Weekend in Swaziland

May was entirely too busy of a month, culminating in a weekend trip to Swaziland…….. haha mostly it’s just fun to say you went to Swazi for the weekend. Some friends and I took the weekend to go to the Bush Fire music festival in Manzini and it was amazing to see a new country, some different landscapes, and really fun live music! My favorite was the band Freshly Ground, a fairly popular South African band. Apparently they are becoming even more mainstream with their new song with Shakira – “time for Africa”, the new World Cup theme song… pretty catchy if I do say so myself.

It was definitely interesting to see a new country after being in SA for so long. Because it is a country that is snuggled right into its richer and more developed neighbor, the influence of South Africa can be seen all over. I’ve heard the countries surrounding SA (or surrounded by, in the case of Swaziland and Lesotho) often reffered to as “South Africa Lite” since the country influences so many aspects of this region of the continent. While Swazi does seem to have many similar things (banks, restaurants, transportation, etc.), it was definitely evident that it is significantly less developed (especially if you compare the cities – HUGE difference between a capital city like Pretoria and Mbabane, the capital of Swazi). This may have been because we were there for a festival that celebrated Swazi’s music, art, and culture, but I felt as though the local Swazi culture was much more strongly embraced and present in everyday life than that of the local cultures in South Africa. This is not surprising at all when you think about the long-term effects colonization and the apartheid era had on the traditional African cultures. [As a side note, I think this may be even moreso the case with the Tswana culture. I’m not sure because this is obviously the only place I live, but they seem to embrace their more traditional culture a lot less then their flashier Zulu and Xhosa neighbors.]

Lately I have been meeting more and more PCVs who serve in other countries. This is partly due to the fact that South Africa is the regional medical hub for anyone who is serving in Sub-Saharan Africa who needs medical attention that their host country can’t provide, and partly because Southern Africa is extremely popular for traveling. Many of them (known as “med-evacs”) gush about how amazing it must be to serve in such a developed country with so many amenities. I think this becomes the view of many people who travel here – due mostly to the fact that when you are traveling to SA you are most likely not going to our rural villages out in the bush (especially those of us out here in the deserty north.. there is not much as far as tourism goes out here). While I can’t deny that it is nice to have things like malls, restaurants, and movie theaters when I go to Pretoria or other large cities, it’s hard to get across to people how different life really is in my tiny village that is cut off from access to such amenities. All I can conclude is that SA is just a really interesting and unique place to be a PCV. It also makes me very eager to visit other countries in Africa and see what life is like on the rest of this continent!

In any case, I’m sad I didn’t get to stay longer and see more of the country, and I’m not entirely sure the 2 days of treacherous taxi rides through mountain roads in the rain was really worth the day and a half that I got to spend in the country. But it is most definitely on my agenda for next May, as that will be nearer to my COS date (Close of Service) when I can justify going crazy over the AMAZING craft shopping there ☺.