Opening of plant trail The San Culture & Education Centre

Walk the new plant trail at !Khwa ttu

In time for the festive season when many visitors flock to !Khwa ttu, the new trail of edible and medicinal fynbos plants has been opened to the public. The adjacent open-air exhibition with its mural painted by famous San artists and its posters depicting characteristic moments in lives of San in the past and present is complementing the trail. The !Khwa ttu reference group and graphic designer Imorgen Eades put an amazing project together. The trail offers a wealth of information and invites particularly children to test their senses by touching and smelling the plants and taste some remedies at the replica traditional village.

It took an entire year to design and implement the plant trail as every little step was carried out by the members of the !Khwa ttu reference group themselves. The former trainee guides, their trainer – who is also a landscape architect -, the professional guides and the CEO held numerous lively discussions which led to a design of both the ‘theme circles’ and an outline for the exhibition. All agreed that the themes of the plant circles should refer to: ‘Teas and Beverages’; ‘Women’s Health and Child Care’; ‘General Health Remedies and Skin Care’; ‘Food and Spices’ and ‘Hunting and Household’.

At the same time the group the group worked hard physically as they had to clear the most suitable area for the trail, nested between some rock outcrops. Elder Carlos Munawgo skilfully built a traditional replica village against sheltering rocks at the lowest point of the path. After an excursion to Cape Town’s impressive Botanical Garden, the research, identification, propagation, classification and planting of the first plants began. As time went by, more and more edible, medicinal and otherwise useful plants were identified, some transplanted and others bought.

The design of the plant labels also evoked plenty of debate. Emphasis was placed on using material which was already at hand to build the frames for the labels. In the end the group settled for rusty water pipes. The search for suitable photographs also took a lot of time. Anthropologist Bob Hitchcock and Nigel Gericke, one of the authors of the book “People’s Plants” were extremely helpful by providing numerous photographs of plants used by the San.

As soon as the cold and rainy weather had subsided, !Xun artists from Platfontein near Kimberley in South Africa were invited to !Khwa ttu. After having been familiarized with the storyline of the exhibition each of the three painters enthusiastically embarked on her/his section of the colourful mural. With utmost precision they outlined their objects, then gave them expressions and in the end painted the background. Often they were surrounded by children, adolescents and the trainees, who listened attentively while the artist told them the story of his/her painting.

The creativity, enthusiasm, knowledge, passion, hard work and humour that went into this unique project will certainly transpire to each and every visitor to this new trail at !Khwa ttu.