Religion is a big deal here. With the exception of a handful of Chinese and Indian migrants, pretty much the entire population is devoutly Christian, of some denomination or another. The particulars of your faith don’t seem to matter too much, so long as you have faith. Christianity in Swaziland is a very broad church, and many good churchgoing Swazis will simultaneously believe in the Resurrection and in muthi (pronounce: moo-tee), which is voodoo or black magic. (It reminds me of a passage in North and South, in which a peasant woman in 1850s England spends Sunday morning in church and Sunday afternoon catching a small animal and skinning it alive as part of a protective spell.)
And there are none of our Western taboos about discussing religion openly – in public, in the workplace, with strangers. On my first Sunday morning in Swaziland, by the time I’d walked from my house to the combi station, I’d been approached by a Zionist, a Rastafarian and a Mormon, all of whom wanted to explain their religion to me and how it was the right way. (The Rastafarians are my favourite; along with having a lovely universalist approach to religion, the communion in Swaziland is exceptionally good.)
I’ve been asked numerous times now by colleagues at work, cashiers in shops, random people in the markets and streets… where do I go to church? do I go to church? am I Christian?
