Cows

Today I had a very interesting discussion in the car about Swazi men and the difficulties that there are with Swazi men.

It started when there were cows on the road, and my colleague brought up the fact that this is a serious offence. This triggered a whole discussion about cows and wives and Swazi men.

It costs about 2500 rand for a cow. That's about 5 months wages for a sugar plantation worker or a worker in a Chinese factory. To get married to an average Swazi girl, it costs ten cows. To a particularly beautiful one - fifteen cows. To a virgin - twenty five cows. To a princess - fifty cows.

This led on to a discussion about whether all that expectation and hard work led to problems if there were difficulties in the marriage, like she didn't like him or something. He said that yes there were some cases when the man got angry that things were not as he imagined. THEN we got talking about what happens if there is no child. In this case the man who has paid good cows and then finds himself with a substandard wife, visits her parents who will be instructed to find him one who will produce. Maybe some small girl. We got talking about culture and how this was shocking to me. It was all very interesting, and shocking and brings home to me how cultural the word normal is. It's all normal Swaziland.