Swaziland to Maputo

    We recently arrived in Maputo after driving through the northern portion of Swaziland, another tiny little African country located between Mozambique, and South Africa. The country has a very warm feel, and the people of course could not be nicer. They have a king that is still the reigning figurehead of State (which I believe is the last ((or one of the last)) in the world). He has 11 wives, and a $45 million dollar private jet paid for by the hard-working hands of all the sugar cane fields. Swaziland has the highest HIV infection rate in the world with 40% of its adult population infected (yes, thats 4- 0).

     Ironically the country is very well developed, and seems to be able to export a lot of sugar. When you talk to the people about the king, they tend to lean in and whisper, as no one wants to get heard aloud commenting on the king's ruling and lack of a functioning democracy. 

     We arranged for an afternoon assembly in the village that we ended up staying a few nights in: Tshaneni. We went early one morning the the school to see if I could get a gig playing some music for a class, and Marianne could bust out the art supplies. The principle then replied that the entire school was to attend that afternoon.....400 students plus the faculty. We went back to the room, and Marianne turned an old appliance box into a nice homemade map of the world so that we could talk a little bit about where we came from. I nervously practiced my guitar for my largest gig of all time. When we arrived in the parking lot, the children were all running like a flock of birds from the Alfred Hitchcock movie. A lot of the students clapped there hands and got into the music that the strange skinny white people were making. Then a handful of 7th grade girls did a traditional Swazi dance for us, the lyrics being about how to prevent getting HIV.

       There was one little liquor store in town, that we would stop at for a beer and talk with the owner, Solomon. He would love to suddenly brake into a laugh and say: "Ahhhhhhhh, you like to joke. Ahhhhhhhhh.". One of those people that makes laughing contagious. We made many more friends, learned an African version of the card game "Casino" from our friend "Wonder", and sang old Motown tunes with Alif, our truck driving friend in the guest lodge that we stayed in (very nice, and very cheap as it is the off-season here). We listened to the same 3 songs over and over and over: "Let's get in ON" (Marvin Gaye), "Another Day in Paradise" (Phil Collins), and "I Don't Know Much" (Luther Vandross). The lodge had a a baby pet zebra that like to chew on anything it could find, including plaster doorways and wooden shelfs. Those zebras are so good at keeping their coats clean. 

     The drive through the Mozambique border post was so beautiful. A cols storm front finally passed, the rain stopped and the sun poked out. From the mountains, you could see great vistas of the blue Indian Ocean and the air got heavy, hot, and humid. All of a sudden the vendors had so much more to offer: papayas, bananas, guava, oranges, and every flower you could imagine. It was so much fun to hear Portuguese again, and I slipped right back into an old familiar language. Maputo, the capital, seems like an eternal spring: pastel colors, beautiful people, old white Portuguese buildings with there old world charm, warm ocean breezes, fresh seafood and produce sold right on the cement of the cities streets, colorfully painted fishing boats with homemade sails, and the food a mixture of Indian-Portugeese-African....We should  be here a while, as we have a few meetings for the film project next week, and it is really the only place to get things done in Mozambique.