It's been a little while.

As everyone most likely knows, the World Cup will be held in South Africa this summer. To build some hype around the event, FIFA has given money to surrounding countries for marketing. With a portion of its share, Swaziland's 2010 Committee decided to host a mini World Cup of sorts. In total, 13 countries were represented, only two of which non-African: USA(!) and Portugal. The players are all ex-pats who are living in Swaziland.

Before I proceed, I need to personally apologize to all of my countrymen--it was not our proudest day. In the first match, we played Nigeria; for 30 minutes, we fought tirelessly and lost 0-6. We were down, but not out. With our first loss under our belts, we were ready to face the Democratic Republic of Congo. We clearly improved in our performance: this time we only lost 0-5. All-in-all, it went about as well as we expected.


Swaziland is different from the States. Since being here, I've had a number of mis-communications with people, as one may expect. Completing the most mundane tasks can sometimes prove difficult. Apart from obvious differences in accent, Americans and Swazis simply use different words for a lot of things; it often feels like when I speak, I have to hunt for a password. Let me give some examples.

1. If you're at a restaurant and you want a pitcher of water, you cannot say, "pitcher." You must refer to it as a "Jug."
2. If you're filling up your car with gas, you cannot say "fill it up"; instead, you have to say "full tank."
3. If you're at restaurant, you can't say "please bring me the check"; instead, you have to say "please bring the bill."
4. Ketchup is known only as Tomato Sauce.
5. Ground beef is mince.
6. Car trunks are boots.
7. Street lights are robots.

There are a lot more that I can't think of right now, but suffice it to say that I have had some communication issues.

Good afternoon, blog!

Today's first order of business: through some internet black magic of sorts, a strange image of some man appeared in the header of my blog. I tried to remove him, but he's pretty intent on staying, so we have a new companion on this adventure. Welcome to the community, my forearm-tattooed friend.

It's been a busy couple of weeks and I've got a few good stories to share. Let me start with a backcountry hike I did with two married friends of mine, Sam and Fran, in one of Swaziland's national parks. In celebration of Sam's fortieth birthday (and perhaps in response to a mid-life crisis?), they decided to do a five day backcountry hike in the Drakensburg Mtns, where I went for a couple days (see previous entry). As a sort of trial run, they invited me to go with them to Malolotja for a two day and two night hike. Here's the trip in short: I lost my camera, I lost the rainfly to my friend's tent and we got lost and mistakenly crossed into South Africa--all-in-all, a successful trip! Despite all of that, it actually was a great trip.

Two friends and I spent some time recently in Mozambique getting scuba certified, which everyone needs to do. We swam with sea turtles, clown fish, stingrays, blowfish and a lot of other strange-looking creatures. It's strange to do something that defies nature. Human beings are not supposed to be forty feet under the water; it simply defies evolution, but with technology, we were able to and it was awesome.

Mallory (my roommate) and I are developing a strange relationship with the kids in our apartment complex. We've recently opened a video store based out of our apartment. Our selection, albeit a bit lacking--we only have one video, a fuzzy, pirated version of Up--is all the rave with the kids. Here are the rules: 1. video rental is free; 2. (a) the video must be returned within two days; (b) if renter returns video late, he or she is obligated to attempt one handstand. 3. all potential renters must create an account, which entails writing one's name on a scratch piece of paper.
Thus far, we've had eight successful rentals.

After meeting with the religious studies department at the University of Swaziland (UNISWA), I got approval to sit in on a Christian ethics course next semester, which will tie in nicely with my research. The chair of the department asked if I'd be willing to give a presentation to the department toward the end of my grant, which I gladly accepted. It's all very exciting. Soon enough, I'll start helping my tennis instructor to teach tennis at a few of the local schools, which will both be really fun and tie directly into my research. Two birds, one stone.

Hello, blog!

It's been a little while since I last posted - forgive my irregularity! Quite a bit has obviously happened since I last posted, but let me try to hit a few of the highlights.

A couple weeks ago, I went with another Fulbrighter whose focus is on Art History to one of the rural areas in the northwest side of the country. A highlight of the trip was visiting a homestead on which three brothers and their families live. Each of the brothers earn a living through their distinctive craft: one makes wooden bowls, another makes traditional Swazi mirrors for male warriors and the last makes traditional pillows, which are essentially an elevated wooden stool. Two of the brothers are in the photo below. They didn't speak English, so I had no real idea of what they were saying, but it was clear that they--at least in this moment--had a great relationship with one another. Bill interviews and videotapes them while they create their artwork to ensure that their craft does not die with them. t's a pretty worthwhile grant, I think.

Another great experience was also had in the rural area. In Swaziland, men can pledge to be warriors dedicated wholly to the monarch as an individual and the monarchy as an institution. The men, after pledging, are obligated to go through an initiation of sorts in which they learn warrior ritual, tradition and lifestyle. They're also able to go to special warrior camps to hang out for the rest of their life. Once a warrior, always a warrior. I was able to visit one of these areas and drink homemade beer (ntshwala) with them while they made lunch over the campfire. What an experience!
This past weekend was the much-anticipated ultimate frisbee tournament in Jo'burg, known as Rocktober (it always takes place in October - clever, eh?). While the tournament has been around for about fifteen years, this was Swaziland's first year to have it's own team - I'm making history over here, folks! Our team name was the Mbabane Mbananas. With such a name, I think it goes without saying that we weren't expecting to be competitive in the tournament. To our surprise, we won two out of the five games we played (I have to say it: I think we actually won three, but because of a controversial call in the last game, we technically lost. I just needed to vent for a second. Thanks for listening.) It was a blast. I'll definitely pursue frisbee once I get back to the States. Does this make me sound like a complete nerd? If one important lesson can be taken away from the tournament, it's this: don't let teammates paint a banana on your bald head on a sunny afternoon, otherwise you'll have a tanline in the shape of a banana.

Drakensberg

Things often don’t go as planned. Let me give share an example. Since arriving here, I’ve been told by numerous people to avoid driving at night—especially in South Africa—out of safety concerns. That was the plan.
On the way back from the Drakensberg Mountains, we decided to make a detour to visit two battle sites commemorating the Battle at Blood River, a major battle in Afrikaner history, in which they slaughtered around 4000 Zulus in the early 19th century. It was really fascinating because the main site represents the Afrikaner perspective, but with the end of Apartheid, a Zulu site was creating, to share their perspective on the battle. I definitely felt a little tension between the two.
Long story short, because of this detour, we were behind schedule and therefore driving on a minor highway at night, which didn’t really make me nervous until one of the two cars in our convoy overheated. We were stuck there for over four hours waiting for a tow truck to arrive and the seven of us stayed overnight in Ermelo. We interacted with two guys whose car also died, strange police officers and stayed at a shady hotel. The next morning, everyone with the exceptions of me and Michelle, the car’s owner, went back to Swaziland; the two of us took the car to a mechanic—where it still lies—and rode a Kombi back to the border. It’s a great memory. Things often don’t go as planned, and that’s the way I’d prefer it. Stories come from everywhere and the best ones are never anticipated.
All-in-all, it was a great trip. I stood on top of the fourth tallest waterfall in the world, saw a group of over 40 baboons, saw giraffes, and peeked over the edge of a 2,500 ft cliff. Stories come from everywhere and the best ones can’t ever be anticipated.

The Reed Dance!

As I mentioned in the last post, Monday was the annual Reed Dance, at which tens of thousands of Swazi "virgins" come to Lobamba, a town just south of mine, to present themselves to the king. As I'm sure everyone reading this knows, my degree is in religious studies, so I'm especially interested in the significance of ritual, which is why I had pretty high expectations going into the ceremony. In watching everyone march to their designated areas, I was reminded of my military days: everyone was in-step and they were singing siSwati cadences. For reference, check out the video below:



I was also able to snap a close photo of the king, Mswati III. He is the one in the middle looking toward the camera. He must have been looking at me, right?



The event climaxed with the king and his "warriors," dressed in traditional combat attire, stampeding toward the women to determine if any are fit to be Mswati III's fourteenth wife.




Not to deflate the suspense, but ultimately the king did not choose a wife, but there is always next year! If you step back from the ceremony, it's obviously supporting the subjugation of women: upwards of 40,000 women cross the country to dance around bare-breasted in the hope that the king will arbitrarily take her as his umpteenth wife. While I was there, though, I couldn't help but feel as though the entire ceremony ironically empowered women. As you can see in the pictures and video, it looks like a sea of people. It was a force, of sorts. The women led everything: they sang, they danced, they spoke, they told people to sit down when necessary. They led the show and everyone, including the king, accepted that.

In my two weeks here, I've that learned this tiny country is cluttered with paradox. The country is democratic, but it has a ruling monarchy; the people are hostile toward colonialism, but everyone is Christian because of colonialism; people are generally extremely poor, but most people in Mbabane dress much more nicely than I do. It's a country that reaches toward its pre-colonial self, which is impossible to achieve, considering the country was occupied for over 150 years.

This weekend, I'm going to South Africa to hike in the Drakensberg Mountains. More to come once I get back.

Pictures

1. This is the room where I've been sleeping recently, but I move into my new place on Tuesday.
2. It's a hippo!
3. This is a picture I took at Mlilwane. It's my desktop background.
4. The souvenirs I bought from Mozambique. Great picture of me and Jessie.
5. I've seen a lot of women here walk around with huge, heavy things on their heads. It still amazes me.
6. The painting I bought in Maputo.

"Brad Beats Hitler! Buy! Buy!"

It's been a busy week. On Thursday, I rode with Veki, my house owner, to Maputo in Mozambique to take care of some issues she's having with her husband's visa. Malaria is a major issue in the area, which made me pretty nervous beforehand; once we got there, though, I learned that mosquitos aren't really out this early in the year. Because we're starting the rain season and entering summer, next time I visit, I'll have to take more precautions. I'm still processing everything, but let me try to summarize the experience. The country and its people are so much different than Swaziland! Because of the Portuguese influence in the gene pool, the people even look entirely different than Swazis.
Maputo is a great place. I hear that crime (pick-pocketing, mostly) and corruption among police are common, but I didn't have any problems. People haggled me on the street to buy their products, but to be honest, I didn't really mind it. This one man in particular was selling pirated dvds and he had an illegal copy of the new Quentin Tarantino movie with Brad Pitt. He couldn't at all speak English, but he tried when I walked by, which is where the title for this entry originates.
The food. Veki and I ate lunch and had really good draft beer at this restaurant on the Indian Ocean (my first time seeing and touching it!) and I ate a platter of clams caught the day prior. In the evening, I went to the market and bought a handmade ashtray and picture frame for the very reasonable price of $6.00 US. And I bought a huge painting of the market for $40.00--once I move into my new place, I'll post a picture of it on here. Like all major cities, you need to spend more than a couple days to really experience what it has to offer, so I can't wait to go back. All-in-all, it was a successful trip.
In other news, tomorrow begins the annual Swazi festival known as the Reed Dance, at which Swazi women from all over the country present themselves to the king as potential wives. Apparently, over 80,000 women will be present and dressed in traditional garb. I'm going tomorrow, and I'll definitely have a follow-up post sometime shortly afterward. In early October, a group of us will travel to Johannesburg to represent Swaziland in the annual southern African ultimate frisbee tournament. I want to take this moment to publicly apologize to the Kingdom of Swaziland for impending embarassment.

Manzini and Mlilwane Nature Preserve

In my last entry, I mentioned that I'm living in the capital city of Swaziland, Mbabane, home to about 60,000 people. The largest city in the country is Manzini (population 80,000), which is about 20 miles southeast. I unintentionally visited Manzini yesterday, where I had an, um, interesting experience. Let me start from the beginning.

Yesterday, I hoped to visit Mlilwane Nature Preserve, a Swazi national park. As I've only been here a week, I didn't really know how to get there. I asked a friend of mine, who recommended that I take a Kombi (comb-bee), which is really nothing more than a glorified van. Each Kombi holds between 10 and 20 people and they will not leave until they've reached capacity. I didn't know exactly where to get off (Kombi's don't have set stops--they stop where the passenger says, for the most part), so I asked this nice gentleman next to me for some help. He didn't understand "Mlilwane," so I told him that I want to go to the park. This is where things go wrong. He perked up and said he would gladly show me. His confidence put me at ease. Next thing I know, we're in Manzini; he points out the window to a small city park and says, "Here it is!" After telling the driver to stop, nice gentleman volunteers to walk me to my destination.

Because he was kind and went out of his way, I lied to him by saying that was exactly where I wanted to go. There's always a silver lining: I'd not yet been to Manzini, so this was a perfect opportunity to tour the city.

The feel of Manzini is much different than Mbabane. It is very crowded, loud and it just doesn't feel as accessible. I may be off, but that was my initial reaction. After walking around for a while, I was ready to head back to my home, Mbabane. I decided to catch a Kombi back, which led to the highlight of the day. This drunk Swazi man approached me to chat. Here are some snippets from our conversation.
"We are honored to have someone like yourself riding with us. Where are you from!?"
"The U.S."
"I could tell by the accent. You have the best sneakers and hip hop music. I like underground hip hop music."
"Oh yeah, who do you like?"
"Do you know why Slim Shady is the best hip hop artist? Because he was the first white man in hip hop!"
- - -
Drunk Swazi: "Our King was left much money from his father. Many Bens."
"Benjamin Franklin?"
"No! Ben! The President whose face is on the money!"

All the Swazis on the Kombi gave me sympathetic glances.

Today, I decided to take a taxi to Mlilwane, so as to not run into the same problem as the day prior. During my three hour hike, I saw impala, hippopotomus, zebra, warthog, crocodile, and other strange things. It was definitely one of the highlights of my experience thus far. Swaziland is a small country with many politcal and economic problems, but its people and its landscape make it a wonderful place to stay in spite of everything.

And so it begins. . .

Hello blog readers!

This is an exciting moment: you’re reading my first ever blog post. While I hope to organize my posts around some sort of topic or idea, this first post will most likely be a bit scattered, as I’ve only been in Swaziland a few days and I have so many unrelated experiences I’d like to share। Let me try to fill you in on the Swazi adventure up तो this point.

I left the States this past Saturday (the 15th) for what was undoubtedly the most grueling travel experience of my life. It started with a short flight to O’Hare, at which I had a five-hour layover; I then flew to Frankfurt, Germany, where I experienced the joy of sitting in a German airport for seven hours, only to be followed by an eleven hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. At Jo’burg, I stayed in the airport for 7 hours, after which I finally flew into Swaziland. After 40+ hours of travel, I finally arrived in the Kingdom of Swaziland, the smallest country in Africa, the only remaining absolute monarchy in Africa and the country in which I will spend the next ten months of my life.

A woman from the U.S. Embassy picked me up and drove me to Mbabane, the capital city of Swaziland, home of 60,000 people, and more importantly for this blog, the city where I’m living. While it's only a few hour drive from Jo’burg, the difference in terrain is incredible! Whereas Jo’burg is a huge city surrounded by vast farmland and flatlands, Mbabane is surrounded by stunning mountains. I haven’t uploaded any pictures yet, but check out this one I found on google:
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/5650323.jpg. It’s a beautiful country; this picture doesn't begin to do it justice.

I’ve had some great experiences thus far. Last night, a group of us Americans and a few Europeans—most of whom work for non-profits in the area—had an epic ultimate Frisbee game at a soccer field up in the mountains. Today, I just showed up at the Anglican parish down the street to see if I could peek my head inside. One of the staff members, a local named Hlanhle, greeted me with open arms and spent nearly an hour of his day giving me a tour. The Swazis are, based on my experiences thus far, gracious and friendly, which as a tried-and-true Midwesterner, I can certainly appreciate.

My time at the internet café is about to run out, but I want to share two more things that I’ve come to love about Mbabane: I have to walk everywhere and the food is incredible. On average, I probably walk four to five miles a day, which helps me to experience things all the more. Instead of being rushed, I can take everything at a slower pace and enjoy the people and scenery around me. Cheers to the food: all of the meat I’ve had has been locally raised and prepared, which is unparalleled. Without a doubt, in the last three days, I’ve had the best chicken and beef of my life.

Most things here are really cheap. I bought a great bottle of wine (which me and this fun middle-aged Italian woman who works for the EU finished off tonight) for just over $3.00. I buy lunch most days for about the same price and I got a cell phone and plan for around $35.00.

It's a great place. You should come visit!