Lüderitz is today a sleepy, somewhat surrealist German colony.
Just like a typical, small Bavarian town,
but transposed to one of the most remote corners of Southern Africa,
where the wind blows furiously all year round.
The railway disappeared a long time ago,
but a magnificent road connects the town with the outside world.
Lüderitz still lies well off the beaten track,
stranded in the desert, between two enormous diamond-producing regions,
which are prohibited zones, and heavily guarded.
The majority of the streets are still sand,
and the houses are painted in bright colours, to break the monotony of the landscape.
The town is surrounded by almost endless diamond deposits,
but these are transported directly to South Africa,
and have very little influence on the local economy.
Nonetheless, Lüderitz remains prosperous,
thanks to the same activity which was the reason it was founded
fishing.
Due to the cold Benguela current, these waters are the largest,
richest fishing grounds in the South Atlantic.
The entire city owes its living to the hake, lobsters and seaweed,
which provide work for over 5,000 people.
This industry is, after diamonds, the second largest source of income for the Namibian government.
But long before the arrival of the White Man, a nomadic people,
once to be found throughout the continent of Africa,
had sought final refuge in the Namib and Kalahari deserts.
They were probably the last survivors of the hunter people
that had been persecuted and displaced by the Bantu tribes who arrived from the north.
Those who did not manage to escape into the desert were exterminated or enslaved,
first by the Bantues and the Hottentots themselves,
and later by the European conquerors,
who rather contemptuously named them Bushmen.
In the sacred mountains which are home to the spirits,
the drawings carved into the rock are irrefutable evidence that,
six thousand years ago, the Bushmen already inhabited these lands.
Nowadays, the majority of the 100,000 Bushmen that live in the Kalahari desert
are to be found in remote ghettos, in subhuman conditions.
Most of their cultural heritage has been lost.
They now rarely hunt, and subsist on the tiny benefits they receive from the government.
There is a great deal of alcoholism
it's the only way they have of killing time.
The authorities are trying to introduce agriculture and livestock farming,
but these people who, for over 20,000 years have been hunter-gatherers,
are finding it very difficult to adapt to this lifestyle.
Some of them work for the White Men, or for neighbouring tribes,
as hunters, farm-workers, or herdsmen,
in conditions of near slavery,
in exchange for food, clothes and tobacco.
Historically, the neighbouring tribes have treated them as pariahs, with no rights.
Since 1992, Amnesty International has been denouncing
the abuses and torture they suffer at the hands of the military.
Little by little, the situation is getting better
in Botswana, for example, which, in 1998,
enjoyed the strongest economic growth in the world.
But still, the Bushmen are the most extreme example of the poverty
and underdevelopment which has not been eradicated.
Little by little, they are losing ground,
their territory reduced to an ever-smaller area.
Fortunately, however, there are still families
who refuse to give up their culture and their traditions,
and try to survive in the most remote regions of the Kalahari.
Chonwati is a small settlement, inhabited by just four families, a total of 14 people.
The Bushmen live in small, scattered groups, adapting to whatever the land can offer,
Kushai, Samgao, Tuka and Bo are the heads of the Chonwati family.
Several days ago they ran out of meat, the basis of their diet,
and so have decided to set out to try to catch a hare in the area around the village.
Politically and socially, the Bushmen are organised into groups with no designated leader,
though authority is assumed by the oldest or the most skilled of the active members.
Each group is made up of a number of hunters,
generally related, and their wives and children.
The group normally moves around a limited territory,
which they don't leave
this is their hunting ground and, though the limits are not well defined,
and there is no specific obligation to respect them,
other groups would never enter, so no one needs to defend them.
The technique they use to catch the hares is simple, but extremely ingenious.
Their only tool is a long, very flexible rod, with a hook at one end,
which they introduce into a burrow.
When the pole has been pushed all the way in, the men place the end against their cheeks.
If they can feel the rod vibrating, it means a rodent has been trapped on the hook.
No luck this time!
The four friends return to the settlement with empty hands.