Swaziland and playing with Elephants

Last Thursday Erin came to visit us in South Africa!  It's been incredible having her here, exploring another country with your best friend is a rare (and exciting) occurrence.  Erin was a good reminder of how much I miss home and everyone there!  It also was great to have a familiar face in such a foreign setting.  We picked Erin up from the airport on Thursday afternoon around 6pm and took it easy her first night since she'd just experienced such a long flight.

We woke up early Friday morning and set off on a drive to Swaziland.  It was about a 3 and a half hour drive to the Oshoek border from Joburg, then it took around an hour and a half to get to our hostel.  We stayed at Sondzela's Backpacker's Lodge which was on the Mlilwane Game Reserve right outside of Mbabane, which is one of the capitols of Swaziland.  We heard Zebras our first night yipping away.  We also stayed in a hut, which definitely added to the experience of living on a game reserve for the weekend!  

On Saturday, we went on a horseback ride through the game reserve for 2 hours.  I wasn't at all accustomed to riding a horse because it's been so many years since I have, but I caught on pretty quickly.  Usually riding a horse through the game reserve allows you to get closer to the animals since they generally see you as another animal instead of a human.  My horse, Baloo, was actually notoriously stubborn and slow.  I had to keep giving him a little kick to get him moving.  He was holding up the entire line.  He also really liked to eat every time we stopped, silly guy. We saw almost all of the different types of animals that live on the Mlilwane Game Reserve, including a great deal of Zebras, crocodiles, and hippos.  We got very close to the Zebras and Erin took some incredible pictures!  After the horseback ride, we at lunch at the Hippo Haunt Restaurant, where they used to feed hippos who lived on the game reserve.  Erin and I tried Wildebeest and Impala.  The Wildebeest was very juicy, and prepared almost like a sausage - I liked the impala much better.  Saturday night, we decided to explore some of the bars outside of the game reserve, so we went to have a drink at Malandela's.  We tried a Swazi lager, Sibebe, that was delicious!  I even saved one of the bottle caps to put with my Belikin bottle cap from Belize. 

We also had a chance to meet many locals.  We were sitting by the make-shift heating unit outside the bar so it attracted a couple who had just finished dinner.  We started speaking to them and realized that the husband was the Director of Treatment for the National AIDS Council of Swaziland from 2002-2008.  I honestly feel like this was a serendipitous moment, and that Erin and I were meant to speak with him.  What are the chances of having the opportunity to speak to an integral person in Swaziland's fight against HIV/AIDS?  He was telling us about the programs he implemented while in office, ranging from making Anti-retrovirals (ART - treatment for HIV) available to the majority of the population (from 6,000 people on ART to 16,000 in just a couple of years) to reducing mother-to-child transmission by 99%.  Swaziland has the highest prevalence of HIV - at 26% - so it was incredible to hear his perspective on how important it was to develop adequate treatment plans to address the growing epidemic.  We also spoke with a crazy family who kept trying to marry me off to their son.  His father even called me Makote (daughter-in-law in the local Swazi language) the whole night. 

The main living room of the hostel

Our hut for the weekend

Executioner's rock, where they used to execute criminals in Swaziland

Our bushman's basket lunch including impala and Wildebeest

On Sunday, we drove an hour and a half to the Mkhaya Endangered Species game reserve for a day game drive.  In the park, they have giraffes, zebras, white rhinos, black rhinos, leopards, many kinds of deer, buffalo, and elephants.  We luckily saw dozens of white rhinos, some giraffes, and zebras.  Our guides name was Africa, and he was incredibly knowledgeable about animal dung and what made it that way.  He was also knowledgeable about the animals, of course. :)  The difference between white and black rhinos actually isn't really their color.  White rhinos are generally a little bit lighter grey than black rhinos, however, both types could change color depending on their diet.  The real difference is in the mouth, black rhinos have a pointed mouth and usually feed on twigs and branches from trees, while white rhinos have a flat mouth designed to graze on grass.  We had lunch on the game reserve and it was so delicious: Hake fish (which is a very common white fish found off the coast of South Africa), rice, veggies, and impala.  The game reserve was beautiful, where we had lunch felt like a little oasis in the middle of a forest.  Erin took some really incredible pictures!


We met hippos lazing in the water on our way out of the Mlilwane Game Reserve (where we stayed for the weekend) on Sunday

He was kind of (pretty much) interested in charging our safari truck

On Monday before trekking back to Joburg, we decided to explore some of the local craft markets.  We found a boutique called Baobab Batik that is famous for their tapestries and goods (website: http://www.baobab-batik.com/).  We visited the headquarters and they described the entire process to us, they use wax to dye the cloth so that different colors show through.  Their work was beautiful.  We also went to a famous glass blowing company from Swaziland, Ngwenya Glass, and I even found a glass penguin!  We could watch the workers blowing glass beside the shop, they also had some beautiful work!  Erin has better pictures of these shops on her blog post.

On Tuesday, it was back to work.  We are conducting a research study to see how women in Tembisa feel about circumcision, how and what they have heard about it, and how they would like to be involved if their partner has a circumcision.  We are currently waiting on ethical approval to conduct the research, but we piloted our survey last week to see how the questions go, if women are understanding what we are asking, and how long the survey is.  We won't be using any of the answers to these surveys for research, but piloting them helps strengthen our survey before we actually begin the study.  We conducted 15 surveys on Wednesday and Thursday.  I loved finally getting the opportunity to engage with women at the clinic and to hear more about how they would like to be involved.  I also met some pretty incredible women, who very strongly supported circumcision and/or had partners who had a traditional circumcision years ago. Many of the cultures of South Africa support traditional circumcision, where boys are taken when they're around 12 or 13 by a cultural leader up onto the mountain to be circumcised and learn how to be a man.  So being circumcised is generally associated with masculinity.  However, boys who are circumcised on the mountain have the procedure without anesthetic, anything to control the bleeding, or sterile knives or equipment.  In fact, most of the time the circumcisions are performed on all of the boys with the same knife.  It's now pretty well known that some traditional circumcisions can lead to death here, and it was interesting to hear how women in Tembisa felt about traditional circumcision (most of them did not support it and were bringing their sons to the clinic to have the procedure done).  Erin also came with us to work on Wednesday and had a chance to see how the clinic runs.  She was also really impressed with how organized the clinic is and how much it can accomplish in such a short period of time.

 

Tembisa, the township where the clinic is located



A busy day in the clinic, these women and boys are waiting to get into the clinic for the day

A fruit stand in Tembisa

On Thursday night we went to a comedy show and chocolate and coffee expo at Monte Casino, a local Casino in Sandton where Michelle and I live.  There were comedians from all over the world - the UK, South Africa, and even the US.  We had a chance to meet the US comedian, Griff, after the show.  He was hilarious, he basically pointed out all of the things we have been noticing while living here - people crossing busy highways randomly and casually and people selling bumpers at every intersection. 

The inside of Monte Casino

At the comedy show!

On Friday, we didn't have anything left to work on at the clinic, so we just worked from home and I took Erin sightseeing in the afternoon.  This Friday, July 18th, was Nelson Mandela's birthday, so it's Nelson Mandela day in South Africa.  Erin and I went to Soweto, ate local food there, and visited Nelson Mandela's house.  Soweto was packed with people trying to learn more about the history of South Africa and Nelson Mandela.  After Soweto, I took Erin to Liliesleaf Farm (see a past blog for all of the information about this historical site).

On Saturday, we went to a museum called Maropeng in the Cradle of Humankind highlighting how important Africa and South Africa in particular were in the origin of humans.  The museum was very interactive.  The reviews of the museum raved about this underwater boat ride.  The boat ride was meant to show the formation of the earth billions of years ago - it was pretty cool!  After the museum, we ate at the Tumulus Restaurant and had one of the best buffets I've eaten while here, it had more Hake fish, beef, delicious veggies, and a huge salad bar.


Maropeng

After the museum, we went to an Elephant Sanctuary in Hartbeespoort, a place that Michelle and I can never pronounce correctly.  It honestly made me a little sad, because it seemed like the elephants were still confined.  But I do have to remember that elephants are large, wild animals, and there has to be some way to control them.  The sanctuary generally saves the elephants from adverse zoo situations, so it's a much better place for them than in an abused zoo.  First, we had a chance to interact two on one with an elephant and see how they interact with their trainer.  Although their skin looks really rough, it's actually very smooth!  Then, we got to feed an elephant.  The elephant we fed was huge and fully grown, but he was missing a tusk - the sanctuary had rescued him from a surrounding zoo.  Lastly, we got to walk trunk in hand with the elephants.  They used to do this part through the bush surrounding the sanctuary so that the elephants could roam free, but the elephants got too old to adequately control without harming them, so they now do this part in the elephants pen.  Basically, I got to hold hands with an elephant and got a good handful of juicy snot. :)

Feeding the big man

This weekend we are taking our third and final trip to Cape Town.  I'm excited because I get to visit one of my good friends who grad school who is working there! More to come later.  Also read Erin's blog post too for additional updates, pictures, and details about our week :).