"I would trade everything," Makgabe said, "for my people to see rain again."
Long ago, before the great herds scattered and the rains forgot their season, the people of the Kalahari faced a hunger that gnawed deeper than any lion. The riverbeds turned to dust. The melons shriveled on the vine. Chief Kgosi called a kgotla —a sacred meeting beneath the ancient camelthorn tree. "We must send someone to the cave of the Ancestors," he said. "Someone small enough to pass through the stone ear of the hill. Someone clever enough to ask for the secret of water." the story of the makgabe
And in the villages of Botswana, when a child asks, "Mother, why does the meerkat always stand so still?" the answer is the same: "I would trade everything," Makgabe said, "for my