Dear Mrs. Rennebohm Franz's Class,

Thank you for your wonderful letter full of questions about Swaziland. I will be happy to tell you about this beautiful country and its kind and loving people.

I am very surprised that it only took Ms. McLane 2 days to bicycle across Swaziland. I saw roads with rocks, holes, and sometimes even snakes crossing them. I once saw a blue-green monitor lizard crossing the road, too. The lizard was about as long as you are tall. Fun!

Sometimes during the rainy season, you cannot use certain roads because the river floods across the road and cars, buses, bicycles, and people cannot cross the roaring river. Usually the roads can be used again after two or three days. People just have to learn to be patient and relax while the rivers go down.

I think a car can go across Swaziland in 3 hours because it can go much faster than a bicycle. Also, a bicycle slows down a lot when it goes up hills, but a strong car can keep going fast on hills.

Swaziland looks a lot like parts of the middle of California. There are hills, rovers, and places where there are lots of round mud huts with thatched roofs surrounded by corn fields. There are lots of cornfields because it is the most important food that Swazi people eat.

A lot of sugar cane grows in Swaziland and there are some timber and citrus fruit plantations too.

Swazis usually eat corn mush for breakfast and they eat it again for dinner, sometimes with greens on top or on a very special occasion, a piece of chicken. For a wedding, they might cook a cow or goat for all their friends to eat.

Swaziland has frost once in a great while but mostly it is cool up in the mountains and very hot everywhere else. I'm not sure about the average temperature but it must be like Pullman's warmest days. I have never seen snow in Swaziland and I lived there for two years.

In Swaziland, people speak siSwati. I can speak some and will be happy to do so if you would like me to do so. Swazi people can usually understand Zulu and Swahili languages too. People who have gone to school can speak English too.

I saw the King of Swaziland once. He was a very old, distinguished gentleman. He smiled and waved at me when I bowed. I still remember his beautiful clothes made of leopard skins and the bright red Lourie bird feathers in his hair. People loved King Sabhusa because they though of him as the father of their country much like George Washington was the father of our country. King Sabhusa died after I left Swaziland and one of his many sons became the next king.

Take care, young scholars. I will be happy to tell you more about Swaziland and the water problems there if you ask me to come and visit.

From, Mage Magagula (my Swazi name)

Mrs. Lancefield