The first days in Swaziland we took part in the daily life at the orphanage, learning how Borgny coped with everything. We also had some time to explore Swaziland in more detail than during the tour with Drifters. Eventually we visited Mbabane to obtain visas for Mozambique and drove to Hlane Game Reserve near the border to spend the night. We stayed in a nice big house near a water hole and saw lots of animals coming to drink in the evening.

Day 25 - July 21

We got up at 0730, and after the morning routine we went over to Borgny's house to eat breakfast. During the night it must have gotten pretty cold outside, but Borgny had made a fire in the fireplace so it was warm and cosy inside. It was nice to eat a Norwegian style breakfast again. After breakfast we all drove into Nhlangano to get some supplies and have a closer look at the town.

Before entering the town itself, we drove by the King Sobhuza II Memorial football stadium to take a look at it. Despite the impressive name, its appearance was not very spectacular! Although I hadn't expected much in the first place, I was a bit disappointed. The area was very shabby and almost without facilities for the spectators.

Then we drove through town center to make a short visit to Borgny's Danish friend, Gunnar Jørgensen. He had been sorting out the details for our visit to Mozambique, and told us that all formalities had been taken care of, except for the visas which we would have to obtain in Mbabane. We would do this early in the day on the 23rd and then head towards Mozambique afterwards.

After saying goodbye to him, we finally went in to the center of Nhlangano. We parked our car and strolled around the shops in and around the Nhlangano Mall. What surprised us the most was the enormous amount of stores selling clothes, shoes or furniture. They seemed to be everywhere, so the Swazis shouldn't be in lack of any of these things, provided they had the money to buy them. According to May Tina, though, the Swazis seemed to have no idea on how to match clothes of various colours. There were certainly many colourful outfits here in Swaziland! Also, they were apparently not quite up to date on fashion, judging by Western standards.

After browsing in the many of the shops we visited a grocery store to get supplies for the orphanage. The store seemed to be selling out and closing down as it was looking rather empty. We certainly helped them get rid of their bread, as Borgny must have bought at least 30 of them, an amount which she estimated would last for only a few days.

On our way back to Borgny's place, we stopped to look at the Nhlangano Sun Hotel and Casino which was located right at the point where the tarred road ended, and one had to switch to the dusty forest road. According to Borgny this was a very good (and expensive) hotel, which they sometimes used for celebrating very special occasions. It certainly did look very nice both inside and outside.

We were back at Borgny's around 1130 and we then relaxed for an hour before eating lunch (or rather dinner) at 1230. We had a typical Norwegian meal of meatballs and mashed potatoes, and it was very good!

Since Borgny had all this nice electronic equipment, we decided to look at some of the video we had filmed so far. Some of the kids also came and watched with interest. I have to say that most of the recordings had turned out pretty well, although some editing certainly needed to be done once we got back home.

Later in the day Borgny gave us a guided tour of the orphanage and the local elementary and high school. Apparently there is a school fee of approximately 350R each year, which I guess must be quite a lot for some of the people in this country. Anyway, some of the classrooms looked quite normal. However, Borgny said that the teachers often used very outdated pedagogical methods, like beating the children up when they made mistakes. She also told us that last year only 2 out of 30 kids in the high school had passed their exams, which seems to indicate that the standard of teaching was not very high!

We were all preparing for a quiet evening when suddenly plans changed abruptly, as around 1645 there was a huge crisis. One of the kids who lived with Borgny had been visiting his mother near Mbabane and he was supposed to come back on the bus this afternoon. This kid, who everyone called "Boy-Boy", was a dyslectic, but was usually quite capable of getting on the right bus. However, today he had for some reason gotten on the wrong bus and ended up in Manzini instead of Nhlangano! He used his last coins to phone Borgny and tell her that he was stuck in Manzini and didn't have any money to get any further. She told him to wait outside Spar, preferable near a security guard because that should be reasonably safe, and we would come and pick him up.

It's about 120 km from Borgny's to Manzini, so it would be a long drive. We would have loved to help, but none of us had a driver's license, so Borgny got hold of one the youths from the orphanaga called Matagosa. He had a driver's license so he could drive us all up there. The crime rate is pretty bad in Swaziland, so Borgny was visibly worried about the safety of "Boy-Boy" during our drive towards Manzini. Everything went well, though, as we spotted "Boy-Boy" almost at once, even though he was not waiting outside Spar like he was supposed to. In any case, everybody was relieved that everything had gone so well.

We went into Spar to buy some snacks and drinks, which we ate in the car before heading home. When we were almost back, just after we had passed Nhlangano and come onto the last dust road, our car was overtaken by a police car at high speed. We didn't take much notice of it at that moment, but ten minutes later we spotted the same police car right parked outside Borgny's house! What could have happened here while we were away?

The problem turned out to be a mysterious car which had parked right outside the gate. It had been there for a couple of hours and the owner was nowhere to be seen. There are no other houses nearby, so the driver couldn't be visiting someone else either. The people working at the orphanage had been worried and had notified the police just to be on the safe side.

This might seem a bit paranoid, but remember that this is Africa. When living in an area far away from other people you are very vulnerable, so it was better to be safe than sorry. Borgny had been the victim of several break-ins to her property. The policemen wrote down the car number and told us to get in touch if there were any further developments.

The time was now around 2000. We hadn't eaten proper food since noon, so it was great to have an afternoon meal now. During the evening, Borgny told us about the last time someone had broken into her house. Those guys had obviously done their homework because they first had cut the phone line and disabled the burglary alarm. Then, in the middle of the night, she had been woken up by two guys inside her bedroom, both wearing masks to cover their faces. One of them was carrying a large iron bar, and his first comment had been "Do you see this thing here? I'm gonna beat you up with it..."

Fortunately, she had not been physically hurt that time, but there is always the danger that something similar could happen again, only with a worse outcome. During her time here, Borgny had experienced several death threats and one time a man had actually hired someone to kill her after she had spoken her opinion about some property issue!! We just got more and more amazed at how well she seemed to be coping with everything!

We both went early to bed around 2130. May Tina lay awake listening for suspicious sounds, but eventually she fell asleep.

Day 26 - July 22

We got up at 0700 and had another Norwegian style breakfast. As soon as we were finished eating, we packed into the car and then we were on our way. Today, Borgny was driving and two of the youths from the orphanage, called Tony and Sabelo, were also coming along with us. The mysterious car was still standing outside the gates when we left.

We followed the same road as yesterday towards Manzini. It is actually quite a nice area, with lots of ups and downs all the time. Some parts of the roads were really steep. An annoying and dangerous thing about driving in Swaziland was all the cattle along and on the road. The speed limit is 120, but most people are doing 130-140. Obviously, it will lead to a dangerous situation if you drive at 140 around a curve and then suddenly discover a bunch of cows in the middle of the road. We couldn't figure out why they couldn't just fence the cattle in, or at least have someone look after them. We would imagine that a cow is worth a lot of money, so it should be in everyone's interest to keep them alive.

After driving past Manzini, we turned off the main road and stopped at a small souvenir store. This shop was obviously aimed at rich tourists because prices were, in our opinion, sky high. We therefore didn't buy anything although they had a lot of nice stuff.

Our next stop was at Swazi Candles, which turned out to be a very special place. Here they were making and selling beautiful candles in all shapes and colours. The variety was amazing, all from regular candles to all kinds off animals in beautiful colours. There was one room with the candles available for sale, while in the next room you could come in and see the workers actually making the candles. Although everything was handmade, they still managed to work really fast! The guys were listening to some really loud music while working, though, and I sort of wonder how they could stand it all day!

The candles were all of course too beautiful to be used for anything other than as decoration. I bought a small turtle candle in blue and white and May Tina also bought several candles. After shopping we all sat outside and enjoyed some icecream.

Next destination was the Mantenga Craft where they were selling more souvenirs. It was just a few kilometers away from Swazi Candles, and on approaching we recognised the place as just outside the Swazi Cultural Village! This was where we had spent our first night in Swaziland, so at least we knew that the area was "veeery safe"...(because the Takalosh was there).

There were several souvenir shops in here and they were not that expensive. I bought another turtle, this one looking like it had been made out of rock. It was very nice. May Tina also bought a lot of things for friends in Norway.

One guy was selling white sculptures of black rhinos and black sculptures of white rhinos! This of course sounds totally ridiculous unless you realize that real black and white rhinos have exactly the same colour! Anyway, these sculptures were really nice but too large to carry around with us, so we didn't buy any of them.

Now we knew that we were only a few minutes away from the huge souvenir market we had visited with Drifters, so we just had to make that our next stop. We didn't really spend much time there, but more than enough for May Tina to finally get hold of the desired wooden giraffes. 100R for two giraffes was quite cheap as well, and they were really cute and not too big.

Next we drove up the steep hills to Mbabane, but didn't stop there and instead drove right through it in the opposite direction of what we had done with Drifters. It was not long before we stopped in a residential area to visit the Mother of "Boy-Boy". She had grown up in Borgny's orphanage and was now doing quite well in life.

This was quite interesting because we'd never really been inside the house of an average Swazi family before. The houses in this area were all quite small and the area looked quite poor, though not as bad as the worst slum in Cape Town. Unfortunately, she was not home at the moment, but one of her children showed us inside to the living room for us to wait for her. They even got us each a glass of coke while we were waiting!

Except for being so small, the house actually looked pretty nice from the inside. The living room was just like a normal living room, although a lot smaller. This was an interesting observation because we had up to now more or less assumed that the inside of these houses would be quite shabby as well, without much furniture etc. It was nice to see that this was not the case.

After we had been waiting for 15 minutes, the woman arrived. She had been to the police together with a friend of her to report that her friends car had been stolen. Her friend told us that the police would come to investigate the case on Sunday (today was thursday)! We really wondered what that "investigation" would be like! I doubt there could be much technical evidence left on Sunday. Maybe they just come and observe: "The car used to be here...Now it is not here anymore...Case closed...?"

Since we were now pretty close to Ngwenya glass, we all decided to go up there and look around. This time we found out that there was a place where we could watch the glass sculptures being made (although you were not allowed to record video or take photographs of it). It was really amazing to see how pieces of broken glass were turned into such beautiful sculptures!

Returning from Ngwenya glass, they wanted us to stay for dinner. Unfortunately, they hadn't started making dinner yet, so we just didn't have time for this. We said goodbye and drove back into Mbabane, stopping only to eat at KFC since we were running quite late. After eating, we just drove straight back to Borgny's place. It was the fourth time we drove between Manzini and Nhlangano so we were really getting to know this road very well now!

On arriving around 1730, we saw that the mysterious car had moved a few meters, but was still standing outside the gate. However, we were informed that it was just standing there because its motor had broken down, so fortunately there was no danger. Some guys had apparently been trying to fix it during the day without much success.

The rest of the evening we just relaxed, updated our diaries and ate an evening meal. Tomorrow we would be heading for Mozambique so we made sure to pack our stuff before going to bed early at 2130.

Day 27 - July 23

We got up at 0630, which was slightly earlier than we had gotten used to over the last few days. After consuming breakfast, we put our stuff into the car and drove off to pick up Gunnar. We arrived at Gunnar's around 0800. On this trip we would use his car since it had a slightly stronger engine than Borgny's, so all our stuff was moved over to Gunnar's car, and we were ready to go. Unfortunately, May Tina was feeling slightly sick today, but there was nothing to do but start the trip.

We drove the now very familiar road between Nhlangano and Manzini and then got onto the new four lane highway towards Mbabane. After once more ascending the steep road up to Mbabane we turned right just before reaching the city center and stopped at the Mozambique embassy. The time was now 1000 and the embassy seemed to have just opened. We were first in line to hand over the passports and visa applications which we had filled out in advance.

The cost for a visa was 85R per person since we wanted it as early as later today. If we had been patient enough to wait a few days it would have been slightly cheaper. Anyway, we were informed that we could pick up our visas at 1400, which left us with a few hours to check out Mbabane.

We drove downtown, parked the car and were ready to explore. It is not a big city, but the main streets were certainly very busy. The first thing we did was to visit a travel agency to reconfirm our flight return tickets to Norway. I really don't see the point of this reconfirmation thing. If we have bought a ticket, we of course want to use it! As far as we can see, this arrangement only creates a lot of unnecessary work for the airlines. Apparently, quite a few airlines have therefore stopped this nonsense, but knowing the competence of the Lufthansa organisation we were not surprised to learn that Lufthansa still required reconfirmation for its tickets.

Anyway, the woman at the travel agency was very friendly and efficient, so the whole thing was sorted in less than one minute. We walked down to the area by the mall and the Swazi Plaza. There was both a bus station and minibus taxi station here, and the area was quite crowded with people.

We were a bit short on cash at the moment, so we decided to look for an ATM machine to make a withdrawal. This wasn't as easy as first expected. After trying two machines which didn't accept neither VISA nor Mastercard, we found an ATM that apparently was supposed to work with our cards, except that it was out of order at the time. A guy who was standing there waiting told us that the machine was out of cash and that the bank was filling it up right now. We waited for a while without anything happening, so we decided to leave and come back later. We sat down at a fastfood restaurant called Steers to get something to drink and relax a little bit.

When we came back the machine seemed to be working, except that it wouldn't accept my Mastercard. However, my Cirrus card (Postbanken) worked just fine so we finally got our money. An interesting thing was that the bank seemed to have two ATM machines, one for the local people giving out Emilangeni (Swazi money), while the other paid out mostly in Rands.

We then browsed around inside the mall, which looked just like a regular mall any other place in the Western world. I was quite surprised how modern the center of Mbabane seemed to be. I became even more surprised when we suddenly stumbled upon an Internet Cafe inside the mall! We had never expected to find such a cafe in Swaziland, so we really seemed to have underestimated the country! This seemed like the perfect time to send a few more e-mails so we went inside and were assigned a computer. The cafe wasn't very big, only around four computers, most of them busy at the moment. However, it was very cheap at only 10R for half an hour.

Once again it was great to read new e-mails from back home. I sent out some messages telling the latest news of our trip before logging out at 1245. After some final purchases at the mall, we had all the stuff we could possibly need for the rest of the trip.

For simplicity we all had yet another meal at KFC before driving up to the Mozambique embassy to collect our visas. We sat in the car while Gunnar was waiting in line outside the gate. The embassy was supposed to open at 1400, but apparently they were having an extended lunch break because as time approached 1445 the gate was still closed and we could see no sign of any activity inside.

Finally, some guy came out and announced that they would open in about an hour! However, then he smiled and everyone realised that he had been joking as he proceeded to open the gate. Once inside, Gunnar quickly collected our passport with the visas inside.

We now headed back towards Manzini but instead of turning south towards Nhlangano we proceeded eastwards through the city, not stopping until we reached the Hlane Game Reserve.

We were now only about 20km from the Mozambique border at a place called Ndlovu camp where we would spend the night. After checking in we were shown to our accommodation which was a large house with four bedrooms. It was real luxury! Further, the house was located very close to a water hole. The sun was about to set and lots of animals were now gathering around to drink. It was just incredible to watch them so closely! There were several rhinos, waterbuck, impala, ostriches and warthogs amongst other things. We stood watching them until it finally became too dark to see anything.

We started making dinner around 1830 and it wasn't finished before 2000. Once again we had a braai, but this wasn't just any braaii, it was in my opinion the best braai ever! (Sorry Kurt!). The meat was just perfect and we had brought salad and potato salad with us, making it a perfect meal.

It had been some weeks since we had been in the wilderness, and I have to say it was great to be back to only being surrounded by the wild African bush! We sat there relaxing until around 2200 when we all went to bed.