James G. Workman

Most natural disasters will bring people together in a common mission of helping out their fellow humans. Droughts tend not to. Instead, as they grind along, divisions and conflict tend to increase until it works its way down to the neighbor against neighbor level.

Heart of Dryness is a narrative investigative journalism book. It covers the Bushman of the Kalahari in their conflict over water with the country of Botswana. Workman spent several years on the story and covers it in exhaustive detail. There are many controversial issues in this battle. Indigenous populations in game reserves. Hunting, ecotourism, diamond mining, relocation, culling elephants, and more. There is some anthropology but it's only one of the themes tracked here.

The focus is on Botswana's water situation but other water troubled places are brought up in a minor way. The problem with water is not so much precipitation but the use of aquifers and deep wells. This 'fossil water' can only be used once for all practical purposes and many of the uses of this water has not been done wisely over the last few decades. Limitations are being hit.

The Bushman point of view is covered mainly from a woman, Qoroxloo, who lived her whole life in the Kalahari. She is one of the 'old wise ones' whose knowledge is fast disappearing in a changing world.… (more)