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Right now I am sitting at the telephone center of a city called Vilankulos in Mozambique. I am 200 meters from the classical idea of paradise - white sandy beaches, clear blue green water crashing against the shore, and palm trees dancing in the wind. I never knew places like this existed in Africa. However I will write about this paradise later.
A week and a half ago my friend Mary and I left South Africa up the Northeastern coast to Swaziland. Mary and I worked together in Denver for the EPA 2 years ago. She has been living and working in South Africa for a year and a half now. This is the first time she has explored the neighboring countries.
On a map Swaziland looks like a bite taken out of the corner of South Africa. They are small country run by a king with 10 wives. The land is hilly and right now green and blooming with flowers as it is the beginning of spring. A Swazi with dreads named Myxo has been runing a village stay program for eight years. Mary and I stayed in a village of tatched roof houses on the top of a hill overlooking a beautify valley. The view was stunning and the people were friendly.
We arrived on Sunday morning and went to a Zionist church with most of the community. The church is a blend of traditional ancestral beliefs and christianity. The service normally last from 11 till 4 and involves dancing into a trance. The energy increases gradually from the beginning and we didn´t stay till the end to see how it finished. The church itself was small and undecorated. When we entered the women were all seated on the floor on the left side of the door with their legs out infront of them as women have to sit. All the men were on the right side. The older men sat on the only bench in the front and the younger ones along the wall.
After some singing and reading a couple of verses from the bible the dancing began. Initially it was the men and women dancing in a clockwise circle. As the pace increased and people were almost running the women dropped out. This spinning lasted for over an hour, ocassionally changing directions. Imagine spinning around for an hour... the men were sweating and were obviously dizzy. This is what led them to start screaming and drawing strange patterns on the floor with their fingers and head butting eachother. The whole time the women were singing and dancing while watching. The music and sounds created were out of this world.
I can´t fully describe what was happening because the whole service was in Swazi and it was like nothing I had ever seen before. I don´t fuly understand it and therefore couldn´t lay judgement on what was happening. I was worried and on the borderline of scared when some men started waving a burning handful of dried grass around some women. And even more stunned when they started hitting a women to make her scream like she was in pain... luckily she continued to scream after they stopped hitting her making me believe that it was an act... well at leat that is what I hope.
I was amazed that they let two foreign women sit in on their service. I was happy to be able to see how they worshiped... even if I don´t understand. The following two days were spent watching them dip cattle in an insect repelent, chatting to children in English about cattle and sitting around campfire listening to Myxo explain the complexities of a traditional Swazi marriage.
Just a brief summary of how Swazi people become married. If a man likes a women he takes her to his hut on his parents homestead. They spend the night together, but the family doesn't meet her. After doing this a couple of time, and him deciding she would make a good wife, he then talks to his parents. One morning they wake the couple up and take the women to the cattle koral. She stands in the middle as the whole family yells insults at her to make her cry. Her crying bonds her with the ancestors of the family. The harder she cries the better. Then the husbands family sends her back to her family to tell them she is to be married to this man. Her family then decides how many cows they want in exchange for her. Then, both families meet. The wife gives the husbands family a stick with notches in it. Each notch represents a cow. After some negotiating the "labola," or the number of cattle to be given, will be settled. After the husband give the cattle to the wife´s family, they are married. Sometimes this negotiating can take awhile. Apparently the Swazi women are the most expensive women in southern Africa... they cost 12-20 cattle - one cattle is about $300.
Staying there was amazing to simply see the differences in societies that exist in this world. I can´t imagine having grown up in that society... watching my father spin himself into a trance every Sunday, tending cattle everyday before and after school and being insulted to become a wife.
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