A Scottish Visitor

My pretty regular visits to Facebook keep me well updated on how warm it is getting over there in England, I can tell that the short shorts have been donned and the shades have been dusted off from a long hibernation. Down here in the Southern Hemisphere things are a little different; Africa is now experiencing winter, and it is not what I expected at ALL. In the early days of this year I scoffed and laughed when the Swazi’s were talking about winter; all their worry about acquiring thick blankets, fires and woollies seemed unnecessary to me as I couldn’t believe for one second that this heated hell-hole could actually cool down. Oh how wrong I was.
Not only does it cool down in Big Bend, the nights are now freezing cold! Okay, maybe not freezing by thermometer standards, but when you’ve been used to ‘low’ temperatures of 20 degrees for 9 months it comes as a shock to the system when temperatures fall to 5 or 7 degrees and you can see your breath as you walk to the bus rank on a morning.

I came to Africa completely unprepared for any cold temperatures as my naivety and ignorance of this diverse and wonderful country led me to believe that it is hot all year round, and that the African people have no idea what it is like to be cold. Talking to the teachers we work with about winter makes me feel guilty for not wanting to get out of my cosy bed on a morning; these women (like many others) sleep snuggled up with their children in tiny breeze block and tin roofed houses to keep warm, they rise at 4:00am to boil water and wash outside in the freezing cold before they and their children prepare for the long walk to school or work at 6:00am... and I used to get cold anxiety when it came to getting out of the shower on a morning before college. Don’t lie; we all get it, ever stood in the shower for a good 5 minutes longer than you need to just because you can’t face opening those doors? Shame on us.

I’ve talked too much and strayed off topic. This post is about Ashley’s best friend Jodie coming to visit!
Jodie visited for about 3 weeks and for that time she came with us every day on project and helped out with the kids; it was like having a 3^rd volunteer! When Jodie arrived it was like Christmas had landed in Ashley’s bedroom at hostel; with a 37kg suitcase she had brought everything but the kitchen sink to Swaziland and probably put some airport workers back out in the process. There was everything in that suitcase; football tops, shoes, toothbrushes, sweets, games, books, clothes, toys and I don’t even know what else! Needless to say Ashley’s class at Injabulo were more than happy when they all tottered off back home wearing brand new football tops and had their mouths full of Tangfastics.

Coincidentally Jodie’s visit and Swaziland’s biggest Arts, Music and Culture festival overlapped; which meant that the 3 of us packed up the minimal amount of clothes, took a tent and a kombi to Manzini and set ourselves of for an International weekend of culture at MTN BUSHFIRE! Bring your fiiiirree!
Bushfire attracts large numbers of people not just from Africa but from every corner of the world; we were camped next to some Spaniards and South Africans, camped opposite some Germans (one of whom we had already met on our Christmas travels!), heard numerous Australian and American accents, met a fair few Brits and even bumped into a topless Scotsman leaving the porta-loo wearing only shorts, a tartan flat cap with the ginger wig inside and the Scottish flag as a cape. As I said, INTERNATIONAL.

Jodie, Ashley and I

The MTN Bushfire festival is held every year at ‘Malandelas - House on Fire’ in Manzini; it boasts the Swaziland Fair Trade Market where independent businesses come from all over Swaziland to sell their wares, and an International Food Market – my favourite place, obviously. You could eat; Portuguese, Chinese, Spanish, English, African anything you wanted, all within 30 seconds walking distance of each other. Safe to say I ended up at the Chinese stall in the early hours of one morning ordering spring rolls back to back with a girl from Joburg, judging by the rate that we were scoffing the scalding hot rolls we were equally as starving as one another. Definitely better than a dodgy kebab, although the English stall didn’t even sell those.

We camped for 2 nights at Bushfire and the acts were fantastic; after being in Swaziland for 9 months we finally understand the African House music, which is just as well because that was the main genre! We felt much more confident about cracking out our African dance moves this time around than we did back in October at the Simunye Fair. 

So we’ve now been introduced to a few new artists in our lives and it has broadened our minds to different kinds of music, great music that hasn’t even reached the UK yet! If you’re interested get yourself onto Youtube and check out these guys; Veranda Panda, Toya Delazy, Jeremy Loops and Euphonik.

Sunday morning saw us dropping Jodie off at the airport and making our way back to Big Bend on a kombi. I was still drunk from the night before, smelly, dirty and lugging around a poorly packed up tent; everyone knew where we had been.

MTN Bushfire... been there, done that, got the t-shirt. No really, I actually did buy a t-shirt.

Always bring your fire.

Kate xx