Swazi Secrets

On our last day in Swaziland, Norman stayed in the house to prepare a big braai. We tried to get him to let us stay and help but Faith assured us that Norman would do best on his own and suggested that she take us around to see some of the sights in Swaziland.

We got into a different SUV than the Rexton with Faith and Naomi and headed out to House on Fire, a local performance space and restaurant. House on Fire hosts a big music festival every year that is world renowned (we just missed it by two weeks!) and also features a great shop called Gone Rural that features some of the beautiful crafts and products for which Swaziland is famous. My mom went totally nuts over the beautiful basketry, weaving and tinkery available and I picked up some bottles of marula oil which have miracle skin restorative properties. Faith told me that she used marula oil on her skin during all four of her pregnancies and has no stretch marks! That was enough of a recommendation for me. The marula oil in Swaziland is manufactured by Swazi Secrets, a company that is dedicated to sustainable harvesting and local organic co-ops so I was happy to purchase their product.

We wandered around the House on Fire performance space, which is sculpted in a very vibrant and whimsical manner by a local artist and enjoyed the warm sunshine and clear air. We had a wonderful view of the mountains which was a nice change from the haze of Johannesburg.

We then went to the Swazi Candle factory, which was packed with families visiting for the large mountain bike race that was held on Saturday. I didn't know what a Swazi candle was before visiting, but as soon as I walked in to the factory store I knew I had seen them before. You know those psychedelically swirled candles that are in every head shop and hippie house? They glow when you light them and are probably much more fascinating when accompanied by illegal inhalation? Well, they were invented in Swaziland and (of course) eventually stolen and mass produced by the Chinese. The factory store had candles in every shape imaginable, including African animals, as well as delicious smelling soaps. My dad was quite taken with some chocolate soap so my mom got it for him so he would stop exclaiming, "Wow, this smells just like chocolate!" The factory also has a worker who will mold the warm wax into any shape you want and it was fascinating to see him start with a random blob and make it into a pretty rose (per Naomi's request).

We got some delicious scones for breakfast at Linda's cafe and then drove around for more sightseeing. Naomi regaled us with a hilarious anecdote about her old riding instructor who always served beans for lunch, thus resulting in her unfortunate farts during trotting lessons. I found this to be an opportune time to engage in a little cross-cultural sharing, so I recited one of my favorite Bart Simpson poems:

Beans, beans, the musical fruit
The more you eat the more you toot
The more you toot, the better you feel
So beans, beans, for every meal!

It was well-received, as I'm sure you can imagine.

WE ended up back at the house just in time for Norman's extravagant feast. He had prepared several kinds of barbecued meats (the ribs were to die for) as well as potkjie, which is a sort of lamb cabbage stew cooked in a Dutch oven, fabulous cabbage (boiled in broth, the secret to tasty cabbage), the sweetest carrots I've ever had and saffron rice. We ate entirely too much and loved every minute of it. Naomi also introduced me to cream soda that came in a violence fluorescent green color--it tasted the same as cream soda in the US but looked like Midori liquor.

After the fabulous lunch we somehow rolled ourselves into the car and departed for the drive back to South Africa, after thanking our hosts profusely. We had an incredible time and definitely experienced many things that we wouldn't have if we had visited ourselves.

The border crossing was as expected--leaving Swazi was friendly and easy, getting through South African customs was a pain in the butt. We had a classic case of lots of people cutting the line, which made it longer for people who were following the rules. Eventually we gave up and just cut the line and no one seemed to care!

We stopped to get gas and for a bathroom break right as it got dark at a rest area off the N4 but when we got back into the car my mom realized that my dad's backpack (which we had foolishly left in the back seat) was gone! We looked around and didn't see anyone with it so we decided to just keep driving. The thieves somehow got into our locked car and stole the bag, but left everything in the trunk. We know we had the bag with us at the border because it had the car's registration papers inside. It was a total mystery and kind of put a damper on the trip. The thieves got a really ghetto digital camera, my dad's Speedo and goggles, my dad's sun hat (totally unfashionable) and our registration papers which are useless as they have my dad's photo on it and I doubt that the thieves are elderly men with a gray mustache and a giant noggin (so they probably won't get use out of the hat, either). My dad ended up having to go to the police station to make an affidavit of the loss, and then to the local South African equivalent of the DMV (known as the Licensing Department) but that was taken care of later in the week without too much difficulty. My dad did report, however, that the employees at the Licensing Department were just as surly as their American DMV counterparts and that the system was typically bureaucratic and slow moving. Additionally, he tried to get a photo from a guy who had set up shop on the lawn outside the licensing department with an umbrella, digital camera and printer, but the printer was broken so he had to go elsewhere. A "This is Africa" classic!!