Dearest Readers,
After our amazing experience in Kruger, we spent 5 days in
Swaziland. Many PCVs from Lesotho end up going to Swazi at some point during
their service, so, we’ve heard some good things about their wildlife and crafts
previously. To be honest, another reason that we went into Swaziland was
because of our visas, South Africa has recently restricted overland entry by
bordering country residents (which we are considered as for the 2 years we’re
here because of our Lesotho visas) to 7 days. Whatever the reason for going to
Swaziland, it was definitely worth it. We were expecting something a lot like
Lesotho; Swaziland is a small, mountainous country, presided over by a King,
and claiming the highest HIV rate in the world, is definitely still entrenched
in poverty as a “developing country” and is also mostly bordered by South
Africa. Swaziland was strikingly different than Lesotho.
We entered in the north of the country and were immediately
given a newspaper specifically for tourists that had different activities and
events as well as feature articles about the various destinations and events.
We then drove on excellent, well marked roads – the whole way. We noticed that
the houses were generally nicer in the villages than in Lesotho. It was more
heavily vegetated – some of that is the more tropical climate – and as a result
soil erosion didn’t even seem to be an issue. The average person seemed to be
more well dressed than in Lesotho and even the cows seemed to be fatter. There
were also loads of really cool handicrafts! We visited a glass factory where
Swazis took recycled glass and turned it into lovely creations using used motor
oil to fuel the plant! There were
locally made chocolate truffles, beautiful wool and mohair weavings, locally
made candles and soaps, many beautiful things woven from sisal grass and my all
time favourite – a huge variety of locally crafted jewellery! In Lesotho, as
some of you have seen, we struggle to find a postcard to send home.
Swaziland also did a good job emphasizing the local culture
as part of the tourist experience. We went to a cultural village and saw the
traditional houses and dancing. We learned about the tradition of polygamy and
how that looked on a family compound, the roles of men and women, even the
grandmother and sangoma (traditional healer). We also really enjoyed a
traditional dancing show. We went to the national museum and learned about
traditional weddings (lobola – bride price is still alive and well in both
Lesotho and Swaziland... 18 cows seems to be the going rate for the groom to
pay the bride’s family) and the reed dance where “maidens” from all over the
country meet for a week to dance, sing and collect reeds to bring to the Queen
Mother’s compound. I also enjoyed the Swazi cattle – called Ngweni cattle,
there are so many amazing variations of colors and patterns, they are locally
adapted and hardy so they thrive in the area.
We stayed in some really interesting places as well. The
first place was a small B & B where the owners also had permaculture based
landscaping and they had worms (check out the photo!), chickens, lovely gardens
and fruit trees – they humoured us and gave us a lovely little tour of their
place. The next place was a super artsy B & B which also had amazing
landscaping with all of the lovely tropical flowering trees such as plumeria
and hibiscus. The last place we stayed was a “Safari Lodge” which unfortunately
seemed to be a bit run down, but they had the option to stay in one of the
traditional beehive huts – so we did. It was really different, but nice – we
didn’t have wooden headrests for pillows or have to sleep on grass mats but it
was a good experience. The grass is really good at keeping the inside cool when
it is hot out and warm when it cools off. We went on a little safari
drive/hike, it wasn’t much compared to Kruger but was still quite interesting.
The animals were much more skittish – apparently it is hunting season and they
have issued permits to help manage their populations (Dad was quite sad to find
this out a bit too late – no impala roast for us!) Our guide was really great
though. The actual safari vehicle blew up last year so he set up chairs in the
back of a truck for us to enjoy our safari drive! The guide’s name was Sibu and
he actually did an 18 month internship at Disney World’s Wild Kingdom in
Florida, so it was interesting to hear what his experience of America was in
that context as well. He already had had guide experience before, and it showed
that he knew a lot about the animals and the bush – because we’re a bit nerdy
we were even asking about insects and such and there wasn’t anything he
couldn’t tell us about.
Other things: we got to go to the “Cuddle Puddle” hot
springs – which was pretty nice, since we haven’t been to a hot springs for 2
years. We stopped at Maguga Dam, this
was interesting because we got to talk to the guy responsible for the
relocation of the villages in the area where the dam was built and he actually
told us that he learned from a lot of other resettlement projects, including
Katse in Lesotho and he feels that the Maguga Dam relocation was probably one
of the most successful dam relocations in the world. We also briefly met some
Swaziland Peace Corps Volunteers which was pretty cool, they directed us to
some of the best pizza that we’ve eaten since being in Africa and they
mentioned that they only knew of one Swazi PCV that had visited Lesotho...
That pretty much wraps up our experience of Swaziland. I’d
like to point out that Swaziland really is a true Kingdom. Lesotho follows the
British system where there is a king as a figurehead but then there is a
democratically elected Prime Minister and Parliament. One of the subjects that
is talked about in “development theory” (hopefully that’s right, keep in mind
that my focus really is Ag), is the realized merit of democracy for development
and if it is really the most beneficial system for building a country up.
Cleary, corrupt dictators are not the only other alternative. I can’t speak to
this too much but again, it was quite interesting to see the difference between
Swaziland and Lesotho – though I understand that it is impossible to pinpoint
one cause. Also, all I’m going to say on this is that the King of Swaziland is
a bit of an interesting character.
Stay tuned for the next instalment from our trip which was
Kosi Bay, several other parts of the “Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park” also
known as Isimangaliso (it means “something amazing” in Zulu) Wetland Park, and
also Hluhluwe National Park.
All our best from Lesotho,
Carol and Shane
