Blogs from Swaziland, Africa - page 6

Our destination in Swaziland was the Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary – a beautiful retreat up in a valley in the mountains where you can sleep in traditional bee hive huts. We really had no idea what to expect in Swaziland as there was no real website for Mlilwane and it was not on trip advisor. So for me I was a bit nervous as I like to know what I am getting into ahead of time. Once again though, this place far exceeded anything we even imagined. Before reaching our destination, we first stopped at the Swazi Candle Factory – a little place very close to Mlilwane where they make candles by hand. It’s not really a factory like what we think of. It is more of a Candle shop. The man was sitting right there ... read more

M – Swaziland is one of those exotic place names I can remember from my childhood. Perhaps I heard it on the news or maybe I saw it on a map but I suspect it is more likely that I saw it on a stamp - yes I did collect stamps as a kid! We needed to get to Durban from the Kruger to visit the Indian Consul and cutting through Swaziland is the quickest route. Swaziland is an odd place. Both it and Lesotho sit like islands within the North East of South Africa. Due to the need to deposit our passports at the Indian Consul in Durban for a week to get our Indian Visas we couldn’t actually go to Lesotho but I wasn’t going to miss out on Swaziland! Swaziland is a small ... read more

Oh the land of Swaz is a funny funny place... When Mike and I crossed the border from Mozambique into Swaziland he was a little scared. He said that based on what I had told him about Swaziland that he was preparing himself for a fifth-world country. The drive in apparently did not support what I had prepared him for. There were rolling green hills – he was expecting the dusty dirty slums of New Delhi. He was shocked that there weren’t many people around, or that there aren’t many towns. Swaziland has a few towns; the rest of the country is scattered homesteads. I tried to explain that people may have some place to live in, but they have no money, lack basic food supplies, and if they have health needs, they don’t have direct ... read more

So... I think that Africa finally got to me last week. It started all right. I had my article ready to be proofed on the Friday before, but I didn’t hear any feedback on the Monday. Tuesday morning I was supposed to be off with Ace and Vika to teach 24 of our Youth Action Movement (YAM) kids how to improve their communications skills... cause sure... I’ve facilitated workshops before? In typical Swazi style, we were supposed to start at 9 am, but instead we were still at FLAS in Manzini at 11 – transport for all the kids was screwed up. Ace, Vika and I drove the 45 minutes north to where we were supposed to have the overnight workshop – only to find out that we had been moved to another location? Apparently, they ... read more

Geo: -26.5225, 31.4659It was a strange feeling being back in civilisation after exiting Kruger Park through Crocodile Bridge Gate. There were cars everywhere, people rushing around and shops. We stopped in a very busy town – Komatipoort. Here we bought more food for the next few days. It was about an hour drive to the border with Swaziland. We quickly passed through the border. Swaziland is a small country that borders with South Africa and Mozambique. I was excited and happy to be in a new country. It was much quieter than South Africa. There was a sign warning pedestrians of lions and elephants and warning motorists of big game - this was exciting. I had my eyes peeled looking for animals, unfortunately I didn't see any animals. At about half past 4 we arrived at ... read more