House on fire

27^th August-28^th August – Days 331-332 – Mbabane, Swaziland

Laura had alerted us to a big big night in a nightclub-bar-entertainment complex out in the middle of nowhere – Bholoja was playing!! Never heard of him? Neither had we. Apparently he's the top dog of Swazi music though, and has been nominated for a newcomer award in France for his new album « Swazi Soul ». It was a mixture of Afro-soul, electric-guitars-blaring style African music, and a slightly bizarre rendition of « Knockin' on Heaven's Door ». Much fun was had by all and after the rules and regulations of South Africa, it was nice to see that the country's most famous son could still give a concert where members of the audience just wandered onto the stage to have a word with him and adoring female fans could come and give him a hug between songs.

With these two inside, it certainly will be.

The new James Brown?

We eventually headed home and, at 5am, we retreated to the tent. It was already in a bit of a rough state after being savaged by monkeys in Kenya but it seemed that at some point during the night it had turned into a cage fighting arena for Bombasos' resident dogs and lay prostrate in a rather sorry state with two dogs on top and one inside. Hence, we spent the night on sofas in the lounge and celebrated the next day by doing very little and ordering delivery pizzas, playing Rummikub and so on and so forth.

It was time to leave. After 3 months in South Africa, we expected any escape to have a far more « African » feel, and so Swaziland kind of fitted the bill. It not only had a slightly more rural feel than much of South Africa that we'd been to but also, thankfully, the issue of skin colour was not as all-encompassing here as we'd had it since May. There are a fair amount of white Swazis too, but I suppose that the historical lack of total and complete animosity that Swaziland's larger neighbour went through has contributed to the fact that white kids like us can interact with black Swazis without a second thought, which isn't quite as easy in South Africa. The prime indicator of us being back in « Africa » was at the bus station as we prepared to trek out of Swaziland. We'd decided to go out of the northern border as we were told in Bombasos that it may be easier to get a new 3 month visa there than at the main border in the west. This would require a trip up to Pigg's Peak and a change of transport there to the border post at Matsamo. As we were deciding whether to take the waiting bus or the waiting minibus, a woman walked out of the big bus. « You are better off taking the bus rather than the minibus », she said. « The minibus only leaves when it is full, but the bus leaves according to the clock ». Great, we said, and enquired as to what time the bus would leave. « Ah... » she smiled. « I don't know. » God Bless Africa!