As much as I would have liked to see the villagers living off government-controlled jobs as a positive testament to modernity, I simply could not. All I saw was deep sadness and nostalgia for past traditions that have slowly been threaded out of the villagers’ lives. For the first time, I actually understood the value of different cultures existing in their own unique contexts, hoping to achieve their own unique goals. Living my whole life in America has raised me with a very misguided view of diversity; I was taught to value diversity only when it brought to light people and cultures who could add to the overall progression of society. I was never taught to value the cultures that many see as backwards, juvenile, or primitive. But as I went on my journey through Namibia and
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Botswana, visiting five different villages of three different ethnic groups, I began to see something truly fantastic about these cultures that has forever changed my ideas about diversity as a social mechanism. The villages that were allowed to practice their traditional customs served as living contradictions to my ideas of family, community, and what it means to be happy. Not to sound like a romantic apostle for all indigenous traditional cultures, but therein lies the actual value of diversity. Allowing those cultures that posit us fundamental questions about our ideals to exist in their free form would benefit our world far more than if we smothered them. I am not saying that we should abandon our first-world pursuits and ambitions to become like the people I visited in Africa, but I challenge the
notion that all cultures should be pushed in a linear mode of progression for the sake of modernity. I have put together this photo essay with the hope that I can convey the stunning beauty of the villagers I met and the traditional cultures that they have maintained in a world defined by change and progression. Even in those villages that are now located on government land and have been forced to abandon many of their traditional ways, ideals have been passed down through generations and remain quite unyielding. Though these indigenous groups may not exist in the future and their cultures may be lost, I want to pay tribute to them as extraordinary peoples who have always remained loyal to their roots.