experience
We visited the site of Elela , which is set to open in December 2026, and the new staff village. The village told me more. Building a world-class home for the people who will run the camp shows where Singita’s values lie. Decisions have been made alongside local people, building materials sourced using ancient methods, and menus will draw on local ingredients. Singita’s partnership with the Botswana Public Officers Pension Fund will benefit Batswana even beyond the region, and safeguard the land. Singita arrived without fixed ideas, and has built its blueprint around the people and the place. I’ve stayed at many Delta camps. Here, the people’s excitement was matched by a deep connection to the place. It felt different. It felt real. I left at peace, lighter and grateful. Grateful for the invitation, and even more for how it renewed my love for a place I thought I already knew. The invitation had quoted a Setswana proverb: Batho ba lemogana loetong, ‘people get to know each other on a journey.’ I came home knowing a few remarkable people better. I also understood the Delta a little more deeply, and I could see a future for it that honours its past.
Days were shaped by the people who know this place best. Our hosts were Wayeyi, Hambukushu, and Dxeriku, and their knowledge ran through everything. Our Guide, Nthopang Xani, or Tops, brought a passion and poetry I won’t forget. He once wrote that in the wild, “everything, from the ephemeral to the everlasting, is part of one great story made up of many smaller ones.” Around the fire, under a sky dense with stars, the Guides read the constellations through their own stories, and the sky became something I could understand rather than simply admire. One afternoon we all climbed into the branches of an enormous fig tree and meditated for over an hour. Nobody checked a watch. I don’t think I have ever been so still in the bush, or noticed so much. Jo was visibly energised to be there. Around the fire he spoke about what Singita hopes to do here: slow safari down, so that guests feel more, stay present, and become part of the place rather than spectators of it. Before the trip, I might have taken that as a nice idea. Now I believe it.
Left There is a future that honours the past, and the past holds many futures.
Powered by FlippingBook