photos: Dan Carter
While home can mean so many intangible things – asense of belonging, a feeling of contentment, knowing that you’re right where you should be – there’s something profoundly beautiful about accepting its surface-level definition: home is a physical setting. For those who haven’t been anywhere apart from the place they call home, this definition is the most meaningful and true.
There are an estimated 100,000 San people (Bushmen) living across Southern Africa, the majority of whom have been forced to leave the setting they know so dearly, their home – for government-built resettlement camps. I first learned about the San people and became fascinated by their way of life while at home in the 1990s, surrounded by family and watching a film my dad put on called The Gods Must Be Crazy. The film portrayed the simplicity and harmony of their existence and awakened in me a lifelong curiosity about their close-knit families.