The famous South African film ‘The Gods Must be Crazy’ is where it all began.  People got the idea that the Bushmen, or San, are a small-statured, comical people who live in remote pockets of Southern Africa and have strange ideas about civilisation. 

There are many stories, some funny, some tragic, about how the San have collided with ‘civilisation’ and come off second best.  Their persecution and their peculiarity is well documented.  Their prowess as trackers is legendary.  A San who saw a train for the first time spoke in awe of the ‘row of houses that thundered past’.  A first-time visitor to the city was afraid of the elevator because he saw people going in and not coming out, and thought the lift ate them. There is also the famous advert concerning the ball that falls from the sky and causes an outbreak of rugby in a little San community.  These all portray a simple, unsophisticated, little people completely out of their depth in the modern world.  But the San society is in fact a highly sophisticated political structure that has managed to set an example of perfect sustainability that could teach us a lot about what is wrong with our own society. The Western Cape San are fortunate to have, as their champion, a passionate anthropology graduate from Stellenbosch, Michael Daiber.  Michael is CEO of a cultural centre called !Khwattu, a San ‘village’ an hour’s drive from Cape Town. “I am fascinated by their amazing survival skills,” says Michael.  “They can live in the harshest conditions, and still care for their surroundings.  They are an example of possibly the most perfect society.” But like many things, this most perfect society has been pushed to the very edges of the modern world.  !Khwattu is an attempt to put that right. The name (in the /Xam language) means ‘Watering Hole’ or ‘Drinking Place’.  It came about as a result of the work of WIMSA – the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities, who formed a partnership with a Swiss NGO called Ubuntu.  They bought a wheat farm on the West Coast and set up a cultural centre.  According to Michael, the initial idea was to create something small that would assist the San in preserving their culture by showing it to visitors.  The centre has since completely outgrown its initial purpose and has succeeded in both educating San people about the tourism industry as well as preserving their ancient way of life. But that’s just the official side of things.  Unofficially, Michael and his team of San tourism entrepreneurs have created a thought-provoking and highly entertaining half-day outing for anyone visiting the Cape. The first impression of !Khwattu is the beautiful setting.  Table Mountain dreams in the south, the Atlantic lies to the west with the tranquil stretch of Langebaan lagoon.  This was the area where the first colonial settlers began farming the Fairest Cape, and it is a region not only rich in natural interest but also historical interest.  There were the farmers; the indigenous San; the now-extinct Hottentots; various other indigenous tribes that left no records, and – just to enrich the pot even more – scatterlings from Europe washed up from the hundreds of shipwrecks to make a home on this shore. The visitor to !Khwattu will be met on their arrival by a friendly San, dressed in a loose cotton version of a guide’s outfit.  The restaurant in the restored farmhouse is renowned for its cuisine, so the visitor can either first have a meal and then a tour, or the other way round. Adjacent to the restaurant is a craft shop featuring authentic San art and craft.  The centre has two scheduled tours:  the first is a San-guided experience through a replica San village and a photographic exhibition, detailing the lifestyle and philosophy of these remarkable people.  The second tour is the ethno-botanical trail, a tour through fields around the homestead, looking at more than 150 species of different plants and their uses.  The explanation of the medicinal properties of the plants is mingled with traditional story-telling, the mythology of the San, first-hand knowledge and experience, and some charming recollections. !Khwattu is not just a cultural village.  It is also a training ground for young San people to preserve their multi-faceted culture, to learn the tourism industry, and to feature their handiwork. The San are, without a doubt, a vanishing civilisation.  One of their languages, called N/u, is so fragile that only about 15 people still speak it.  There is no mother-tongue instruction in San, and none of their languages enjoys any official status.  !Khwattu might become a relic of the past – the only place where San can preserve their legendary skills. Michael relates a story about a young San who travelled with him in his car.  “The car had air-conditioning,” he says, “and this youngster asked me:  “How did you manage to turn the winter on?” This is a funny comment, it is a charming comment but it is also an almost unbearably poignant comment.  Don’t we all want to live in a good world, where a gift from the gods – a Coke bottle from the sky – causes dissent in our community and must be returned to the edge of the world?  And some person can summon the winter to cool the summer heat? You can find that vanished world – a dignified, intelligent and cheerful version of it – at !Khwattu.  To have a closer look at this unmissable cultural experience, go to www.khwattu.org  .