could see some of the fellows with bandaged heads and arms in slings that Ngarie had to attend to in the night. I went about it in a roundabout way saying it wasn't fair that one person bought up all the sugar and that maybe there could be a limit of two pounds per person. They didn't want to do that so I came straight out and said there was a problem with people getting hurt from drinking the sugar brew and I nodded toward several of the injured. They acknowledged it was a problem but did not want to change how sugar was allocated. I had to defer to my promise that they got to make the decisions and reckoned I may have to sleep in the back of the truck during future visits. On the long drive back to Ghanzi I realized that although the women attended the Kgotla meeting, at the periphery, they didn't speak up. They didn't have a say. What if it had been them being beat up would I have left it at them making the decision for the community? Or on a further think that it shouldn’t matter who was being battered. As far as I know the beatings and bashings stopped. They seem to recognize the importance of policing themselves. Then I recognized there was a situation analogous to Kohlberg's Levels of Moral Reasoning. At the first level I wanted to Avoid Punishment > being denied a place to stay. At the second level I wanted to please myself and bring about delivery of goods. On the third level was Pleasing Others: the people who wanted sugar brought in vs Ngarie wanting sugar stopped. On the fourth level was Deferral to Authority > Ngarie being the defacto authority, at least on health matters. On the fifth level was adhering to Agreement > to do what I said I would do - to abide by their decision. On the sixth level > Concern for others - what if the women, who did not seem to have a voice at the meetings, were victims of the violence? There was also recognition that it wasn't simply a matter of acceding to the highest level but there was an amalgamation of factors operating together: some pulling one way, some pulling the other way. Postscript 2002 After twenty years, I went back to see how projects, I had assisted with, were faring. GantsiCraft was still in existence but had been taken over by Danish Volunteers. Their approach was to pay cash for items and not involve the San with the operating decisions. Their view was that it was more important to get funds to the Remote Area Dwellers upfront. The people of !Xade had been forcibly removed and when they went back anyways the borehole was shut down. The Consumer Cooperatives no longer existed. Postscript 2017 GantsiCraft no longer had a presence on the internet. I do not plan to attend the CUSOBOT session in July. However some of my stories from 1982-1984 may be found at www.tvulcano.com. Also, here are Parts I to V of a PowerPoint presentation on Botswana. - Terry Vulcano (Botswana Cooperant 1982-85)
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3/2/2019 01:58:46 pm
Terry. You told that story so well! It reminded me of the time I mailed a ceremonial gnu tail fly swatter to an old friend who had once written about his childhood fancy to eat gnu soup. (Such an export would not be allowed today.) In his next letter, the friend wrote: "Knowing it was from you, and knowing it was from Africa, I opened it over the bathtub."
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April 2021
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