I spent much of my time the first couple of weeks in Mbanane getting various documents stamped. Show my passport at the airport. Stamp! Submit an application for a work permit. Stamp! Register a Swazi company. Stamp! Open a corporate bank account. Stamp! Stamp! Stamp!Swazis seem to like stamps - stamping documents, inspecting stamps, sharing stamped documents with other Swazis, looking at unstamped documents and shaking their heads back and forth, etc. Nothing could get done unless the supporting documentation was stamped. The annoying thing was that there often seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to why something needed a stamp to be processed. The trick seemed to be more about locating who held the stamp that you needed and how you could find them than producing anything particular about the application you were pushing through.
After some frustrating times getting various things stamped (and some fleeting moments of pure satisfaction upon getting things stamped) I decided to get my own stamp made. It's beautiful, round, and self-inking, and extremely satisfying to pound down onto a document or a note.
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