Tens of thousands of Swazi maidens dance for the king

Lobomba, Swaziland/Johannesburg - Undaunted by gale force winds and a thick blanket of smoke, tens of thousands of bare- breasted virgins converged on the royal court of the tiny mountainous kingdom of Swaziland bearing reeds for the queen mother in a colourful annual ceremony. As many as 60,000 maidens were estimated to have registered for this year's Reed Dance, up from around 40,000 in 2007. The dance is one of the high points of the Swazi cultural calendar and an occasion for King Mswati III to select another bride - although Swazis deemed it unlikely he would choose a 14th wife this year. Strong winds fanned wildfires on hills around the Royal Court at Ludzidzini, some 25 kilometres south of the capital Mbabane, coating everything and everyone in dust and smoke. Half marching, half-dancing the girls advanced on the court to bestow on the queen mother the reeds they were sent to cut on a river bank during the week. The reeds are used in the making of huts and fences. They then returned in their 'regiments' to an open-air arena below the royal compound, where the king, clad in a leopard-skin loincloth worn over a wrap skirt and carrying a traditional arrow-shaped axe, was due to dance around them. This year's Reed Dance was abuzz with talk about the lavish '40- 40' bash being held in the capital next weekend to jointly mark the king's 40th birthday earlier this year and the 40th anniversary of Swaziland's independence from Britain. Mswati has been heavily criticized at home and abroad for spending 100 million rand (13 million dollars) on a party many say the country can ill afford. Swaziland, home to about 1 million mostly very poor rural dwellers, is one of the world's most impoverished countries and has the world's highest HIV/AIDS infection rate. Almost half of Swazi women aged between 25 and 29 are infected. More than 1,000 demonstrators, mostly HIV-positive women, took to the streets in Swaziland last week in protest over the party after it emerged that eight of Mswati's wives, with children, maids and bodyguards in tow, treated themselves to a spot of shopping in Dubai for the event. The protest comes amid rising discontent over the lack of political freedom in the absolute monarchy on the eve of elections on September 19 that only parties approved by the king can contest.