swaziland: the land of the king
though we had a 3-month visa for mozambique, they only actually give you 30 days at a time. this means that every 30 days we had to leave the country. our kind friends marcus and jillian offered to take us and a missionary couple called nathan and beatriz to swaziland.
marcus is a really nice swiss brother who, years ago, moved to swaziland to serve where the need is great. jillian is a lovely south african sister who also moved to pioneer in swaziland. no doubt you can guess what happened. now they serve in mozambique bethel (and in sign language, so they are kindred spirits,) but they have fond memories of swaziland.
the kingdom of swaziland is a small land-locked country with a long history and a deep culture. its only 200km long by 150km wide, but it lies directly on the great fault in the earths surface that runs from lesotho northwards, through kenya (where we call it 'the great rift valley') and up to turkey. in fact in many ways swaziland reminds me of kenya. so we set off early saturday morning ...
we caught the sunrise a short time before crossing the border. i made everyone stop while i jumped out and took pictures (you may want to be wary in future of travelling in the same vehicle as me!). swaziland turned out to be an absolutely lovely country. i think i would be happy as a pioneering here.
so after dumping our bags at the dlamini family's, our hosts, home, we set out for adventure. first stop - lunch! we went to this cute little restaurant - i think there may have been space in the cozy dining room for 10 people at most.
and a shot of the food by sandi for carrianne...
swaziland has a significant amount of handicrafts going on. they had all kinds of interesting and cool things. lots of reed woven stuff, little hand made goods, carvings and everything was painted pretty colors. we actually found in one of the shops a woman doing the weaving...
this lady told us that it would take her about a week to do one of the mats that she was sitting on. swaziland is especially famous for its candles and there are a couple of huge candle factories. not just run of the mill candles, no, they had candles in any color, shape and size imaginable. little elephants, lions, rhinos - you name it. this guy was making little rhino candles at a relentless pace...
we left the candle factory quite happy with ourselves, onwards to the next place on the itenerary, when disaster struck...our ride went dead. turns out a timing belt had snapped. so we had to be towed back to mbabane. here we are waiting for pindile, our awesome towing sister.
so sunday morning the boys worked like slaves getting the timing belt changed, under the skillful direction of brother bongani, while the girls....went and got massaged and stuff. no hard feelings.
brother bongani is one of those guys who could rebuild an engine with an avocado and a bit of string. he did an awesome job on our engine, and just watching and helping him was a learning experience. if any of you have a turbocharged 1990's isuzu trooper and you need a timing belt changed....i will cut you a a special deal.
so by sunday night it was done and ready to take us back home, we had a lovely dinner with our hosts where we enjoyed good company and good food (the picture below is their back yard, by the way.) i finally worked up the guts to ask our hosts about the reed ceremony. apparently, every year, tens of thousands of virgin girls in the kingdom convene at the kings house for an 8 day ceremony - mainly a dance in their traditional clothes for the king. their traditional clothes happen to be a skirt of grass round the waist and some beads around their ankles. then he chooses the one he wants to marry.
my hosts all laughed at my ignorance and said that i had it all wrong and in fact, the purpose is not for the king to chose his wife but its a chastity dance. everything else is accurate though. sadly we missed it - its in august.
all in all, swaziland was way interesting. we will have to go back one day and visit some of their beautiful parks, see some of the spectacular scenery, and visit all our new-found friends again.
marcus is a really nice swiss brother who, years ago, moved to swaziland to serve where the need is great. jillian is a lovely south african sister who also moved to pioneer in swaziland. no doubt you can guess what happened. now they serve in mozambique bethel (and in sign language, so they are kindred spirits,) but they have fond memories of swaziland.
the kingdom of swaziland is a small land-locked country with a long history and a deep culture. its only 200km long by 150km wide, but it lies directly on the great fault in the earths surface that runs from lesotho northwards, through kenya (where we call it 'the great rift valley') and up to turkey. in fact in many ways swaziland reminds me of kenya. so we set off early saturday morning ...
we caught the sunrise a short time before crossing the border. i made everyone stop while i jumped out and took pictures (you may want to be wary in future of travelling in the same vehicle as me!). swaziland turned out to be an absolutely lovely country. i think i would be happy as a pioneering here.
so after dumping our bags at the dlamini family's, our hosts, home, we set out for adventure. first stop - lunch! we went to this cute little restaurant - i think there may have been space in the cozy dining room for 10 people at most.
and a shot of the food by sandi for carrianne...
swaziland has a significant amount of handicrafts going on. they had all kinds of interesting and cool things. lots of reed woven stuff, little hand made goods, carvings and everything was painted pretty colors. we actually found in one of the shops a woman doing the weaving...
this lady told us that it would take her about a week to do one of the mats that she was sitting on. swaziland is especially famous for its candles and there are a couple of huge candle factories. not just run of the mill candles, no, they had candles in any color, shape and size imaginable. little elephants, lions, rhinos - you name it. this guy was making little rhino candles at a relentless pace...
we left the candle factory quite happy with ourselves, onwards to the next place on the itenerary, when disaster struck...our ride went dead. turns out a timing belt had snapped. so we had to be towed back to mbabane. here we are waiting for pindile, our awesome towing sister.
so sunday morning the boys worked like slaves getting the timing belt changed, under the skillful direction of brother bongani, while the girls....went and got massaged and stuff. no hard feelings.
brother bongani is one of those guys who could rebuild an engine with an avocado and a bit of string. he did an awesome job on our engine, and just watching and helping him was a learning experience. if any of you have a turbocharged 1990's isuzu trooper and you need a timing belt changed....i will cut you a a special deal.
so by sunday night it was done and ready to take us back home, we had a lovely dinner with our hosts where we enjoyed good company and good food (the picture below is their back yard, by the way.) i finally worked up the guts to ask our hosts about the reed ceremony. apparently, every year, tens of thousands of virgin girls in the kingdom convene at the kings house for an 8 day ceremony - mainly a dance in their traditional clothes for the king. their traditional clothes happen to be a skirt of grass round the waist and some beads around their ankles. then he chooses the one he wants to marry.
my hosts all laughed at my ignorance and said that i had it all wrong and in fact, the purpose is not for the king to chose his wife but its a chastity dance. everything else is accurate though. sadly we missed it - its in august.
all in all, swaziland was way interesting. we will have to go back one day and visit some of their beautiful parks, see some of the spectacular scenery, and visit all our new-found friends again.
