Visiting the experts

[ScottC]

Hello

One day I would like to visit the bushcraft experts so to speak. The bushmen of the kalahari and tanzania, the nomadic bedouin of the middle east and northern africa, penan of borneo etc.

I am sure some of you have made such visits and I think a few months with some of the most skilled "bushcrafters" on earth will be a wonderful experience.

Those who have experience of this can I have some tips please how to go about arranging it and planning it, what to prepare for and how to ask permission to spend some time within their communities.


All the best,
Scott.

 

[Stuart]

how you go about this depends on how much time and money you have available.

there are two ways of getting yourself where you want to be

long difficult way
if you have lots of time and are prepared to go without comforts from time to time then you can do it the 'hard way' which costs very little.

I can't really offer you a Plan for this type of trip, you can make one if you like, but it will become irrelevant after the second day there.

choose where you want to go and who you want to meet
learn all you can about the place and the people (as much of the language as you can manage)
find people who have been there and know
work out how long you need there (decide how long you think it will take and times it by 8)
buy your plane tickets and save some cash (usually about £500)

When you arrive get out of the cities and towns as soon as possible (they cost money) and get yourself into the bush where there is little or nothing to spend any money on anyway.

Find the people you are looking for, live with them the way they do, earn your keep.

This method is often uncomfortable and can sometimes be frustrating to the point of madness, it is also far from certain, many times you will fail to find what you were looking for and the trip will be wasted. it often takes two trips to an area before you start getting anywhere.

this is the kind of trip in which you spend one third the time enjoying increadable adventure incomparable to anything you could pay for and the other two thirds enduring hardship and questioning how you got yourself into this, but when you get home it will all have been more than worth it.


expensive easy way
if you don’t have a lot of time but you have some cash you can pay to go on an organised trip to visit the people you are interested in with companies such as bushcraft expeditions.

they will ensure that you see the maximum amount compressed into a much shorter period of time, it will all be very comfortable and without any stress.

neither way is better, which ever way you choose to get to there its your interaction with the people that will decide whether the time/money spent is worth while or not

ask yourself whether you going to 'see' the local people or 'live with' the local people?

I have witnessed people who meet the locals only to treat them as a curiosity, as if they were visiting a zoo and admiring the animals, they take pictures keep there distance and return home having learnt nothing that they couldn’t have found in a book.

If you want to learn from them then live with them, if that be six months or only a few hours. don’t worry that you cant speak there language as long as you can say hello, thank you, good, etc to show that you are trying, you will quickly find that it is perfectly possible to talk to someone and understand without saying a word in each others language

The most important thing to remember is this

All people are just people, they have the same hopes and fears as you, they want the same things as you do, they laugh at the same things and are angered by the same things. There are far more things that you share in common, than things you don’t

 

[ScottC]

Thanks Stuart think I'm one for the long difficult way. Sounds like the troubles you can run into would make it all the more fun. Ideally I would love to spend several months living with the locals and learning their skills. But how would I approach it? Surely I can't just walk up and invite myself into their community must be some sort of etiquette involved. For those who have experience how did you approach it??

Would the locals appreciate gifts such as sandpaper, a commodity we take for granted but a very useful resource for them any other suggestions??

 

[Stuart]

Surely I can't just walk up and invite myself into their community

why not?

I regularly walk into a village say hello make friends and eight times out of ten get invited to stay for a while.

there may be some traditional etiquette involved and you should endeavour to learn the procedure before hand if it is relevant, but should you find yourself in a place where you don’t know the custom don’t worry about it, just be as polite as you can, if you get it wrong they will just laugh at you.

once invited to stay it is your duty to repay their kindness by helping out in any way you can.

repay acts of kindness with acts of kindness.

with regards to gifts I always bring extra food to give to people who provide food for me but when I offer a gift I try not make it known that I am carrying these items specifically to give away, for example i discovered that the penan really like watches so I bought a few basic digitals and wore one (i didn’t have a watch)

when a young penan man went out of his way to guide me to the next village I thanked him by giving him my watch (he was delighted), then having said good bye dug another one out of my bag and went on.

I often do the same with fire steels, carry a bunch give them away, another fantastic item to carry is a Polaroid camera take a picture of them with there friends/family and give it to them (one of the best gifts you can give)

I don’t give normally tobacco unless tradition specifically requires it, and I don’t ever offer cash as a gift or to encourage some to invite me to stay

 

[ScottC]

Thank you Stuart I'm sure I'll have loads more questions... perhaps this would be a good topic for an article or for the magazine???

 

[ScottC]

Language barriers is going to be a problem, how can you get around this? I've never picked up languages very easily...

 

[Fire Starter]

I would agree with Stuart but there is another way and less expensive than using companies like Bushcraft Expeditions, survival schools etc.
You can also contact the many adventure companies in the country of choice who many of the schools book through, they organise everything for them anyway. You can then organise with them a longer stay.

If you wish to go to Borneo for example the flight costs and insurance you have to pay and arrange yourself and then you pay the schools a huge wad for the privilege of being a tour oporator. You can book directly on the same course and get the same content through contacting TDK ADVENTURE TOURS SDN.BHD Email: tykaato@.net.my or tykaato@pd.jaring.my and save yourself a fortune.

I have taken this option myself had a great time and saved a wad of cash.

 

[Ahjno]

Language barriers is going to be a problem, how can you get around this? I've never picked up languages very easily...

Very good thread you've started Scott!!

I think it's not really necessary to learn a language fluently - which is almost impossible if it's a rare language ...
You can do with about 300-400 well chosen basic words, as Stuart wrote earlier. Like: food, water, pain, how are you doing, thank you, hello, my name is ***, etc.

There are special language guides on the market with most basic sentences and words, and sometimes small pictures of items to which you can point, so people do understand you.

With these guides you can compile you're personal "language course": pick out the words you need, and bin the rest.
Most of the time these guides show you the way on how to pronounce the words (phonetically) - you use this to put it on tape / CD / MP3 (or whatever) with an english translation and listen & practice it all day.

I found out I learn some things quicker if I use this method, use your imagination

On my course in the UK, the language spoken was english (duh), so for me - coming from NL it was a bit of a change to speak and to be spoken to in english all day long.
Although I do speak english (and french, and german) some things went just a wee bit to fast to understand (and if there's an accent, it's even harder!) - but just as Stuart (again) mentioned earlier, it's feasable if you pay attention, listen and look what people mean if you don't speak the language fluently.

I knew in advance that I problably would be the only foreigner / non native english speaker on the course ... But that was also one of the reasons to go on the course: I was totally thrown back on my own capabillities: no one to fall back on or to hide behind someone. If I wanted something, I HAD to speak english.

I had a great time as it was a great adventure, I learnt a lot. Not only bushcraft skills, but also things about myself and the english language (it really boosts you selfconfidence even more) - just by throwing myself into the deep in your country.

 

[stoddy]

always take sweets! (ones that don't melt easy)

doesn't matter what nationality kids are, they all love sweets and a good way of breaking the ice!

In the past, I used to carry a big bag of plastic animals (stuff found at woolies) in my Bergen.(not toy soldiers!) kids love animals.


you find that most people in general are friendly, no matter what the media sometimes portrays.

I would also check-out the foriegn office website before choosing a place to visit.

don't worry about the language too much!

gestures and acting are as good as words sometimes, and drawing pictures in the sand works too!

 

[Fire Ferret]

Maybe Australia.....


I know that Australia is miles away but the aboriginals that still live the tradtional way of life are a sight to behold. It is fairly easy to find out where the tribes are and they are always more than happy to talk to anyone who is willing to listen, especially if you show that you can hunt, skin and/or start fire, if you can do none of these then big smiles and enthusiasm to eat grubs will get you just as far

The way of life is slowly dying out with the older generation as the young are moving away. However after education some of them come back to somehow preserve what they can. Be prepared to listen to a lot of colourful stories of the "dream time", they are beautiful.

Smiles and open hands are the way forward, maybe offer food if you want to carry extra weight, not smokes or alcohol, the kids are great and sporting equipment goes down a treat.

You might need and interpreter but they are easy to find, there is usually at least one person in the tribe that can speak english but sometimes not.



Ferret

 

[Stuart]

Language barriers is going to be a problem, how can you get around this? I've never picked up languages very easily...

not really, I am appalling at languages, no matter how hard I try I can never seem to make the words stay in my head.

when I met my wife she spoke very little English, even though I spent evey second of my time with my attention focused on nothing but her, she learnt to speak fluent English before I had managed to remember more that 10 words in creole.

I have lived in Mauritius and Saudi Arabia for years yet never succeeded in learning more than 50 words in their respective languages.

its not that I don’t try very very hard, I have studied the Penan language by sitting with them in the jungle for weeks, slowly learning what each word meant and writing it down in my note book with the sound of the word and the meaning untill I have 100's words and numbers to from 1 to 9999.
as i write this my house is festooned with post-it notes on all the doors, cuboard etc each with a different word or phrase and meaning, the one on my computer monitor says "omok ku sui - can you make?"

even though I have tried so very very hard I still can't remember more than fifteen or so of these words at a time and only occasionally can I remember all the numbers requied to count to ten in Penan.

in the jungle I still get out my note pad and refer to it when I want to explain where i am trying to go or negotiate with the blacksmith for a new parang, my note pad is written in my own version of phonetic sounds so i know that i am always pronouncing it right

I have an appalling memory for names and languages yet I have never found this to be anything more than a very minor hindrance in my travels, learn enough to be polite and if you are unable to learn much more don’t worry about it.

remember that according to psychologists almost 60 percent of all communication is nonverbal.

of all information transmitted between people 7% is language , 38% is sounds and 55% is body language.

if you don’t know that language you are only missing 7% of your communicative ability, the real problem is how dependant you feel on that 7%.

going without it is easy to do if you give it a little thought, everybody views the world though the same senses they see and hear things exactly as you do, so describe them with sounds and vision. After a trip my note books are always filled with pages of diagrams and drawings where I have described things and requests to people.

often I get out my note book to draw something for someone only to find that they can write in English even when they though they cant speak it (as happened frequently in Thailand with the hmong people)

one of my favourite pages in my notebook contains a detailed drawing of a rat which a Penan man drew for me to answer my question "what are we eating?" whilst I was laughing at the drawing (I had thought it was an opossum) he went and got me the tail to make sure I got the message.

try you best to learn the language but if you don’t know the words for what you are trying to say then get creative and improvise.

sometimes when you are starting to learn a few words in a new language and you approach some one and confidently use your new words only to find they have no idea what your saying because you pronunciation is wrong, don’t get embarrassed and refuse to utter the words again, repeat yourself another 3 or 4 times. If you have ever spoken to someone with a totally different accent to you, you will remember that you usually figured it out by the fourth repetition, they will too and then they will laugh and tell you how to say it properly.

what ever you do don’t start talking at people but in a louder slower voice you just look strange and aggressive, if I approached you in the street and started talking at you loudly and slowly you would walk away even though you knew what i was saying.

Be open minded, confident and innovative in the way you approach people and remember to smile and laugh at everything (and get used to being laughed at) you will do fine.

 

[pierre girard]

Hello

One day I would like to visit the bushcraft experts so to speak. The bushmen of the kalahari and tanzania, the nomadic bedouin of the middle east and northern africa, penan of borneo etc.

I am sure some of you have made such visits and I think a few months with some of the most skilled "bushcrafters" on earth will be a wonderful experience.

Those who have experience of this can I have some tips please how to go about arranging it and planning it, what to prepare for and how to ask permission to spend some time within their communities.


All the best,
Scott.

My parents, and one of my brothers, have spent considerable time with tribal peoples in different parts of the world. One of the most interesting (and dangerous) was the Waodani tribe of Ecudor. different parts of the tribe have more or less contact with the outside world. One of the last trips they made - they spent a summer with a tribe who'd had almost no contact with whites - except to kill them when they entered Waodani territory. Naked savages would be one way of describing them. They were the most primitive people my folks had ever encountered.

One of the things my people all remarked on was the grace of these folks. Incredible balance - especially while canoeing, My brother commented that their canoes would dump you without constant vigilance, yet the Waodani could run from one end of the canoe to the other on a gunwale - with hardly a reaction in the trim of the canoe. Danile (my brother) said for folks such as ourselves, proud of our canoe prowess, it was a humbling experience.

I have some pretty fine work of theirs, blowguns, belts woven of grass, and accoutrements. Incredibly fine workmanship, yet my father was amused by the fact they seem incapable of pounding a nail with a hammer.

Other than the fact that they seem intent on killing themselves off (blood feuds), In a way, they have a very good life. They hunt about an hour or two each day, and spend the rest of their time relaxing, telling jokes and stories, and killing each other.

PG

 

[Fallow Way]

i`ll never forget the look on the face of a Sami women i met and said a few very very basic things in swedish to her, she was so impressed i made the effort to learn some, even though she spoke fluent english and that i made the effort to use it also. She started teaching me the Sami language.


As others have said, i think most of the work is done by showing you want to communicate and understand. Also haveing a sense of humour, if you can laugh at yourself then generally they are more enthusiastic to try and get you to understand.

 

[ScottC]

Thank you all for taking the time to answer, it has given me a lot to think about.

What is the profession of learning other cultures etc. anthropology or something?

 

[Ahjno]

What is the profession of learning other cultures etc. anthropology or something?

That's correct - though I don't know about other uni studies (here it's a uni study) in the UK that might cover this.
Overhere you have to study anthropology if you're interested in other cultures; though you will cover a bit of culture in language or management studies aswell - but that's not what you're after I reckon

Had it on my "just in case" list, if I found doing law wasn't my cup of tea.

EDIT: makes a great combination with archeology ... Indiana Jones ...