Heading on Safari

We were picked up on Monday morning by Sifiso, who was our tour guide for the coming week. We headed across the border into South Africa and stopped to tour the Sudwala Caves, which were interesting as they were made from dolomite and the magnesium oxide in the caves caused the walls to be black. We then drove to the Bridal Veil Falls to check out the waterfall. From there we drove to the Sabie River Bush Camp and were amazed at the location of our accommodations! We had a small house-like building with a great deck overlooking a river with Kruger National Park on the other side. It was drizzling and the sun was going down, but we sat out on the deck and played Monopoly Deal and read while keeping a watchful eye out for wildlife. Mom spotted a hippo in the river and we were all excited about that!

This cave has an actual amphitheater and our guide asked for a concert

Very old formations

The spelunkers

Cave wonders

Bridal Veil Falls - It's a huge drop

A little hippo action just outside our porch

We then headed to an outside dinner up in a covered treehouse-type of room and enjoyed learning about life in Swaziland from our guide who shared with us about marriage customs.

We learned about the courting/dating, engagement and marriage traditions of the Swazis. To meet the parents of someone one is dating is to show that you are interested in making a commitment to that person, so often one does not meet his or her in-laws until they are ready for marriage. For our guide, it was after roughly three years of dating his now-wife, before he met his father-in-law. After meeting him and later proposing to his wife, he sent friends to his father-in-law to establish what the dowry would be. The dowry is typically best paid in cattle as if it is in money, it will be spent too quickly, and the family will soon forget the gift given by the soon-to-be son-in-law. Even families that live in the city usually have a farmstead somewhere, so they will benefit from the gift of cattle as well. It is average to give the brides father 17 cows. Each cow costs an average of $400-500 (US dollars)! Keep in mind that it is extremely difficult to find a job in Swaziland, and that a decent paying job provides roughly 2000 Swazi/month (current rate is 16 to $1 USD but that about 1/3 of what it was 5 years ago) .

The son-in-law does his best to meet the dowry demand and as long as it’s evident that he’s tried, the rest can be “paid” at a later date. The wedding begins on a Friday night at midnight when the groom and his family and friends call upon the brides father’s home. The bride’s father is well aware that they will be calling on this night but make a game of causing them to wait awhile before they are allowed in. This is the Ceremony of the Cows, when the groom then presents the cattle to his father-in-law. The groom and his party are then shown a home in which they will spend the night (his party can consist of 40 or more people).

After a few hours of rest, the groom and his party are given a goat to slaughter for breakfast. A gift of alcohol is also presented, even though true Christian families do not drink alcohol here, the elders consume it for the family. Then two of the cattle given by the groom are slaughtered – one for the bride’s family and one for the groom’s family. Each family takes half of their slaughtered cow and gives it to the other family to show that there is good will and unity. Then they all celebrate. Afterwards the groom can take his bride.

This is the cultural and traditional marriage ceremony. If the couple is Christian, then they will later have what they call a “white wedding” in the eyes of the church. This is where the bride wears a white wedding dress and a pastor officiates.

We later learned that if a man has met the woman’s parents, therefore signifying that he is serious about this relationship, and one day he just decides that he would like to be married now, he can ask the woman to come and spend the night with him. In today’s culture, the woman has every right to accept or decline him. Declining means they would then proceed with the above rituals for marriage. However, if she accepts his request, she will go and spend the night with him. But between 1am and 3am, the women in this man’s family (sisters, mother, aunts, grandmas, etc) will come and get the woman from his bed, bring clothes to dress her in, and make her go to an area of town that is considered to be a pit. They will shove her into this and spend roughly two hours screaming and berating her, causing her to cry. Then at dawn, she will return to the man and they are now considered married and she will live with him from then on. This way of going about marriage does not allow the man to escape buying cows for his wife’s dad, just in case you were wondering. This whole concept was especially hard for mom to wrap her mind around why any woman would want to forgo a wedding for this type of shameful experience and for this to be a woman’s introduction to the women of her husbands family! Additionally the whole thing sounded so bizarre that we did later "confirm" the story with some others who verified it is indeed true.

After our meal we returned to our accommodation for a great night of rest before we embarked on our family safari. Our accommodations were so much nicer than what we have grown accustomed to, we wished we had two nights at this place. Mom really hoped to spot zebras and giraffes, Our oldest was hoping to see a cheetah, elephant, lion and large variety of animals. Our middle son was hoping to find an elephant, lion, and cheetah or leopard. Our youngest son was hoping to spot an elephant, hippo, lion pride eating, warthog, zebra, cheetah, leopard, rhino, and some exotic new animal. SJ wasn’t sure what was happening, and Dad had been on a safari before and was just happy to be have the opportunity to do a safari as a family.