The highlights of the last weekend in July are that Rick and I visited the Swazi National Cultural Village in nearby Ezulwini (which means “heaven” in Siswati) and our attending a dinner and wine auction.  Since the village is documented on its own page in our website, I will focus here on the latter. 

Our Country Director, Leslie, and her husband, Stuart (who is Scottish and notes that there is no “w” pronounced in his name) drove us to the Malkerns Country Club.  There we met with 2 other Technoserve staffers, Julie with her husband Hogan, and Alla with her date, Tony.  None of us had ever attended a wine auction, never mind one in Africa, so we came with no preconceived notions.  I’ll start by saying that Julie and Hogan were the only native Swazi attending and it made me think I was suddenly back in colonial days. 

We all sampled some nice South African wine before we sat down after 7:00 p.m. for what we thought was dinner.  Lots of hearty conversation, drinking, and smoking abounded in the room.  Then the auctioneer announced, at least to our table’s dismay, that the 100-lot wine auction was to be completed before dinner.  Only the table’s cheese platters, wine, and bread kept our gnawing hunger at bay—and actually Leslie had to go to the kitchen to get more bread after 2 hours.  A few of us at the table did bid, but none won any of the 104 lots sold.  Since the wine was actually marked-up beyond local retail and to our best knowledge was not benefiting any charity, we were actually grateful to be empty-handed.  At 10:15 p.m. a decent dinner of beef, veggies, and potatoes, then dessert (called tipsy cake?) was finally served.  We enjoyed our table-mates’ company and while amused by the evening, all of us would vote to “give it a miss” next year.