Things I miss from home (a moment of self-indulgence)

1. Bourke St Bakery fig sourdough, proper milk, sushi, really good coffee, Ocello cheeses and Thai food.

2. I miss the sea and the harbour. I miss the smell of the ocean all through Sydney.

3. Efficient and functioning office equipment – computers, printers, internal networks, internet connections. Access to LexisNexis and HeinOnline for research. You don’t realise how smoothly everything just works in a place like Mallesons till you go somewhere where it really doesn’t.

4. Walking down the street and being completely anonymous and unspectacular. Being able to be private in public.

5. Walking down the street and not having to scan other people constantly for unusual and potentially threatening behaviour.

6. Walking about at night time altogether.

7. I miss picking up a phone and calling one of my friends or my Mum or my Dad or one of my siblings if I want to, just to hear what’s happening. I miss my sisters, I miss my brothers, I miss big family dinners with the whole family and I missed my little brother’s 18^th birthday party.

Random excellent things about Swaziland # 732

Stopping by the Mbabane Pick'n'Pay for some routine grocery shopping, discover they're selling fresh honey direct from the hive, deliciously oozing out of the honeycomb. Yum.... that's going on top of my porridge tomorrow morning.

The best weekend ever had in Swaziland

Any negative impression of Swaziland created by the description of my first full weekend needs to be (and was) countered quickly. Let me describe to you my second full weekend (May 21/22), which was – till lately! – the best weekend ever had in Swaziland. (This weekend just past seriously rivals it; I really need to get up to date with my blog entries!)

And let me show you a picture or two of a second Eden.

This is Malandela’s, which is where the famous music and theatre venue House on Fire is located. I first visited the week before Bushfire, an annual African music festival. It is impossible to convey the beauty and the peace of this place. It is sacred soil, holy, there is no other way to describe it.

When you come to Swaziland (you must come, really you must), stay at the bed and breakfast here in the Malkerns. If I weren’t working all the way in Mbabane – and if I weren’t on a volunteer’s non-existent income – I’d be living here.

Friday

The best weekend Swaziland has ever produced began inauspiciously.

Would the Real Africa please stand up

The other day, I was in a combi with six young McKinsey employees all currently based in Jo’burg. They were in Swaziland on a weekend trip, and we were all on our way to the Great River Usutu for some white water rafting.

One was South African, another was Zimbabwean, a third was Danish Canadian, a fourth was Kenyan, a fifth was American and the sixth was from Holland. (I was pleased to add one Australian to the multicultural mix.)

Brian was the Kenyan. Among his (no doubt numerous) claims to fame is that he was a childhood advertising star in Kenya, most famous for singing a jingle about sunflower seed oil.

In which Rebecca is taught a few (economic) home truths

This post is about some unpleasant lessons I learned during my first full weekend in Swaziland (almost four weeks ago now) - in summary, that the poverty line is a barrier more brutal than the Berlin Wall, and that I really shouldn't go walking about by myself at dusk...

And now for something completely frivolous (a hairy interlude)

I’ve noticed that very few Swazi men have facial hair, but hordes of expat white men do. It is very odd.

I have a few working theories on this.

Self-selection for Africa

My first theory is that most white men who feel the call of Africa have a secret longing to be bearded.

One for the lawyers…

Help. Seriously, help.

Constitutional law nuts, human rights specialists, property law experts, and especially you devil’s advocates, I need you.

I have till Monday morning to identify, research, prepare and turn into an Amicus brief the legal argument that will save 80 families from eviction and establish a broad constitutional limitation on the power of governments and private landowners to evict residents. The Swaziland Constitution was passed in 2005, and most of its provisions have never been litigated. It contains a Bill of Rights which is mostly comparative to South Africa’s but also includes some completely different language – which, once again, has never been litigated. In constitutional law terms, we are in green fields.