A National Geographic Experience-The Swaziland Reed Dance

Greg's sister Joanne & her husband Mark visited us and timed their visit perfectly so we could attend a festival in the little country of Swaziland.  The annual reed dance takes place over nine days and the girls travel from all over the Kingdom to bring a long reed to the Queen mother, and then they dance before the king.  The parts that are a little different is that they don't wear tops, and also the King can choose one of them for his next bride (if he likes).  He already has many wives and from my reading his wives end up with BMW's while most of the country is still pretty poor.

The festival is an event the Swazi people do for themselves, is not commercialized at all-there were no tickets for sale and it was only open to the public for the final two days when they dance.   Before we left our house early on Sunday morning we heard on the radio that lots of girls had died on their way to the festival as two of the trucks they were riding in collided.  There were people demanding that the dance be called off due to the tragedy.  Sadly, once we were there the poor girls were never mentioned, and the festival went on, I couldn't help think about the girls and their families, especially when you saw the rest of them being transported in trucks.  (we only saw a few coach buses transporting girls-the rest were in trucks like this)

 We drove for about 4 hours (including a swift border crossing).  We met up with our friend Doug and his daughter Annalise, we were wearing dresses (as instructed) and his daughter had already found a place where they would dress girls in traditional attire (with tops thankfully).

So Kelly and Katie joined Annalise in the traditional dress.

                                                                    Greg went native too

just kidding- thought I might convince you if you didn't look too closely! (no idea who this guy was)

Here is a video of some girls walking with their reeds, before they gave them to the Queen Mother.

We got in the stadium super early and although dancing was supposed to be from 3-5, it was Africa time, so we sat for a very long time, it was crazy hot, so I ended up moving into the shade and met some girls who had done the dance in previous years, they became my tutors! 

 They explained when the King came, who the royal princesses were (and that the one who was 21 needed to find a husband and stop dancing).  The one in the blue also told me how she wants to marry an American so her parents will be proud of her.  She said she wants to be a nurse one day.  

Charlie practiced some "Goldfish diplomacy" and shared his goldfish with the girls around us, they all liked them very much!  He also eventually warmed up to the locals and made some friends that he played with on the steps.  

The lady in the black dress/hat/with beautiful beadwork is wearing a traditional Zulu dress- from my limited knowledge...

I liked this shot of the Swaziland flag and the beautiful mountains behind them!  Our view in the stadium was pretty spectacular!

The red feathers in their hair tell that they are members of the royal family. 

You can hear Charlie in some of the videos, he was a trooper, it was a pretty long, boring afternoon to just sit there and wait.  Here is one of the first groups to march, they had a ton of little ones in there, I think that is why they were early.

It seemed that the kings arrival slowed everything down, he finally entered with his entourage, apologies for the rough video, it was hard to zoom & actually find him in the crowd!

The Kings arrival to his box seat, note all the photographers to the right- I was super far away zooming in!

Here is my crummy video, there is one glimpse of him...

After the King finally got seated, there were dancers as far as you could see that still had to march on and fill the field.  We were very concerned that the sun was about to set and we had miles on a dirt road to get to where we were staying for the night, so sadly we had to leave before the field was full.  

This is my parting shot, but my guess is that all of that green would be filled in for the final dance!

As we all reflected on the experience we had mixed feelings about it...I loved the energy of all the girls being together and getting to see their big annual festival, the biggest thing most of them probably do all year.  (much like Milk Days in good old Harvard, IL)   The rest of it, the King choosing one of them to marry, and the fact that they are transported in cattle trucks and that they have limited opportunities for their future due to the poverty in their country that was the part we didn't like.  However, we were happy to have had the chance to see it, this is what seeing the world is all about!

If you would like to read more about the Reed Dance, here is an article that I read before we went...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141003-swaziland-africa-king-mswati-reed-dance/

We stayed at a Wildlife Sanctuary only a few kilometers away, but down dirt roads with the setting sun & people and animals in your path..We made it and were delighted with the place.  We had a great outdoor dinner and the best part it was a buffet so we could eat right away and the kids were pretty hungry!

Here was our little cottage, I didn't get a picture of Joanne & Marks but theirs was really cool.

Here we are checking out the lodge in the morning.

 Katie wanted to climb trees, but check out the lizard we saw hiding in this one tree!

I reminded Katie of the snake we had seen in the tree last trip to Swaziland, she really wanted to climb this one!

 Charlie checking out a traditional beehive hut that we could have stayed in.

 There was a warthog house next to him.

We didn't swim but the kids loved the tree trunk that was in the pool to mark the deep end.

 We saw some animals on our way out of the park, here is Joanne & Mark's first crocodile, glad we didn't swim there!

We stopped for late breakfast at a very cool candle factory where they make amazing candles into all sorts of animal shapes, rhinos, elephants, this time I even found a penguin!

Our next adventure was Pilanesburg...will write more about that trip soon!