Head South: sangoma visit (shewula, swaziland)

On the final leg of our holiday road trip, we went up to Swaziland for a few days. Swaziland is one of the two entirely land-locked countries bordering (enclosed by) South Africa; Lesotho is the other. Both are kingdoms with traditional tribal leadership.

Our first impression was that Swaziland was in pretty good shape! (relative to our expectations anyway - Jennifer has done some volunteering with HIV organizations, and had done lots of reading on how widespread the HIV epidemic is in Swaziland, which led us to expect sub-par government services. Sounds like things have improved since the early 2000s). We drove across the whole country (which isn't exactly saying a lot - it took maybe 4 hours) and saw good roads and some nice towns and productive farms. Sugar cane is a big industry there, and there are a few sugar processing mills that provide some good work.

We spent a couple of nights near Mbabane, the capital, in a resort-y valley called Ezulwini. There was a shopping mall down the road with all our familiar South African brands (Woolie's, Mugg & Bean!) and some nice walking right outside the door. But we were hankering to see a little more of the country, and after discovering a very local guidebook in an art gallery on our first morning and phoning around to a couple of community-run lodges in rural areas, we decided to head up to Shewula for New Year's Eve.

We were so glad we did. What a beautiful, peaceful place. Definitely recommend anyone interested in Swaziland take a look!! http://www.shewulacamp.org/thecamp.php. The camp was clean and welcoming and quiet, and we really enjoyed a couple of tours of the area, which is filled with subsistence farms (mostly maize and wheat, plus vegetable gardens).

On our first afternoon, we had an amazing visit with a sangoma, a traditional healer, and enjoyed asking her questions about her life and work. We had heard that over 80% of South Africans visit with a sangoma at least once per year, so were curious to see what this was all about. This sangoma said she sees around 15 people per day on average, mostly from South Africa and Swaziland. Since she is about a 30 minute drive up a dirt road, after a 1-2 hour drive from the nearest town on the highway, which is another 2-3 hours from the South African border on any side, we thought those were impressive numbers. She sees very few Mozambicans, despite her road being only 10km from the border. We gathered that the sangomas in Mozambique follow a slightly different tradition.

Here was our view of the sangoma and her tools: her bones are on the mat in front of her, which she "throws" to read someone's fortune. The many bottles next to her are full of homemade poultices and tinctures, which she prescribes for various ailments. Calendars are on the wall behind her.

She is answering our questions, translated by December, who sits to her left. We asked about her outfit, and she said the spirits require her to wear certain things, so everything she wears was specifically requested by a spirit.

We asked her to give us advice to have good luck with our move home to the USA, and she told us we need to go to each of our parent's homes and have them throw us a party. And at those parties, we each need to wear specific colors. This cloth shows the colors Jennifer needs to wear.