arriving in swaziland

Before I begin to share my stories with you from this past week, I would first like to thank all of my readers for their interest and open minds and hearts. I do not wish, however, to be a priest sharing parables with you from a foreign continent, elevated to a place where you cannot dialogue with these stories and with myself. I hope instead that you may feel welcome and eager to respond, ask questions, make comments, and feel as eager to teach me as I am eager to share with you. For all who feel compelled, I ask you then to please write comments in response to my posts, and share your own perspectives and responses.

This week was so compacted with new people, smells, landscapes, and colours that it would be impossible for me to detail everything, and it would be an insult to those experiences to summarize them without deeper explanation. I am trapped in a catch-22. I am choosing, therefore, to break up the week into segments, sharing a little at a time, and hope that through their compilation you may be able to see what I saw and hear what I heard from a more holistic lens.

Arriving. Arriving was difficult. No, it was more than that. Arriving was exciting, thrilling, and scary as hell. Meg and I arrived in Durban, picked up our VW Jetta rental car and I sat behind the wheel, stuck in a mixed cd with Aretha Franklin, and began to drive. South Africa, and indeed most of southern Africa, was colonised by the British, and drivers thus drive on the left side of the road. The air was warm and heavy, a drastic contrast to the cold, damp air of Cape Town. Banana trees with shredded leaves and burnt red soil lined the highways. Zulu women and men walked along the roadsides carrying everything on their heads: suitcases, baskets, grocery bags, cardboard boxes filled with onions, carrots, oranges, guava. My stomach was clenched tight and my temper was short, and we drove down the highway looking for the Temple of Understanding, the largest Hare Krishna temple in the southern hemisphere, which was supposedly close by. I asked Megan to look in her guide book for Zulu phrases like, "Hello" and "Where is the..." as we realised very few people in this area of the city would speak English.

We were close to turning around after 10 minutes of no luck when we saw massive white steeples poking out of the trees to our left, and I turned into the temple complex. We removed our shoes before walking inside, and found a group of Indian children being lead in a chanting ceremony of "Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Ram Hare Ram Ram Ram Hare Hare" with huge smiles on their faces, arms shot up in the sky, fearless and safe. A woman named Sirvana walked in, dressed in a floral cotton sari with white markings along her brow and nose, a bead bag draped around her neck, who generously offered to show us around the temple and share her beliefs with us. The ceiling was lined with mirrors and murals depicting the life story of Krisha, a sky blue human incarnation of God. Marigolds and leaf garlands created arcs around the octagon-shaped temple, and roses and lilies were gathered in bouquets on the floor. Large windows lined the walls, and some were open to allow in a breeze and to reflect the flickering of the moat below the temple. The floor was marble and felt cool and inviting on our bare feet.

Sirvana stayed with us for over an hour, guiding us through her spiritual life and practice and then taking down marigolds and leafs to tie into garlands around our necks. She then showed us the Indian vegetarian restaurant downstairs where we feasted on roti and ruby red curry with paneer and cauliflower before heading on our way. We draped the garlands on the back seats of the car, where they remained all week, scattering their petals on the car seats. We joked that their sacred blessings guided and protected our car during the entire week, although these jokes transformed into truths and their presence became essential to us.

After we escaped the buzzing of Durban, we entered a solitary space along the coast of Kwazulu-Natal where mountains grew from the ground and then lay down again, where acacia trees started sprouting everywhere and the sky turned a filmy gray, the sun blood red. Houses became scarce and mud huts with thatched roofs replaced them. Then those too dwindled in number. As we drove along, we passed a warthog crossing sign and I shouted "Pumba crossing!," and five seconds later a small gray monkey darted across the road. We both screamed from shock and began to study the road more carefully, finding monkeys camped in the trees and squatting by the road. We made it to the border in the late afternoon, paid R50 (about $7 USD) for a visa into Swaziland, and continued our drive north. Before crossing, the border patrol asked us, "Where are your partners?" How do you explain to this man that you are an independent American woman, traveling without a husband as a protector or guide?

Cows greeted us as we arrived. Cows to our left, cows in the hills, cows crossing the road in hoards, brown and black and unchecked by fences or people. We passed small villages with mud and dung huts, circular in shape, with reeds carefully laid as a roof, and children playing barefoot soccer outside, collecting water at a pump in large dirty plastic jars. No one had indoor plumbing. No one had electricity. Everyone spoke siSwati, not English. I felt like I was a witness of an indestructible, resilient life, one that had surged forward for hundreds of years nearly unchanged. At first judgmental about the poverty and this meager lifestyle, my perspective shifted to one of awe as Megan keenly pointed out the wealth of knowledge these Swazis must possess about raising cattle, about building these homes, about how to live and prosper under these dry environmental conditions. We would also learn later that cows equal currency to Swazis, and this was indeed the rule for most pre-colonial African societies. These people were not mere cowherders; in their communities, those who owned the cows were rich and powerful.

We spent the first night in a hotel off the side of the road. There were no lights for kilometers except those of the stars and the milky way. Crickets chirped in the muggy night air. We felt lucky to sleep in a room with electricity and plumbing, although small ants crawled along the dusty tile floor and the manager spoke little English. It was a bed. And we had made it across the border.