For my birthday Katherine followed
up on an interest of mine and we traveled to the NW part of the
country to see the best display of bushmen (San) rock painting in The
Kingdom. It was really remote, but fun to see. The best estimate is
that it is 400 to 4,000 years old. My interest in this kind of art
is that it is subject to fewer influences than what we've seen in
more civilized cultures for the past few thousand years – the
creator could know how and what he was supposed to paint only from
what was on this rock wall from the last time these people came
through. So maybe it gets closer to what people really want to
portray.
The figures at Nsangwini are
unusual in seeming to show both San figures, shorter and apparently
lighter, who lived only by forage, and the taller, darker (“black
people” in the words of our guide) Bantu, herdsmen and farmers, who
drove out the San and peopled southern Africa. There is a large and
quite distinct elephant, some lions, and the only wildebeest shown in
rock art south of the Zambezi River. The human figures all appear to
be male, with classic “primitive looking” broad shoulders, long
torso, narrow waist, and exaggerated thighs and calves. There is one
scene of around 15 figures together, which our guide insisted was a
war, but the figures were sufficiently smudgy that I could not
identify weapons; it could have been a wedding, harvest celebration,
or perhaps an assemblage of Peace Corps volunteers. If you knew what
to look for you could see upright human figures a brochure describes
as in a “trance dance.” Below them other figures have human
bodies but preying mantis heads, and wings, and appear to be
floating.
We stayed at a pleasant B&B in the
small commercial town in that region that night and had easy travels
getting home Sunday. A nice birthday.
The schools closed Thursday, April 17
for the 3 week Easter break (although no classes met all that final
week, as far as we could tell.) We had met a high Swazi government
official, a Minister of one of the largest government departments, at
an NGO's event in our community in January where some of our high
school students had presented a discussion of HIV. She had had good
experiences with PCVs in her home community and reached out to us
through the PC, and we ended up arranging to “house sit” her home
over Easter weekend, although changes in her plans because of
official functions meant that, instead of having the house to
ourselves, she was there with her four charming children. Here is
her house, with the black roof on the right, at the end of the road.
The area around the capital Mbabane is
really hilly. Her house is still under construction; without a wall
and an effective gate they feel quite vulnerable. A guard patrols
the grounds all night, but that is true of most of the houses in this
community, including the thoroughly walled one just uphill from her
house. Notice the Remax sign?!
When we got there Friday
afternoon we took a walk down the valley ½ mile with the cousin who
is a domestic worker for the Minister. Beyond Sisanah and Katherine
is a dam (siSwati for any body of water) which is sacred to one
family in the kingdom. For some reason their ancestor, a
“traditional healer” (medicine man) refused to treat the previous
king, who sent troops to kill the healer; when they came upon him he
was suddenly wrapped in a mist, and when the mist disappeared the
healer had as well and this dam was there. No one likes to go near
the dam. We didn't.
PIC 934
Saturday we took a khumbi to the
trail-head for Sibebe Rock, 6 miles out of town. We hiked 3 ½
hours, 1,400' to the top of the world's largest granite dome, and
the second largest rock in the world, smaller only than Australia's
Uluru (fka Ayers) Rock. Despite yellow arrows painted along some
parts of the trail (many of which were overgrown), we had serious
route-finding issues, but saw some fine “high-veldt” (higher
grassy terrain) birds that were new to us.
Sunday we went by the PC office to use the free and relatively high
speed internet in the Volunteer Lounge.
The internet repeatedly crashed and we
would lose what hadn't been sent or saved; communication in this
country is really primitive. It took hours to do what we would have
done in minutes at home.
We had our Easter dinner of PB and
marmalade sandwiches and potato chips on the street in Manzini,
and then waited 1 ¼ hours, soaked in
sweat, choking on diesel fumes, jostled by large people carrying
equally large packages, for a packed bus to leave for our community;
at least we had seats as we waited – people were jammed in the
aisles standing butt to belly. Travel on holidays is a challenge.
Next week we go to St. Lucia and 2
game parks in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, south of Swaziland. We've
rented a car, a driver will pick us up, drive us to the border, and
we take the car from there. We can drive in SA, which will make us
feel like grown-ups.
Thanks for sharing as the adventure continues!
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