A knife attack at the dance competition

     Our school made the national finals in some of the dance categories. The finals were held in the nation's main commercial football stadium in Manzini, the commercial center. We hadn't been to the stadium, wanted to support the kids, and had no classes scheduled, so we went on the bus with them.

     Before leaving school the dancers fixed sandwiches for a late morning snack. Katherine is in the school kitchen with the lead dancer.

The heavy mid-day Swazi meal of rice, beans and roast chicken was brought to the stadium from the school later in the day, arriving around 3, so the sandwiches were to tide them over till then.

      The events our school performed in were the African Dance, which is not the traditional dance and is not the least bit African – performed to Western-style pop other PCVs dismissed as “from the 90s” (but they knew each tune – I didn't recognize a single one of them, which says more about how I spent the 90s than about the popularity of the music);

“drummies” - drum majorettes;

and “show prop” where they do “western-style” dance holding some kind of prop in their hands, again to Western recorded music. Some school teams had hula hoops, pompoms, ours had balloons. Unfortunately, several of our girls' balloons burst, causing lost points enough to eliminate us. Here they are getting ready to perform.

That's Manzini on the hill in the background.

     Our teams were done by noon, but Katherine and I lingered, to support the teams. We could have walked into town, done some productive shopping, and taken a commercial bus 45 minutes  back to our crossroads. As the winter afternoon waned it grew windy and colder; many of the kids were only wearing shirts, others had school uniform sweaters, hardly any had jackets. Katherine loaned her scarf and a blanket we'd brought to sit on to one of the boys we like a lot.

     Awards were announced starting around 4. Our school did not win any. Our kids were disappointed but not surprised, and glad to go home, but our bus had not arrived in the stadium parking lot. As we waited a half dozen young men, some visibly drunk, started pulling one of our girls away with them. The girl was smiling and laughing, and the other girls were cheering on all of them, in great good humor. We were told one of the men was saying the girl was his girlfriend, and they did seem to know each other. Fun or not, I hated the behavior.

     Dark fell, the parking lot emptied, the “super moon” rose - the full moon closest to the solstice I think that is, which is closest to the sun, I think, so it appears largest. (One of our Volunteer group sent around a message saying its called the “perigee moon.” Using an outdoor latrine, and ours is 60 yards away, gives you the opportunity to focus on to such events.) The bus was said to be coming in from the other side of the country, 60 miles away. It was cold.

     We heard the girls shriek and saw one of our favorite boys, the one to whom Katherine had loaned the scarf and blanket, lying on the pavement, nearly motionless, holding his shoulder. I thought I saw a pool of blood spreading from his back. Our boys grabbed the drummies' batons and groups of boys started running around the parking lot, clashing, chasing, fleeing, shouting. Our boys caught a boy who wasn't from our school. They brought him to where we were gathered and we could see him lying on the ground where they put him; I could not tell what they had done to him, or how they were holding him there. There were two “real” teachers, around 50 students, and us. It was confusing and frightening.

     Our injured friend was loaded into the back of a pickup and driven away. The police arrived, maybe 45 minutes after being called; I don't sense that the police in this country view protection of the citizens as their main purpose.

     The bus arrived, we got on and it left, but not by the direct route back to our town. In a few minutes the bus pulled over to the side of the road and out of the dark the injured student got on holding his shoulder, with the teacher in charge and the 2 friends who had gone with him in the truck. We were very glad to see him upright. We got back Katherine's scarf. When we got home and carefully inspected it for blood, we found 2 small puncture wounds in it.

     We pieced the story together from some girls, and from visiting our friend the next day at the High School,where he is a boarder. After the confrontation with the “girlfriend” some boys had been demanding of a small boy that the little one give them his money. Our friend intervened, the robbers surrounded him and one stabbed him from behind. Katherine's scarf absorbed some of the blow and probably kept the knife from penetrating as much as it might have otherwise.

     Saturday afternoon when we visited our friend, the day after the incident, he had still not told his family.

Swaziland is in the top 10 nations in the world in per capita murders. But I am reluctant to draw invidious comparisons from this one incident. We remember fights after games in the high schools we attended and our children attended. Younger kids are prey at some US schools, although I don't recall encountering knifings from behind. A police presence would have helped; there has been some pushing and shoving and visible drunkenness after each of the high school competitions we've attended. But the police here are busy elsewhere. The attacker was, however, arrested and our friend will go to the police station to “open a case.” We generally feel quite safe here, especially in our own community, where everyone knows us – we do kind of stand out.