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    Wednesday
    Sep162009

    4 Countries in 3 Weekends

    DateWednesday, September 16, 2009 at 02:37AM

     

    I've now been in Swaziland for a little over a month. Time is flying by, and I have been trying to make the most out of what this region has to offer. Most week nights here are pretty relaxed. I have the time to go to the gym, play guitar, make dinner, read, write, etc. We have weekly dinners with all the VolCons, and Ultimate Frisbee is on Wednesday night. Weekends, on the other hand, have been very fast paced and exciting. Over the past 3 weeks, I have been able to explore 4 different countries (including swaziland), and I thought I would share a little bit about these experiences: 


    Swaziland: Our Swazi weekend started off with an overnight trip to the Mkhaya Rare Game Reserve down in the lowveld. We stayed in a lovely thatched roof, open-air room and went on 3 game drives and a hike. We saw almost everything the park had to offer, including rhino, elephants, giraffes, hippos, zebras, and a bunch of little guinea fowl that had little feather pompadours.

    The afternoon hike in the reserve was the most exciting part of the trip. At first we didn't see anything at all... we were just trudging around in the mid-day heat. Our guide was very nice, but didn't say all that much, so it felt like we were aimlessly wandering around the reserve. At the time, I wasn't really convinced that strolling around the game reserve was all that good of an idea... after getting a fir
    st-hand look at a rhino during the morning game drive I thought that it would probably be best to avoid face to face encounters. Thats why when our guide stopped, cupped his hand to his ear to listen, then started quickly jogging in the other direction, we were all quick to follow his lead. We scrambled around the side of the lagoon just in time to see 15-20 elephants emerge from the bush for an afternoon romp in the pool. The elephants, especially the younger ones, looked like they were having a great time splashing and climbing all over each other in the water. There were also two rhinos, a mother and her baby, hanging out in the shallows trying to cool off. We watched for quite a while before quietly backing away and heading towards camp.

    That monday was a national holiday for the Umhlanga Reed Dance, a celebration where the King has the option of choosing a new wife (I think he's up to ~14 now... a far cry from his father, who had ~80). The dance is held in a small stadium at one of the King's palaces and involves women from all over the country. I knew the gist of what was going to happen, but I didn't quite realize the scale of the whole operation. All week long, truck loads of women (literally) were shipped to the festival grounds. By the time of the ceremony, 80K half naked women were parading in front of the king. Each village had its own uniform and a unique dance set to the official reed dance jingle (sung on loop for most of the 4 hour ceremony).
        While most people watched from the bleachers, security was relaxed enough that I could actually get down on the field to take pictures. I was amazed at how close I was able to get to the King, who jogged around a group of women standing 20 yards from me (that said, I guess if you take into account the actual number of people that Mswati governs it would really be the same as getting within 20 yards of the mayor of Berkeley). One unexpected consequence of the relaxed security was that all of the Swazi princesses were swarmed by Taiwanese bystanders. For various reasons, Taiwan has close diplomatic relations with Swaziland and there is actually a sizable representation here. I believe that every Taiwanese ex-pat in the country was present at the Reed Dance and the majority of their time was spent taking pictures of half naked swazi princesses. It was like some sort of bizarre combinatorics problem... how many different permutations can you have with each of the 40 princesses? I felt embarrassed watching it from the stands... first three of them would take a picture with one princess, then they would do individual shots with her, then switch cameras, then one person on each side, then one would want another solo picture with the princess because he forgot to give her bunny ears in the first solo shot (i kid you not).... it was amazing. The princesses were certainly more patient than I would have been, and didn't even brandish their ceremonial machetes that they were toting around.

    Overall, the event was very interesting and included 3-4 hours of parading/dancing, 160,000 breasts, a brief jog by the King, several unintelligible announcements in siswati, and 4,000 repetitions of the official reed dance song. I don't know if I need to see it again, but I am glad to have witnessed such a unique cultural occurrence.

    Lesotho and South Africa: The next weekend was also a three day weekend, so the VolCons decided to take advantage of the extra day to do a longer trip to the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa.
        We decided to dedicate our first day in the Drakensbergs to a hostel-led tour of Lesotho, a small independent kingdom which is completely enclosed by South Africa. Lesotho holds the record of the "highest country in the world" because the lowest point in the country is higher than any other country's lowest point. Paved roads stopped as soon as we crossed the mountainous South African border and it was immediately clear that Lesotho is a very poor country. The Village consisted of a loose confederation of thatched-roof huts and the grassy mountain landscape was punctuated by the most beautiful pink cherry blossoms and electric green weeping willows (all in full bloom... remember, its the beginning of spring here).
        I usually have a bit of difficulty with structured village tours. On one hand, it enables you to experience many things that would otherwise be missed (talk with the grade school teacher, drink home-made beer, taste home-cooked food, learn regional history, etc.). On the other hand, I felt a little weird about showing up in one of the poorest countries in the world with two vans full of white people with expensive cameras. However, in the end, I wad glad that we took the tour. The village was certainly "authentic" and the entire experience was very eye-opening. I particularly enjoyed meeting some of the locals when we went to get the traditional maize beer (beer is a very loose term for what could also be called a sour-alcoholic-mashed-up-corn-smoothie). We played with some of the local kids there and witnessed a dance party in the small, dung-floored, thatched-roof hut. While the signs of poverty were all around, these people seemed happy and it was enlightening to see the simplicity of their culture.
    The next day, two other VolCons and I embarked on the hike to the top of Cathedral Peak.  The hike is usually about 19km with a vertical ascent of 1500m (close to 1 mile), but our trip was probably closer to 25km after getting lost twice (the picture to the left was taken when we were already 1/2 to 3/4 of the way through the hike). While the hike was one of the most difficult treks I have ever made, the scenery was absolutely stunning... high jagged peaks, rolling grassy hills, and spectacular views of the valley kept me climbing up the near-vertical slopes. Unfortunately, the burning of the fields in spring creates a thick haze which made it very hard to get a clean photograph, so I don't have any pictures that really capture the feel of being on the top of that peak.

    Mozambique    :  Last weekend a group of us went to Mozambique for a friendly scrimmage with their ultimate frisbee squad. This Blog post is already way too long, and I am going to return to "Moz" in two weeks time, so I will just say that we had a great time in Maputo and I am looking forward to returning for more adventure.

    AuthorJordan Meyer | Comment5 Comments |

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    Reader Comments (5)

    jordan
    so glad you are getting around! sounds like you are having a great time and experiencing new and different cultures. when you say "we", are you talking about specific friends or just the general "volcons"?
    looked at your photos on flickr and was REALLY impressed! you have a great eye for composition and color. have you ever thought about entering some photo contests?
    can't wait to hear about mozambique!
    andrea

    September 16, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterAndrea Davis

    Andrea, I'm glad you are enjoying the blog. Usually when I say "we" it does mean myself and the other VolCons. I've certainly enjoyed taking pictures here in southern Africa, but haven't really thought about entering them in photo contests. Do you know of any good contests?
    Hope all is well.
    Jordan

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