Firesticks

It was unusual for a Bushman to teach someone outside of his clan how to use fire sticks to light a fire, especially a twelve year old English girl. But since K'nxu liked Angela and also trusted her, he decided to show her how it was done. He even made a pair of fire sticks for her out of the appropriate wood. Then one evening he called her aside and demonstrated the technique of fire making, by using only his fire sticks. Angela learned quickly and much to K'nxu's amazement, she soon had her own fire glowing.

Later, when Angela was older and married to David, she returned to the Kalahari to find K'nxu. She had once promised him that she would help his clan by fiding a way to buy them some land on which they could live and continue to live in a traditional Bushman fashion, which included hunting for the pot.

She brought a dedicated team with her that had raised funds for the project, while Angela herself had raised funds by demonstrating her fire making ability on BBC Prime. It was a difficult task to secure the land, as there was presently much in fighting amongst the various ethnic groups, but eventually a streatch of land was secured for the Bushmen.

Angela and her husband David ran the reserve initially, but endured a lot of interferance from certain men that were appointed by the goverment to assist them. All went well for several years, until David was murdered. Fearing for her life as well as her child, Gloria's life, she returned to England. Her mental state deteriorated considerably and she kept having strange dreams about what had happened at the reserve.

Later, when Angela died and Gloria was all grown up, she found something that made her want to return to the Kalahari to complete her parent's work there. By now new people were running the reserve, and when they discovered who Gloria was and that she wanted to continue with research into the Bushman's way of life, they welcomed her.

A local farmer that had been hanging on to one of Angela's trunks filled with books and notes she had made, came to the reserve one day and handed the goods over to Gloria. From the notes she learned a lot more about her parents work and also found some clues regarding her father's death.

She also scattered Angela's ashes over K'nxu's grave, and found the grave by following the GPS numbers her mother had written in her notes. Normally a Bushman's burial spot was not recorded, as nobody was supposed to return there, but Gloria felt it was important that her mother's ashes to be scattered there.

Several nights later, while sitting around the communial fire, the Bushmen began to tell a story about how a new star had appeared in the night sky and they also said Angela had now joined David and K'nxu there and that they were happy. A cold shiver ran down Glorias back when she heard this, as so far, nobody had told the Bushmen anything about Angela's death.

Based on a true story.