"In the world we grew up it was assured that all change and all development in life are part of a continuous process of cause and effect, carefully and patiently sustained over millennia. With the exception of initial act of creation (which, like all good boy Afrikaner, for me it was something that was achieved with such force that only took six days to go from chaos to Adam and the vine leaves), the evolution of life on Earth was considered a slow, steady and ultimately manifest. However, as soon I started reading history books came to me quite a few questions. Human society, living things, I thought it should be excluded from a sight so fair and rational. The totality of human development, far from being the product of a constant evolution, seemed to be subject only to mutations in part explained, and often violent. Entire cultures, numerous groups of individuals imprisoned for centuries appeared in a static, almost immutable, that endure despite their indifference to suffering, and suddenly appeared without visible cause, went to be susceptible to drastic changes that forced the a wild way to development itself. It was as if the movement of life over the millennia is not the Darwinian a caterpillar, but a kangaroo afraid to move towards the future by a random series of jumps, dodges, jumps and sudden stops, quite impossible to predict. In fact, when I began to study physics, I had the feeling that the modern concept of energy could perhaps shed light on that process more enlightening than any other conventional approach of the case. It seemed as if the species, society and the individual will behave more like the clouds of a storm front that as children of the reasonably well educated, well-groomed and well dressed. Over time, life itself seemed to concentrate large loads, such as clouds and electricity of the earth, until suddenly, in a stifling, sultry hours of the spirit, the wind rose, acidity fell on a drop of rain dust, lit the fire in the nerves and drums resounded to result in the heavens that we call thunder and lightning, and on earth, in society and personality are the possibility of change. Some of this style, albeit on a small scale, I had thought of overnight. Twenty years wore round and round the issue of the Bushman, and soon not only found my way, but wished to undertake it immediately. That morning, unfinished dress, I knew quite exactly what to do, and she knew how to do it.
I decided to go to the Kalahari in the worst time of year. My purpose would be to begin the journey through the most northern border near the Zambezi River in late August. I decided to do so because that seemed the only way to make sure that the Bushman, in the course of which he found, was a pure Bushman. There are many mixed race people, mixed with blood Bushman, across the edge of the Kalahari. Knew from experience that these people penetrate into the Kalahari, to the core, after the rains begin. And is that the miraculous is that Kalahari is a desert only in the sense that surface water does not contain a permanent basis. Moreover, it is fertile grassy dunes, glittering in the wind like corn gallant. It has plenty of shrubs and bushes, trees and even some stretches of dense forest. It also has its own varieties of deer and antelopes, birds in abundance, lions and leopards. When it's rainy season grows in the Kalahari profusion of sweet-tasting herbs, shrubs and berries hanging amber tone, glistening grapes, plums, sugar. Even devoid of grass space glossy succulent melons and cucumbers are fragrant, abundant underground bulbs and tubers of large wild carrots, potatoes, turnips and potatoes. After the rains there is a huge invasion of life from the outside, as the desert is full during these months a great sweetness thanks to the rest of winter, heat and thirst. The birds, animals and indigenous quadrupeds around waiting on the rocky plateau at the start of the summer. When the first lightning ripped the western horizon, as if a god had cast a walk equipped with a lantern to light their great strides in the dark, all eager to sniff the wind. And when you load the air with moisture, rain harbinger of even distant end the waiting. The elephant is often the first thing we started, since it is the smell that is more sensitive and is also the most greedy. Hot on the heels followed all sorts of antelopes, Wildeboer t, zebras and carnivores that feed on them. Also black buffalo emerge from the bed of the rivers and sloughs, shaking tsetse flies like clots of mud from their hard coat, and he sets out into the desert. When migration exodus that make up this animal is at its peak, when all the symptoms have finally confirmed that started a fruitful summer, human beings are following suit. "
Laurens van der Post, The Lost World Kalahari. In search of the Bushmen , Barcelona, \u200b\u200bEdiciones Peninsula, 2007. ISBN 978-84-8307-566-1
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"The extraordinary life of Sir Laurens van der Post (1906-1996) is difficult to summarize in a few lines. He was a writer, farmer, soldier, prisoner of war, political adviser to British heads of state, teacher, philosopher , explorer ... and a great defender of human rights in South Africa, his homeland. He was a staunch opponent of apartheid and spent much of his life to show the world the meaning and value of indigenous cultures in modern society . In the fifties, was devoted to exploring the South West Africa and entered in the life and customs of the Bushmen, the mythical birthplace of two travel books, The Lost World of Kalahari (1958) and The heart of the Hunter (1961). "
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