The sky pales above the rolling, stone-strewn hills, revealing successive blue ranges disappearing off into the distance outside our window. Another day on the road.

We drive to pick up Thabo and Sifiso, our Swazi team-mates. We meet at a petrol station where we find stacks of the ‘Swazi Observer’ – all with a large, colour picture of the World Harmony Run at Ekwetsembeni Special School on the front page, and an article and photo on page 13. We later discover an extensive article in the ‘Times of Swaziland’ as well.

Bouyed, we head on to Swaziland’s second city – Manzini.

Our first stop is St Paul’s Primary School where we get our first taste of the singing that will so characterise the day and will so lift our spirits. “I am a winner,” the whole school sings, 950 voices in rousing chorus, “I am a winner in Christ my Lord.”

The students file past the torch, an orderly flicker of figures on the porch of the school building, each one touching the torch and offering his or her goodwill and prayers for harmony and peace. Some touch the torch and at the same time touch their arm with their other hand in the gesture of respect we have come to recognize in southern Africa.

One teacher lightheartedly questions the team’s lack of ‘gender equality’. Leon invites her to join the team to balance things up!

From here we run down the dirt road to Manzini Practising School. Here Abhijatri presents the message of the World Harmony Run. One of the teachers translates what she judges to be his strange version of the English language!

Here the school regales us with a second rousing round of ‘I am a winner’, the overlapping layers of sound swirling around the dusty school yard before – a highlight of the day – the singing of ‘Someday we will be walking to the promised land. Walking with Jesus . . . we be jumping . . . we be shouting . . .” all with appropriate actions.

Thabo leads a run with the torch around the dusty field – a riotous group of children at his heels.

From Manzini Practising School the team runs as a group through the central streets of Manzini. We hand out our distinctive yellow fliers with information about the run to those we pass on the busy streets.

Our run brings us, hot and tired, to St Theresa’s School.

All the team concur afterwards in seeing this school as one of the highlights of the World Harmony Run in southern Africa. We run in with the school singing, as only Swazi can, ‘O my Lord, I just want you to know I’m delighted in doing good.’ The song lifts us up on wings of joy; the pupils, the teachers, the runners all filled with delight; the multi-layered voices rising up in syncopated crescendo as the girls of St Theresa’s sway and sing and beam as one.

Ondrej makes the presentation to the attentive girls. When he asks them to call out as loudly as possible the motto of the World Harmony Run – harmony begins with me – (something that usually takes about three attempts before a level is reached that can be deemed sufficiently loud) – such the enthusiasm and volume of the students that their first thunderous cry exceeds all other school’s best efforts.

Each of the teachers comes forward to hold the torch in what seems a slow and reverent dance. When it is time for all the girls to hold the torch, the momentary chaos resolves itself into all the pupils forming a huge circle around the school yard where they stand, not silent and still to await the torch, but singing and dancing; this dusty square of cracked concrete uplifted with joy - song rising up from here to delight God Himself.

Many of the girls at this school - as, so sadly, with many schools in southern Africa - are orphans, their families lost to them from the ravages of AIDS which has touched this country so severely and with such profound results. But still they are - 'dancing to the promised land' and 'delighted in doing good'.

We run from St Theresa's down to our next school - Salesian Primary. Here we are met by the honourable mayor of Manzini - his Lordship Owen Nxumalo, deputy mayor Khanyisile Mamba and 1300 young students seated on bleachers alongside a dusty field.

The mayor, an ex-pupil of the school, addresses the school and runners saying that the team would not have done justice to its mission without stopping in Manzini. He goes on to quote Mswati III, king of Swaziland - "the greatest gift you can give me is . . . peace."

The deputy mayor sings a song ('I feel joy peace and happiness in my soul'). The children sing and the Mayor dances. The school sings the national anthem of Swaziland. The Mayor and the principal of the school run with the torch.

All the children hold the torch and the team runs on from this our last school in Swaziland - a Swaziland all the team have come to love.

We stop off at Channel S - a Swazi television station - to drop off John's video of the ceremony at Salesian school with the mayor, for use on the evening television news. While there, the team meets up with Khuli Dlamini , who is at that time presenting, Music Mix, a live programme aimed at the young people of Swaziland. He invites the Harmony Run team onto the show. A number of interviews with team members and the singing of the World Harmony Run song by the team are beamed out live to the audience all over Swaziland.

With great gratitude we drop off our friends Thabo and Sifiso and head for the border post, our time in Swaziland already done but with many memories of delight to carry with us, and the spirit of Harmony Run to leave behind in this so-warm-hearted kingdom.

– Barney

Team Members:
Balarka Robinson (South Africa), Ondrej Vesely (Czech Republic), John Marshall (New Zealand), Barney McBryde (New Zealand), Chris Daly (New Zealand), Adhirata Keefe (USA), Richard Pedley (UK), Stavros Polykarpou (RSA/Cyprus), Shree Chirkoot (RSA), Leon Subramoney (RSA), Robert Senovsky (Czech Republic), Abhijatri Robinson (RSA)

Gallery: See more images!