The wider Kalahari is a vast, arid region of sandy, porous land which extends across much of Southern Africa. Stretching from South Africa’s Orange River northwards across eastern Namibia, Botswana and western Zimbabwe, the Kalahari also embraces parts of Angola, Zambia and the Congo in a total area of more than 2.5 million square kilometres, about 10 times the size of Great Britain.
The name Kalahari derives from the Tswana word “Kgala” which means “great thirst”. But the southern Kalahari, where Tswalu is located, is really a “green desert” as the Korannaberg mountains attract precious rainfall in the summer months. Over 400 plant species have been identified here at Tswalu together with 230 bird species, 90 mammal species and 38 species of reptile. Every living thing has adapted ingeniously to this unique environment.
The Kalahari has been the ancestral home of the San people, or Bushmen, for thousands of years. As hunter-gatherers, the Bushmen survived by tracking and hunting wild game with bows and arrow, gathering berries or desert melons and storing scarce water in the blown-out shells of ostrich eggs. The San culture and beliefs are rich and rooted in this land.
