SAN DIEGO — Many of you might have no idea about or have ever heard of “Swaziland.” One of the reasons is because King Mswati III, one of five remaining absolute monarchs in the world, arbitrarily renamed the tiny (1.1 million) landlocked African nation in 2018 to “eSwatini.” My story will refer to the name Swaziland which is what the nation was called when my wife Carole and I visited there as part of a tour in 2005.
Before the tour began we had no idea that such a country existed. Same thing happened to me in 2018 on a cruise of the Indian Ocean when the ship dropped anchor in Mozambique. I had no idea it was an independent country. I used to think I was quite a student of geography until those two humbling experiences.
Swaziland abuts South Africa’s northern border and Mozambique to its west. The country is exceedingly impoverished, with at least 30% of the population below the poverty line. Income comes from farming and tourism. It had one of the highest AIDS infections in the world(26%) The average life span of a male is 54, and women 60.
The education level while improving still suffers greatly from inadequate teachers, facilities and curriculum. As an aside, Chris Mathews of Hard Ball television fame’s first job after college was as a Peace Corps volunteer assigned to Swaziland.
King Mswati III who succeeded his has father in 1968 [Correction 1986]as absolute ruler currently has 15 wives. His father had at least 70 wives and 500 children.
We stayed overnight at the upscale Hotel Orion in the community of Piggs Peak. After checking in, and dinner at the hotel restaurant, we strolled into the lobby. Sitting on the floor in an alcove was a young man with several nicely wood carved figures of animals. Curious I picked up and examined a few of them. Pasted on the bottom were tags showing how many hours it had taken him to carve each piece. A small simple elephant caught my eye. It had taken 32 hours to carve. I remarked how lovely I thought the piece was, but asked if he was aware of the small inexpensive hand held Dremel electric Motor tool which I had used for years in my carving, sanding and polishing work? He reached into his back pocket and pulled out an old Dremel catalogue and replied,”yes I am, but they are not available in my country and I can’t afford to buy one.” Impulsively I said, “I will send you one when I get back home.” What’s your name and address? And that’s how I became introduced to Pius Mthupha of Piggs Peak, Swaziland.
When I arrived back home I phoned the Dremel Co. in Mt. Prospect Illinois, explained the situation and asked them if they would be willing to donate and ship one one of their power tools to Pius. I would see to it that they got public recognition for their generosity. Without hesitation they agreed, but said that because of the internal workings of the corporation they could not ship it direct, but would send it to me to forward on which they did.
I contacted the post office to find how to ship it, but was surprised that they could not send mail there. Then I contacted DHL the international air freight company who wanted $275. I thought that amount ludicrous for a tool that retailed for around $60.00. So I contacted a freight forwarding co. that sends freight by ship. I was aware that this would take a couple of months, but would be substantially cheaper. However there was an embargo on shipping any freight to Africa at that time because of huge theft at the arrival ports. Now what?
In desperation I called the Swaziland Embassy in Washington DC, spoke to the #2 ranking official, explained the dilemma, and asked if he had any suggestions or could help. “Yes,” he said, “I take a diplomatic pouch to my country every month. I could carry it in the pouch and have it delivered to Pius.” “That would be terrific sir,” I excitedly exclaimed.” There’s only one caveat, can a photo and story in the local newspaper be taken showing the tool being handed to Pius mentioning the Dremel Co. as the donator.” “Sure,” he said. The photo and accompanying correspondence as part of this story is testimony … but that’s not the end of the story.
Pius and I had some email exchanges via his sister’s computer. He quickly put the tool to work, and after some time he wore out the carving tools in the set and the replaceable carbon brushes that are an essential part of the electrical flow of the motor. It just so happened that a dear Coronado friend of Carole and myself, Sybil Koven, was so excited by our description of the tour, that she decided to take the same tour we had. I bought lots of carbide carving tools and many sets of brushes(each 1/2”x 1”) which I handed to her. She put them in her bag and safely handed them to Pius.
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Ira Spector is a freelance writer based in San Diego.
Typo error thanks for finding it. I see that you capitalized the E. Originally the king used a lower case e in the spelling. I’m not sure if he changed it to upper case or journalists did.
King Mswati III succeeded his father in 1986…not 1968. 1968 is the year Eswatini/ Swaziland got her independence from the British. Otherwise thank you very much for sharing your experiences in Eswatini.