Asked by her husband, James Martin, how she got her name, Katrina Martin relates the story of Jan Englebrecht, her ancestor who trekked into the interior of Bechuanaland (now Botswana) in 1852. She does this with the aid of his journal that has been passed down through the family.
Jan leaves the Cape Colony of South Africa in 1852, after his girlfriend drops him to marry another, to find his own way in life. He treks north across the Orange River with the notion to make his fortune hunting ivory. He continues north into the Great Thirst, as the Kalahari Desert was known in those days. His expedition falls apart and he is forced to wander in the Okavango Delta until he is rescued and befriended by the people who were known then as the Bushmen. He stays with them learning their language and their way of life. He is drawn to a young girl, Motshaba, the daughter of one of their leaders. He woos Motshaba, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Motshaba woos him and they marry and have two children, Katrina and Koos.
Jan and Motshaba spend their time wandering in the northern Kalahari, and their life and wanderings are dictated by the wet and dry seasons and the availability of food and water and would be idyllic except for encounters with slavers from Portuguese West Africa.
