my second marriage

So, the Royal Guard member who was also our guide at the sacred site of Ntfungeni asked me to marry him. I said o.k., though only for the day. Swazis can actually enter into marriage contracts of any specified time -- 3 months, 3 years, whatever they wish. He is a member of the Royal Guard. We heard the trumpet call from across the valley, and the men came out to the Royal Kraal and practised their "moves" and menacing stares (meant for the enemy). As you can see, this rocky outcropping was also very good as a look-out, and it is said that the kings would hide under the rocks we were sitting on -- so that could view the whole valley, and stay protected from sun or rain.

sacred site, ntfungeni

This rocky outcropping, located not too far from the Royal Kraal at Ntfungeni, is a sacred site for Swazis. This young man is a member of the Royal Guard, wearing the typical clothing of a Swazi man, with the Swazi flag on his arm and a feather in his hair.

At the moment, the large rocky area is closed off by a barbed wire fence. But, the SNTC, who I work for at the museum, is working with the community to enable them to "open" the site to interested viewers -- and for the community therefore to retain all profit from doing so. If funded by the government, the museum will set up a small visitor's center and exhibit
area, and community members will be
"trained" to take visitors to see the special areas in the park.

For example, here the guard/guide is showing us an area in the rock where Swazis believe a lion put his paw and the print was left behind. And, in the next picture is the famous "footprint of God," which Swazis and many southern Africans believe is a footprint left by their God who was walking the continent. There are examples of other footprints in Lesotho and Botswana -- so God is a giant whose strides were so long, the strides cross the whole continent.

Visit to the Royal Kraal, Ntfungeni

This week I was very fortunate to visit the Royal Kraal at Ntfungeni, far north in Swaziland. The kraal is the outside enclosure made of sticks and reeds, which protects the beehive huts (homes) on the inside from wind, animals and enemies. Swaziland has many royal kraals -- places only inhabited by royal family members (remember the king always has multiple wives, and each needs a place to live) and their guards.

In this picture you can see a group of community women who were called by the royal family to come with reeds to repair the kraal. They are sitting under a tree, talking and laughing.

The women you see in the next photo are on their way to the kraal, bringing with them the large reeds (phragmite I believe). We sat under one of these trees with a Royal Guard Member (who was to become my "husband" for the day), and spoke with one of the elders of the community. The reason for the visit was to speak with community leaders about the establishment of an "official" cultural heritage site in Ntfungeni, which you'll see in other pictures. Because of my association to the museum, I have been able to see things most tourists cannot. It is wonderful.

natural history dioramas at the Swaziland National Museum

Here are two of the wonderful dioramas located in the Natural History wing of the Swaziland National Museum. The two dioramas that you see here is the "lowveld" environment, which is hot, sunny and contains grasses that dry out.

These animals were "taken" by a Smithsonian staff member, Paul Rimer, and members of the Swaziland National Museum. The skins were cleaned and dried out, and fitted over plastic forms. Rimer came to the museum to help train staff in taxidermy and creating realistic environments for the flora and fauna.

Unfortunately, the wooden rails,
beautifully built by the on-staff carpentar
are too low, and students and other
visitors climb over, trampling the grasses. We are in conversation as to how to get these rebuilt -- because why bother replace the grasses and put out other materials, if the same thing will happen?

Also, the lovely apples on the Malula tree in this photo are often touched by visitors and need repair. Unfortunately, the museum is so completely pressed for money that this wing of the museum has not been refurbished for 10 years and it shows signs of wear. In fact, the wing was never fully completed, and some of the exhibit cases are nearly empty.

collecting natural history specimens from Mlawula

This past week I went specimen collecting with the Natural History Wing of the Swaziland National Museum. Mbandla is the Exhibition Specialist in the museum, so it is his job to update and care for the museum's exhibits, which consist of both natural and cultural materials, including animal skin, pottery, cloth and wood. He works closely with the museum's conservator Donald.

In the top picture Mbandla and I are collecting impala and baboon poop. Reason for this, is, of course, to put into the lowveld and highveld dioramas. Fortunately, when animal poop is dried out it does not smell at all. It no longer contains bacteria or insects, making it o.k. to be placed into a museum environment, which needs to be "sterile."

Sterkfontein -- Cradle of Humanity museum, South Africa

These are images from the museum at Maropeng a Afrika -- the Sterkfontein Caves which are famous for the number of highly significant hominid fossil discoveries.

As you can see, the glass case with fossil skulls is directly across from a wall with startingtly large computer aided graphics depicting what these homind skeletons might look like if we could look back millions of years ago.

I enjoy seeing these kind of pictures, because the fleshless skulls tend to look like "museum objects," whereas flesh, fur, eyes and movement connect us clearly to our ancestors.

This room was used as a "holding room"
for the tour group. We were then led out of the museum and into one of the caves in the area -- down where "Mrs. Pleis" and "Little Bigfoot" were found.

giraffe in two parts

Christine and I were able to go to Johannesburg last weekend with our American Embassy cultural/educational liason Marjorie Balarin.

Christine generously agreed to share my interest in seeing some wildlife at Krugersdorp, before going on to Sterkfontein -- the Cradle of Humanity.

Krugersdorp is a small reserve only 45 minutes northwest of the city. In addition to seeing giraffe close up, we also saw rhino, wildebeest, sleeping lions and a small but nice bird sanctuary. One duck in the sanctuary
actually lets people "pet" him -- and he shudders and makes satisfying sounds when you do.

If you look closely at the tree limbs, you can see the huge thorns which cover the branches. Giraffes clearly can eat their way around them -- each thorn is bright white and about 2-3" long and very hard.

For fans of the novel/movie Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (Karin Blixen), there is a moment when she forces her way through acacia bushes and is covered in bloody welts from the thorns.

Krugersdorp National Park, South Africa

swaziland's major export: sugarcane

Swaziland's economy relies greatly on their production of sugarcane. There are at least five majors "fields" of the plant, and processing "factories" to accompany them.

These great expanses of planted fields are far away from the two major cities, but towns have grown up around the fields, providing goods for the workers.

Unlike in the U.S. brown sugar is favored here and available more commonly than white (or highly refined) sugar.

bulls dancing

Another common sight in Swaziland: these bulls had a skirmish on the side of the road. The third bull joined in and the three of them went across the road, horns locked, passing in front of my car by about 2 ft. My hands were gripping the steering wheel too tightly to catch a pic of how close they got.

A video of the Reed Dance procession

Here is some footage of the girls marching down the field. Each group is dressed in a different style of traditional costume. As you can see, there are many photographers running about trying to get good shots. Also, if you have audio, you can hear the girls singing as they march.

more scenes from Mlawula Nature Reserve

This is Vuyo Dlamini, a game warden at Mlawula Nature Reserve. He is a nice young man, having been trained, like most of Swaziland's park rangers, at a special program in Kruger. He lives in the park, and was able to point out a giraffe to us way down in the valley from this high vantage point.

You have noticed that Vuyo carries a gun. This is because most of Swaziland's park animals still suffer from poaching. The day before this photo was taken, Vayo and another warden came across a poacher who had killed three animals in a snare. They were able to arrest the poacher without incident, but, clearly, the rangers lives are in danger too. Sometimes poachers carry guns too.

The thing about poaching is -- many Swazi people are in need of food. Some park wardens, as I have been told, those in the Big Parks system (not the SNTC system) shoot to kill poachers. Perhaps some poachers just take the abundant small game, such as blesbok. But they do it in a protected area -- who is right?
This is one of the SNTC's "bakkies" (trucks), which are needed to travel from headquarters, to the various parks. Many of these trucks are donated to the SNTC. As you can imagine they are very expensive, and gas is about TWICE the cost of gas in the United States. Being underfunded places the SNTC in a constantly difficult battle. What projects to fund, and what to leave behind for a year, 5 years or more. In the National Park Service in the United States this work is called "backlog maintenance" and our parks suffer from millions of dollars of backlog work.

new thatched roof "huts" for overnight visitors, Mlawula

These wonderful huts (modeled on the traditional "beehive" housing of the Swazis) are located in Mlawula Nature Reserve, which is in the eastern part of the Kingdom. Unfortunately, this camp site has not opened yet, because the restaurant and other amenities at this site were recently vandalized -- possibly an "inside" job.

Giraffes in Hlane Royal National Park

On our way to Mlawula Nature Reserve last week -- one of the SNTC's sites -- the road cuts through Hlane Royal National Park and we were lucky to see a herd of giraffes along the edge of the road, eating the leaves on the trees.

Hlane is a special park that I will talk about in the future.

These are common things to see in Swaziland: many people do their laudry and get water directly from the rivers. Women (and sometimes men) all over southern Africa, including Swaziland, walk with piles of food, clothes, firewood, baskets, water, etc...on their heads. Though these women are holding on to the edges of their clean clothes buckets, women can balance their loads and often walk miles without holding the objects up.

The second image was taken from my rental car.

Umhlanga (Reed Dance) celebration

Greetings from Christine (an English teacherfrom Alaska):

Laura and I went to the main celebration day of Umhlanga, which was Sept. 1. In the background of this photo you can see just a portion of the amazing number of girls who had gathered from all over the country to parade and dance before the Swazi king and the queen mother. The huge line extended all the way around the giant stadium. The newspapers reported anywhere from 40,000 to 130,000 participants.

a croc and a turtle at Mlilwane

If you look "hard" enough, you will see a crocodile in the upper left of the photo, and a turtle in the lower left.

Some of the museum folks I work with told me that crocodiles are still killing people in Swaziland. Apparently they can hide under water for 25 minutes, leaving people feeling safe. Then, of course, they can jump up and out of the water at tremendous speeds.

This croc is sunning himself with his mouth open (notice row of white teeth), because that is how crocs get body heat.

zebra herd in Mlilwane Nature Reserve

Lungile in the umgcula (dress) for 40/40

This nice gal is Lungile Magagula, who works in the Business Center at the Royal Swazi Hotel. On Sunday, 9/6/08, Swaziland celebrated 40/40 -- 40 years of independence and the 40th birthday of King Mswati. Tens of thousands of people went, in Swazi clothing, to the events held at the newly built National Stadium. But, some people had to work, so Lungile wore her Swazi dress to work, which in this case is the flag with a picture of the King, over one shoulder.

It is interesting to note that in Swaziland, people can wear and love to wear, the flag and the picture of the King on their dress called the umgcula, but in the United States, we do not do usually do this.

snares at Mlilwane

Swaziland has at least 5 major nature reserves/parks. Some of them are run by the SNTC (the same organization that runs the museum), some by another organization called Big Game Parks. You can see the Big 5 in Swaziland, though Kruger National Park, the most well-known park in all of south Africa, is located only an hour north of Swaziland.

I visited one of these game parks yesterday -- Mlilwane. This park is the closest to Mbabane and the Ezulwini Valley, where I live and work and where the center of tourism is located. These photos show that kind of awful metal snares that would trap animals so that hunters/poachers could come and get them. Between the late 1800s and the 1950s, many animal species were extinct from Swaziland, including the elephant, lion and zebra. These animals have been re-introduced to the game parks, and you can see lots of excellent small game (such as spring bok) and birds, in addition to reptiles, insects and flowers.

dogs in swaziland

Swaziland has a lot of dogs, but they "use" dogs in a different way than Americans. For example, most Swazi dogs are "guard" dogs and almost always sleep outside. When I asked a Swazi if they ever let dogs sleep on their couch or even their beds, he laughed at me. Some dogs in Swaziland are homeless, and wander through the towns looking for food. There is an animal welfare society here that encourages spaying/neutering and vaccinations. I don't think this cutie was homeless, but he definitely stays outside all the time and was looking for some food. Cats seem to be much less common, though they are around.

another common animal to see in swaziland: the monkey

The Royal Swazi Hotel (where I most often do my Internet work because of the fast connection) has monkeys roaming all over its grounds. I parked my car, and saw this monkey digging through the leaves on the ground, looking for something to eat.

In the second photo, if you look hard, you can see the monkey's five fingers on his right hand -- reminding us that we are part of the same family tree. Even if our branches split millions of years ago.

Africa is the birthplace of hominids and modern homo sapiens and there are many sites in South Africa and eastern Africa where you can see these

"documents" first hand (or the places where they were found). I hope to show you some of them.

more friends in my house

I know you must think that Swaziland is full of spiders. Not true. But houses such as mine, that are cool and in the shade, seem to have more than their fair share. My friend Christine from Alaska currently only goes into her bathroom with broom in hand. I removed this spider with a cup and let it outside, only to find another similar one at the door to my bedroom last night. I wonder if it was the same one, saying that he belonged there just as much as me?

trails in Malolotja Nature Reserve

I really like these trail markers in Malolotja Nature Reserve. A lot of fun -- though the reserve is huge and I would certainly be afraid of getting lost -- even with these trail markers.

Trail markers made out of stone are called "cairns." The Swazis call them this too, which must be a leftover from British culture and language.

Malolotja is part of the Swaziland National Trust Commission system. It is located in the upper northwest of the Kingdom and is in the "highveld" -- meaning it is mainly grasslands on high hills. The reserve is known for its flora and fauna and I am looking forward to going back -- for a short walk.

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT: What do the words "flora" and "fauna" mean? Who uses these words?



In the distance you see a mountain range called the Ngwenya. This word means "crocodile" in Siswati, and is also the name of the area around the small mountain, and the border post into South Africa. The mountain is called Ngwenya, because Swazis think the mountain looks like a crocodile.

adirondack chairs in swaziland

I am sitting in one of the overnight tents offered to guests at the Mantegna Cultural Village. In an attempt to strengthen the administration of National Trust Commissions sites such as this one, the SNTC has begun to partner with outside entities. Some good things result from this, and maybe some bad. For example, most of these charming tents on stilts are being taken to be replaced by concrete cottages...apparently that's what the majority of tourists want. And yes, I told everyone who would listen about the origin of the chair I am sitting in!

Twana, park warden, Mantegna Cultural Village

This is Twana, a park warden ("ranger") at Mantegna Cultural Village. I had the good fortunate to meet her this week, and we are going to work on a project together to create a guide to birds in the park. She loves birds, and can identify them by their call. Swazis have lots of a great ideas -- but very little resources. For example, Twana does not own a camera or any kind of videorecorder. Part of my job is to help identify resources, and so it turns out that the museum has a camera she can use -- because Mantegna is one of the five sites oversee by the Swaziland National Trust (as is the museum).

She is a great gal and lives with her mother and son in one of the park houses. Twana also loves the "Big Five," which she saw while training in Kruger National Park in South Africa.

JOURNAL ASSIGNMENT: Find out what the BIG FIVE are in eastern and southern Africa and draw a picture of each.

spring repairs on beehive huts

This is a "beehive" hut being repaired -- actually rebuilt -- on the grounds of the Swaziland National Museum. These Swazi women make use of reeds, which are twisted and braided through to the otherside. There are actually two people on the inside, helping with the work. This has to be done every year due to weathering.

bulls and cows are part of Swazi life

In Swaziland you see bulls and cows all over. They roam the country, they roam the streets. Mainly they stay out of harm's way. These big creatures stay out of the big cities, but you can see them right next the road, and clearly, wherever there is food to be had -- of any sort.

Umhlanga (Reed) Ceremony

This past weekend was Swaziland's famous Umhlanga (or Reed) Ceremony. Girls, from ages 7 or so, to young women in their early 20s, come to the royal palace (which is actually a kraal, which we'll talk about later) to dance and sing for King Mswati and the Queen Mother.

The girls bring reeds, which they have cut from rivers or marshes around the country. These reeds are intended for the rebuilding of the Queen's kraal.

The opportunity to dance and sing in traditional clothing, and to be with so many other Swazis, draws girls from
each corner of this small country.

The second image shows Swazi man in traditional clothing. They are marching down the street with King Mswati, singing songs to him and their country. You can see the young boys in front, learning how to participate in Swazi ceremonial life.

In the top picture you can see two women dressed in dark blue -- they are almost like "wardens" keeping the girls in their lines and making sure everything is going according to plan. The girls come with others from their villages, and practice their "routines." Many of the girls are staying through

week because another celebration is coming up: 40/40, which I'll tell you about in another post.