Umhlanga

Its impossible to be in Swaziland during this time of year and fail to mention the Umhlanga. The Umhlanga, or Reed Dance, is one of the most important events on the Swazi calendar. Traditionally, the Reed Dance is a time when Swazi's virginal maidens pay homage to the Queen. In this week long event, the maidens gather at the traditional capital of Swaziland in Lobamba at the Ludzidzini royal residence. Historically they gather on foot, but these days huge flat-bed lorries assist in the process. The maidens make their way down to the rive to gather reeds for the Queen Mother. Then they walk, singing in their traditional garb, to the Queen Mother's residence in order to reinforce her kraal walls with the freshly plucked reeds. What follows is two days of singing and dancing before the King and the Queen Mother.

Despite some jaded ex-pats telling me I would get bored as soon as I arrived, I decided to attend both days of dancing. Although both days were essentially the same, they were an incredible spectacle. This is what I saw:

Tens of thousands of maidens, bare breasted except for thick yarn sashes with pom-poms draped over one shoulder, standing in a neat semi-circle around the stadium's field. The King arrived, preceded and flanked by a troop of warriors in traditional dress. Some of his protective escort carried guns on the belts and spears in the hands. The maidens were organized in groups, some more polished than others, and each group made its way around the field singing. They danced in unison, the hallow seed pods tied to their feet beating to the music.

The procession went on forever, there were so many girls. The voices and the beat and the colors and the sea of maidens all blended into one. When each group had paraded in front of the King, he and his warriors took to the field. They jumped and pranced across the field in order to lower their sticks in front of particularly admirable females to show their appreciation. Often the King chooses a new wife from the assembled girls so anticipation was high.

I sat on the field, inadvertently among a group of warriors whose bleary eyes and enthusiasm indicated they'd been enjoying themselves. The girls paraded past, from barely walking to questionably virginal. It was an incredible experience to see so many people come together to celebrate their culture and put on a magnificent aesthetics experience.

Fading Suntan

Tofo (pronounced like the meat substitute) is a beautiful stretch of crescent sand along the Indian Ocean. Its only a few hundred kilometers north of the Mozambican capital Maputo, but the treacherous potholed road between the two ensures that those who are willing to put in the effort will be rewarded. So, after a 12 hour cashew filled journey we bumped along the sand road into town. In Tofo, the sand extends from the beach throughout the entire town, the roads, the market, the bathtubs of Tofo, are full of sand.

Tofo is hemmed in by dunes on the north and south (which offer wonderful vantage points to watch the breaching humpback whales or to build a sand tree house of sorts, away from it all). To the west is a marsh and, to the east is, of course, the clear and warm blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Most people go to Tofo to see what's in those warm blue waters and Tofo doesn't disappoint: Humpback whales, coral reefs, manta rays, other types of rays whose name escapes me, but they are the biggest in the world, and of course, the whale sharks.

Tofo was simply too incredible to tell you all about it, so rather I'll tell you about the whale sharks:
We took a tiny boat, which, to me, was barely a step up from the inflatable rafts we use to float down the rivers of Northern California in July. After fumbling over the waves, we broke into stride over the sea, with one man perched above the boat in a lifeguard type chair which ironically came equipped with a seat belt, to keep him from plummeting into the ocean as the wind-swept waves rocked our little boat.

A few times during this adventure, the calm of drifting over the swells was mixed into a frenzy. A whale shark would be spotted; we would don our masks and snorkels and our over sized flippers and hurl ourselves awkwardly into the water, much like beached whales ourselves. Then there would be a frantic swim toward the shark and flippers would flip and expensive underwater cameras would snap and bubbles would blow. But the shark would swim on.

His extreme length (16 meters-ish, I hear, although I don't use that crazy metric system) and subtle movements dwarfed the frantic limps which clambered above and beside him. He was truly a majestic sight, with the power to destroy you with one slap of his tail, but not the desire for destruction. His peace and serenity was matched only by the deep blue depths of the water he would dive to, when the flipping and the snapping and the blowing were enough. Then we tourists would sit awestruck in the churning sea. A little bob on the horizon of Tofo, meaningless to those depths below that hide so much more life.

And somewhere between the life-size humpback whale sand castle and watching the sunrise and dinners of heaps of rice and fish and birthdays and new friends and white sand and waves and surfing and mosquito zappers and houses in the dunes and walks on the beach I fell in love with Mozambique.

Superstitious

Today, soccer practice was canceled. So instead of running around for an hour, I sat in my Fiat station wagon and talked with Simphiwe. Simphiwe is the "first born" (read, "oldest") in her family. And, as the saying goes, its her job to chase away the thunder storms. Some Swazis believe that:

When it is raining, the First Born can chase away the storm. To do this, he or she must strip naked and go outside into the rain. Then, he or she must bend over, sticking his or her bum into the air. As the rain falls, the First Born waits for a drop to fall either "into her butt hole", as my friend explained, or "onto the anus" as an informative pamphlet explained. Then the storm will go away.

And Swazis have lots of great superstitions, at least according to what I've learned. Like if you jump over a fire, you'll pee blood. Or, if you eat directly from the cooking pot, it will rain on your wedding day.

A few months ago, I went out to rural Swaziland for a community school fundraiser. A group of us, part Swazi, part American, sat around a fire that evening at the school sharing different superstitions. The Swazi men had lots of great examples, like the ones above. When asked to share ours, we Americans just sort of looked at each other. Of course we have the old seven years bad sex -- or whatever it is -- for breaking a mirror, or walking under a ladder, but compared to pissing blood, they all seemed so meek. The only example I could come up with was the tooth fairy, which seemed to do more to confuse my new Swazi friends, than bridge cultural divides.