Elephant Day - Friday Part 2 Shangaan Villiage

I am finding the Shangaan Cultural Village a little difficult to explain right now. There seems to be contradictions between what the Internet tells me and what I saw and heard while Cara and I were there. I'm going to have to come back to this blog after I've considered this a bit more... my question to myself right now is, how much of what I saw and heard is for the tourists benefit and because Cara and I did do a lot of Q&A while we were there, how much truth is there. I'm leaning towards more truth than "circus" as it were.

I've seen our own Native American village reconstructions that were meant for tourists to learn more about their heritage and it is very apparent that those villages were built for the tourist/educational interests. I think what Cara and I saw was a culture trying hard to hang on in an ever changing world. It's going to be difficult for me to express what I saw and how I felt about what I saw while we were there. I think the one thing I can say for sure is that I was saddened for the Shangaan people...

In the meantime, I have posted pictures taken in the village on the Picasa album in the album called, "Elephant Day - Friday Part 2 Shangaan Village". Also there is a link below with the ... tourist version...

http://www.encounter.co.za/article/137.html