Teen Club

This weekend I volunteered at Teen Club, which is organized via Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative.  The club is set up for HIV positive youth, ranging from about 8 to 18.  Although, in Swaziland they all look much younger as they are so small due to the high level of malnutrition. It was amazing to be involved, they meet monthly and run a series of workshops on different themes, which vary from helping the teens understand what HIV is, why their medicine is important, things around disclosure of their status (there is still a lot of stigma in Swaziland about being HIV+ even though one in four people are).  This weekend it was about dealing with stress, there were three different workshops which they participate in each lead by a Swazi teen leader who themselves participated in teen club.  In one workshop they discussed what kinds of things may help them deal with stress or increase stress levels and thought about what they could do to increase the things that decreased stress.  In another workshop they tried out different methods to reduce stress such as breathing techniques and meditation techniques.    Then they end each club meeting with a singing along to a song by R Kelly called ‘I am the world’s greatest’ complete with actions to go along with it, it is very sweet.  I will definitely going to try and help out at some more of the meetings…. And hopefully get some photos!

Umhlanga / Reed Dance

I am a little behind myself, but a couple of weeks ago, was the Umhlanga Festival (or the Reed Dance), this is a festival for all the kingdom’s maidens (women who are less than 21 and haven’t had any children).  It goes on for about 4 days, starting on a Thursday, with all the maidens who want to participate being transported to the festival location near the royal enclave in the back of open trucks, which is a bit of an odd sight in the first place.  On the Friday the maidens are told where they are to collect reeds, they aim to collect the longest reeds they can.  The Saturday is a day of preparation and then on Sunday all the maidens present their reeds to the Queen Mother.  This is accompanied by a lot of singing and dancing. The reeds will then be used to repair the royal enclave.  The culmination of the festival is on the Monday when all the maidens dance for the king.

It is quite an impressive sight, all the maidens sing and dance in groups with other girls in their community.  They move around the stadium field singing and dancing.   They are all singing different songs at the same time, so it is quite a cacophony of different sounds and sights.  They all were different forms of colourful traditional wear.  Later in the afternoon the King arrives with his warriors also in traditional dress and after they have watched the dancing for some time they go down into the field to dance and inspect all the maidens and if the king wants he can pick a new wife…. to add to the 13 he currently has!

 The King and his warriors inspecting the maidens