Royal Treatment

Originally distributed October 2009

August (2009) was chock full of activities and special events. It started with Bush Fire, the 3 day music extravaganza in Swaziland that anyone with taste and a bit of pocket money looks forward to all year. The Conservation Program (i.e., me) had a booth there to promote the program and educate people about threatened animals in Swaziland. We had a kids’ animal find activity that was quite popular and lots of adults stopped by and asked questions. And the performers were awesome, a mix of local and globally acclaimed artists such as Vusi Mahlasela and Habib Koite. It was cool to hear an artist like Vusi, who’s from South Africa and speaks Zulu, perform in a place where people understand the lyrics, because SiSwati is similar to Zulu.

Then there were a couple of great hikes with friends. The first was Sheba’s Breast, the mountain behind the lodge where I stay when out of the field. I had hiked it by myself in March before there was an actual trail, so I ended up at the top but far from the beacon (see photos). This time, now that there’s a trail, we made it to the very top. And what a spectacular view! We later did a hike to Sibebe, the 2^nd largest granite outcrop in the world. Beautiful views there as well. And at the end I had a huge and pleasant surprise. I ran into Jana, a friend and former coworker from 2000. We last saw each other in 2003 when she visited HI. She is back working in DC and was on a two-week business trip in Swaziland. How random!

Back at the park some of the Marabou chicks were attacked by eagles. Some survived the attacks but died later while others are now ok. We are all cheering for one particular chick who’s the 3^rd of the clutch and 3^rd chicks have not historically survived. This one is now over 2 months old and holding its own. So hopefully it will make it to fledging.

I was in the presence of the king and queen mother twice in August, once for the official opening of the solar powered restaurant at the park and once for the annual Reed Dance, Umhlanga. The queen mother has interesting taste in shoes. The dance performances for the royal family at the restaurant opening were phenomenal! It was some of the best dancing I’ve seen in Swaziland. The dancing for the Reed Dance on the other hand, wasn’t so exciting. Half the time I didn’t really understand what was going on either. The 82,000 maidens in attendance were grouped by chiefdom and they all paraded into the stadium grounds. Later on, groups would periodically mill about in the center, in some sort of dancing fashion, but it all looked really unstructured at those times. But maybe Swazis understood the point of it all.

And lastly two random events in August were we ran out of gas on the way to the field one morning, documented on film by our volunteer, and I sat in gum in my rainpants at Bush Fire, because that Sunday it was raining. The silver lining was that it made an imprint in the shape of Africa. Uh cool, I guess…. Do you think I can sell it on eBay?