According to my beloved Wikipedia.
“The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for 900,000 square kilometres (350,000 sq mi), covering much of Botswana, as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa.”
In such a desolate place, the San people of the Kalahari have carved a niche right on the edge of survival.
This Mother Nature is not a Rubenesque goddess with a Horn of Plenty. This Mother Nature is an abusive runny-mascara-murderous-bitch.
When you grow up with a mother like this you need to pick up some valuable skills if you want to see the Sun rise again.
One of those skills is tracking prey.
-O-
I have a fixation with economic markets but I have been terrible at investing money meaningfully. I have been hopelessly short-sighted and afraid of losing everything, hampered by a “magical thinking mind” focused on quick wins, risky gambles and recuing victory from the jaws of defeat as a means to validate my own shortcomings.
No prizes for guessing that I have lost the whole lot a few times whilst doing this, and I almost got sucked in by gambling addiction as well.
Poor Ms. Ace had to endure living in a very spartan household for a couple of years during this time. We were young back then, and it was like an adventure, but she has had to put up with an insane pathological loser. Me.
I am very sorry for doing this to Ms Ace. She deserved so much better back then; and I hope the present is better than the past.
-O-
Ever since I was a teenager I would read the economy pages avidly, and ask questions to Abuela about things related to money and the economy and most ominously, poverty.
Abuela had dark memories about her youth in the besieged Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, and those memories always had a degree of deprivation in them. She was always afraid of losing it all, almost to a pathological degree.
In her long years of life reverting to poverty was the one thing she dreaded the most.
She would wear the same dresses for many years after they went out of fashion -always lovingly cared for and always spotlessly clean, and she expected others -particularly me, her favourite grandson- to emulate her virtuous ways.
In her mind a virtuous and successful life involves frugality, resourcefulness, acumen, thrift, personal charm and a little bit of emotional blackmail; at the cost of leisure, enjoyment, contentment and empathy for others.
She tried to steer me away from financial markets and investments, which she called gambling vices and would talk to me for hours about her experiences in solid, honest, back-breaking work, which does not really interest much.
She did plant a seed of fear in me about losing it all, and to rebel against her I did gamble a lot. And lost a lot.
At some point in our last year living in the same roof together, when I was about to embark in my own migration to Australia, she did confide in me that she did gamble away fortunes. Several times.
Fear and impulsivity always push people do dumb things
I had taken it upon me to prove that I could make money somehow, but I consider myself to be too much of a flâneur to work tirelessly for a big corporation, like Ms Ace does.
Bless her.
-O-
I come from a long and distinguished line of poor people. Some of my ancestors had little more than a couple of bedsheets by the turn of the 20th century.
Just like the San people of the Kalahari, my ancestors had to learn skills to survive in a wasteland.
I am a humble forager. I do not even own a goat. But I am learning. I see things. I spend hours scanning the wasteland looking for signs of prey.
I am learning to sniff the wind for the scent.
I find a shrub or a broken branch and I wonder if today will be the day or will it be tomorrow. I am learning where the waterholes are, what sticks are good for making spears and most importantly, how to avoid larger predators that could easily make a meal out of myself.
Sometimes I get lucky and end the day’s hunt with a humble meal. I thankfully appreciate my ember and the opportunity of seeing the Sun rise once again.
Other days I go to bed hungry -it does happen, but it’s now happening less and less often as I gather experience.
Either way I am grateful, because any day could be my last, to see the Sun rise again over the Kalahari.