I hadn’t even known where the country was, but David had been able to tell me and now, all these years later, I was looking forward to being able to show him and Margaret around. I had spent two or three weekends in Swaziland and I loved the atmosphere of the place.
It seemed to be only in Swaziland that one could get to know educated Africans. I had known none in England and came into contact with only working class Africans in South Africa. When educated people from different cultural backgrounds get together over a beer, interesting conversations spring up and one finishes up wondering what all this racial clap-trap was about in the first place.
What I learned in Swaziland enabled me to settle later into the totally colour-blind society of Botswana with no trouble at all.
But Swaziland is also a beautiful country and I wanted David and Margaret to see as much of it as possible. We stayed at a hotel in the middle of the world’s second-largest man-made forest, the Usustu. We were lucky with the wind and got no whiffs of the pulping plant at Bunya, so we could enjoy the view of wooded slopes without being forcibly reminded of their commercial origins.
Swaziland is the land of a thousand waterfalls. In 1973 it was also a land of street markets, wayside stalls, local crafts and tribal dancing. Women carried everything on their heads.
The smallest item we saw being thus transported was a box of matches; the largest, a double bed.
However, by the time we got to Swaziland, we had all three seen enough of the inside of the car. I decided that I needed some exercise and I hired a horse. To begin with, I thought it must be the laziest horse in existence, but I found out on the last day that it had merely been schooled in a rather odd manner.
To make it canter, you had to hold your reins in your left hand, grab a chunk of mane with your right, stand in your stirrups, and shout “go” in its left ear. It then went, with or without you.
David and Margaret decided it was time for a rest from travelling and sightseeing, time to walk in the woods, time to relax by the hotel pool and do nothing. So that’s what we did.
One lunchtime we were sitting in the bar when a plane flew over, very low. A few minutes later the pilot arrived, across the patio and through the French windows, on a collapsible motor scooter.
He hadn’t the faintest idea where he was, so had landed on the golf course to ask directions. He left after one drink, muttering something about having to find an excuse to come back.
Sure enough, he was back within an hour, having contrived a breakdown which would put the plane out of action for the rest of the day. We had a whale of a party that night and the star turn was the scooter.
When fully assembled, it stood only two feet high. We rode it round and round the bar, to the accompaniment of gales of Swazi laughter. Across the back of it was a large sign which read ‘I’d rather be flying’.
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