Napoleon the Safari Legend

Plans to take the kids from Injabulo and Moriah to Hlane Royal Nature Reserve on school trips had been underway for quite some time; and finally the time came and we had two weeks filled of children, nature reserves, wild animals and stress.

Injabulo School Trips

To make things even more difficult on ourselves we decided to do something nice for the kids at Injabulo; I do enjoy doing lovely things for them, it’s just that you have a really great idea and then you realise that you have to repeat that really great idea at least 60 times. So, we hit PEP once again (the shop workers in there are basically our family now) to buy 60 blank t-shirts on which we were going to write ‘Injabulo Preschool’ and ‘Hlane 2013’ – yes, that’s right, PRESCHOOL TOUR T-SHIRTS!
After a full weekend of nothing but writing these exact words on t-shirts over and over again I was so sick of it that I would be happy if I never have to see another t-shirt again in my life... however that would be rather impractical.

Hard work paid off!

Teacher t-shirts ;)

To make everything easier on ourselves we stayed over at Nelsiwe’s house on the Tuesday evening to cook the food and get up early for the first trip on Wednesday! We were up at 6am to dish the food into take away boxes and then it was time for another naked basin wash, squatting in a large plastic tub of water in Nelsiwe’s bedroom... at least this water was hot as it had just been boiled in the kettle, which is more than can be said for the showers in hostel on a morning.
So we pack all of the kids into the hired kombi and head off to Hlane! Hlane is a small nature reserve when you compare it to the likes of Kruger (well, compared to the likes of anything as Swaziland itself is tiny!) but we saw Lions, giraffes, elephants, impala, kudu, nyala and even had our road blocked by a herd of white rhino. One Lion we actually saw lying with a dead impala, so we had obviously just missed a kill! Probably for the best really, some 4 year olds might have walked away slightly traumatised after seeing a Lion murder a small impala in front of their eyes.

Crocodile Class

HLANE 2013!

We also took them to Swazi Secrets where they process the oils from the marula nuts to make beauty products, unfortunately they weren’t doing any production while we were there, but the kids seemed to have fun pushing the crushing machines around and wearing marula lip balm.  

The second Injabulo trip was pretty much the same as the first; apart from the fact that Hlane was so busy with about 4 school trips we had to wait hours for our safari. In the mean time we took the kids down to the reception which was teeming with American tourists and we had them all singing and dancing! Yes, we actively paraded our cute preschoolers in front of tourists for entertainment, but it meant that they weren’t getting up to any mischief and the tourists now have lots of pictures and videos of our awesome kids to show people back home.

'Thishela' - teacher in SiSwati.

Ashley’s Birthday!

Friday 19^th sees Ashley joining the land of 19 year olds! To celebrate we had planned to have a joint preschool party for Ashley and Nelsiwe’s daughter Ciara; what we didn’t realise is that Nelsiwe’s plan was to have the party ‘after’ preschool hours, which she failed to tell us. So we muddled through the day with no other teachers and random people in party dresses and presents turning up around 12 o’clock. Failure in communication and Swazi Time... obviously the day was never going to go as planned. 

In the end it was really great fun and absolutely crazy! Nelsiwe had made enough food to feed all of the kids at preschool, all of her children (who stayed off school for the occasion) and all of the guests she invited. There was also a huge birthday cake for Ashley and Ciara, and after the cutting of the cake and making a wish Ciara nearly took off the face of one of the preschoolers as she started jumping up and down with the gigantic knife still clutched in her destructive little hand. This is the girl who can completely wreck my classroom with her bare hands in 10 minutes, rips up worksheets, chews on laminated resources and sucks on the blades of scissors... she should never ever be given anything weapon-like!

Little devil!

We head to soup kitchen with another huge cake that Ashley bought from Matata Spar to hand out, everyone’s eyes (especially Aunty Vinahs!) light up when they see the massive black forest gateaux and everyone gets a slice. 

Mmmm, licking the box clean.

When we arrive back to hostel the girls have a little birthday surprise for Ashley... they drag her outside armed with ketchup bottles, they absolutely COVER her in it before they take a bucket of cold water and dump it over her head. They then proceed to turn on the tap that is used to fill the pool and drench her past drenched! I’m so glad I was in Botswana on my birthday, these girls are merciless!

Ketchup attack

Water attack

Moriah Centre School Trips

With the small Moriah kombi that we drive we were only able to take one class per day... so that’s 4 classes, add that to our Injabulo trips and we would’ve been to Hlane 6 times in 2 weeks! No. We took opposite days for some light relief from driving around all the time.
On both days that Ashley went to Hlane she returned with photos of the watering hole with elephants, giraffes, hippo, rhino and basically everything else all together drinking in a really African scene. When I went there was either nothing at the watering hole, or a few rhinos. Looks like she had the luckier days!
However we did see a Lion and two Lionesses running through the grass towards our kombi, and when they slowed down the Lion basically brushed himself along the back of the kombi... safe to say I was pretty nervous in the driver’s seat!

Moriah Crocodile Class

Other developments at Hlane with Moriah Centre revealed that Aunty Sphiwe (the other teacher of my class) had the hots for Napoleon our safari guide! I could totally tell that they were flirting in SiSwati and then the next trip I went on she told us that we had to get his number for her... PULLED!

Things are crazy as ever here, but I’m going to miss it when it ends.

Kate xx

P.S. At soup kitchen this week Aunty Vinah’s Mum was wandering around with 3 kittens in a bag begging us to buy them for E5 each. That’s £1 for 3 kittens to you. Unfortunately we couldn’t as we have nowhere to keep them, and I was heartbroken leaving them there... but the great thing is we were talking about it at Sisekelo and one of the sports coaches decided he wanted to buy them!
So the next time we were at soup kitchen we bought 2 of the kittens (the 3^rd apparently disappeared or was eaten or something) and brought them back to hostel for him! They’re called Ashley and Kate. Score. 

N'AAAWWWWW <3

BOTSWANA! “I know it’s video.”

First things first, Botswana is a HUGE country yet it seems there’s not all that much there. Apart from the delta, amazing National Parks and the odd few largish towns the rest appears to be full of sand, donkeys and annoying compulsory road blocks. At these road blocks you have to open out all your possessions, be declared ‘meat free’ and then proceed to dip all of your shoes into a white chemical substance. Something about trying to prevent the spread of foot and mouth... but it’s a right pain in the arse. Plus they confiscated and orange off me, an orange, not very life threatening – they probably just get the munchies and abuse their position of power. :(

Anyway, after a tedious 7 hour journey on a public bus that stopped at every microscopic village and only had 40% of the seats actually attached to the chair frame we arrived in Shakawe. Shakawe is a small village one hour and a 10minute ferry ride away from the boys project, they met us there in a massive pickup truck with Ben the German (another volunteer at their project), and quite severe sunburn. Even though it had been nearly 5 months since we had last seen each other we picked up from exactly where we had left off, basically ripping each other about everything and I just knew that the next 5 days were going to be hilarious and brilliant.
After a hairy drive in the dark to Bana Ba Metsi we were greeted (or rather not greeted) by a group of nervous boys sat in the kitchen and then proceeded to meet Mr Peter Dow the boy’s host and shown to where we would be staying.

Ferry Ride

Unlike Ashley and I the boys live in their own little house; they cook, clean (or not) and braii by themselves and have a shower outside. It really is a lovely little place and you can feel the Project Trust presence from the years of writing on the walls and sticking up letters, messages and photos. Ben lives in a fancy tent set up on a house on stilts on the very edge of the school compound; you can sit on an elevated balcony and watch the sun set over the bush. Ben chivalrously gave up his beautiful home to us for the 5 days to go and sleep with the boys in their house and we had the place to ourselves, also equipped with an outside shower. I have to say, I love taking outside showers, you feel free... however, showering in the early mornings in the freezing cold with cold water isn’t ideal, so best to wait until midday! 

The Sam’s (and Ben) do a really great job on their project, they’re teaching at a primary school level to teenage boys around their own age and from sitting in on them teaching they have a really difficult job with it! Keeping the boys attention and motivating them to do work seems near impossible and they don’t get much appreciation in the classroom from their students. However watching them do manual with the boys is another story – in the afternoons they are split into groups and set physical tasks to do, mainly maintenance and improvement of the school and its facilities. They’re currently making urinals, and they’ve constructed a building complete with a traditional thatched roof, what they’re teaching the boys in invaluable, workmanship skills that will help them later in life and they are undoubtedly learning just as much in return.
They also do sports with the boys at the school; swimming, football, table tennis and volleyball – I sat and watched on a ‘swimming lesson’ and it seems to be 45 minutes of boys throwing each other into the pool and wrestling in the water, but they seem to have fun and that’s what it’s all about.

Bana Ba Metsi school is also well known in Botswana for its marimba band, they travel to Maun and Gaborone (the capital) to play concerts for people, and they really are fantastic. If you don’t know what marimba is imagine the colourful xylophones that we all had as children... okay, right, now image that it’s larger, made of wood and actually sounds nice. The boys come to the school and learn marimba from the other boys who are there, there’s to music to read, they just learn off one another and work by ear. They play typical African marimba tunes but can also play renditions of some chart favourites such as Waka Waka by Shakira and Whistle by Flo Rida!

Luckily I was at Bana Ba Metsi for my 19^th Birthday and even more luckily for me the 1^st May is some sort of African Independence day and is therefore a national holiday! That means so school, no teaching for the Sam’s and we get to go out on the delta on the schools boat!
It was the most insane birthday ever, we cruised along the Okavango waters for 4 hours or so with drinks on board, sunbathing on board, driving the boat, stopping off at a lodge along the river for more drinks and getting off to explore an island that the boys know. We spend a decent amount of time swimming in its pools while on constant lookout for hippos and crocodiles as they’re known to be in the area... Luckily we didn’t have any unfortunate run-ins with any dangerous animals while on the water however we did see a massive crocodile on the sand banks and stumbled upon a herd of 15 hippo up out of the water within the reeds! It was an incredible sight and we doubled back for more, unfortunately they had scarpered and the humongous bull hippo had slid into the water pretty close to our little boat... so then we scarpered!
We had a lovely lunch at the Dijo Deli, one of Shakawe’s best kept secrets off the beaten track and then hitchhiked back over from the ferry to Bana Ba Metsi.
Definitely one of my most awesome birthdays to date, and what an amazing place to have it! My 19^th will be forever unique. Making things even better Ashley and the boys had made me a birthday video which they showed me before we went out on the boat... hilarious and I will always have it as a reminder!

After another hellish public bus journey back from Shakawe to Maun we camped at the Old Bridge backpackers for 4 nights. Old Bridge has to be one of the most idyllic places that I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting, perched on the banks of the Okavango you can literally sit on a sofa less than 1 metre from the water or lie on a hammock half dangling over the water! I spent many glorious hours prostrate on that hammock, happily filling myself with copious amounts of salted peanuts and raisins while watching episodes of How I Met Your Mother. Everyone’s idea of perfect. 
Oh yes, I feel obliged to inform you of my very sudden and incredibly violent peanut addiction; I’m really not sure how it came about between travelling on buses and jumping off gorges but it has appeared. I can’t get enough of them; I’ve taken to destroying a 150g bag in less than 10 minutes which drives Ashley crazy because she hates peanuts and can’t stand the smell. I’m addicted, what can I do. They are simply delicious.

Most of our time in Maun was spent relaxing and putting off travelling to the next place; apart from one day when we went on another boat trip. Animal spectation wasn’t really the aim of this trip... rather it was alcohol, and sort of harassing locals. We were with a crazy guy we met at the backpackers who called himself ‘Captain Bob’, and we were now part of ‘Captain Bob’s Drunken Safaris’ where he sets off into the beautiful African landscape to get completely smashed and make mental videos. We had a wild time with Captain Bob and the rest of our crew! Ashley jumped ship to take control of a mekoro boat (dugout canoe) full of Motswanan children, we made a slight scene at a family gathering when Captain Bob decided to don a pair of bright red bikini bottoms he found in a bush and our boat driver got do drunk that he went arse over pecs and ended up half out of the boat, so Ashley and I drove to boat back to the lodge to ensure that no one died. No one died, we were brilliant. 

After leaving Maun we had a pit stop at the best hidden backpackers in the world (honestly didn’t think it even existed after our fruitless search with a pretty peeved off taxi driver) in Gaberone before heading to South Africa the next day.

Before I came to Africa my expectations of what it would look like are exactly like how Botswana looks; covered in sand, minimal vegetation and animals roam everywhere. Botswana has definitely got a donkey problem (I think I mentioned the donkeys already, oh well); I have never seen so many donkeys in my life.

What I have come to realise is that my initial impressions of Africa were incorrect; yes, Botswana is hot and covered in sand and wild animals but it is so far the only place I have visited that is like this. I’m sure other countries are similar (Namibia I’ve heard), but Africa also has its fair share of lush green areas! Prime example is Swaziland itself... we’re defiantly under informed about this continent in our Westernised countries! BBC, sort yourselves out and get over here, I’ve heard David Attenborough recently took the trip, so I hope all you British people at least have a better idea about what Africa is like!

Crack onto the internet and educate yourselves, Africa is a collaboration of literally every climate and landscape in the whole world, it’s awe-inspiring.

Kate xx 

Zimbabwe

I am breaking my pattern of posting my blogs on a Sunday to cover the previous week; but breaking up the holidays into blogs of the countries seems to make more logical sense, so here it goes...

First impressions of Zimbabwe were not great; sat at a border post at 3:00am in the morning with our luggage open waiting for 2 hours for a bag check. In the end they barely even looked in anyone’s bags, they just signed our declaration sheets and we had to pack everything back up again. I was cold, tired, annoyed and quite frankly surprised that I walked away without getting piles seeing as there was nowhere to sit apart from on the road.
We eventually got away at 5:00am, only to reach Bulawayo in the afternoon and have to wait through a 3 hour delay for our next bus! Sometimes I just hate travelling.
We reach Victoria Falls and finally get to our backpackers, which turns out to be one of the best places to go for a night out in the town so it’s totally buzzing! Definitely a decent choice.

The falls themselves are absolutely amazing, they are called ‘Mosi-Oa-Tunya’ which is taken from the Lozi language and means “The Smoke That Thunders”... and thunder they truly do!
Victoria Falls is among the Seven Natural Wonders of the world; along with the Aurora Borealis, Grand Canyon, Paricutin Volcano, Harbour of Rio de Janeiro, Mount Everest and the Great Barrier Reef, so if I count the times that I’ve seen the Aurora Borealis from Darlington or Scotland (although they won’t be to their full beauty unless seen from further North), I’ve technically experienced 2 of the 7 Natural Wonders! Now I shall add the remaining 5 to my bucket list.

Oh yeah! Darlington is on an information board in ZIMBABWE.
Now that's a pretty decent achievement for Darlington. 

Walking into the falls there are many shops selling crafts, and the guys owning the shops are trying to get you to hire hideous ponchos to protect you from the spray; feeling brave Ashley, Matt and I (Matt’s a guy from our backpackers) shook our heads and decided we were just going to roll with it. Turns out that the spray was a little more than just ‘spray’, it started out quite light but as we progressed along the viewing platforms and came closer to the falls it became heavier and heavier... So heavy that it felt like you were standing in monsoon rain! We were drenched through, our bags and everything in them were soaking wet, my camera stopped working and my passport suffered slight water damage.

Simply Soaking

The falls give off so much moisture that the land directly close to them is thick rainforest, huge ferns drape themselves over the pathway glistening with droplets of water, flowery vines strangle the mottled trunks of thick trees in whose canopies monkeys and baboons skip chatter and dance. It really is another world. 

The falls can be viewed from both Zambia and Zimbabwe, however I can’t imagine what can be seen from the Zambian side seeing as we were stood at the very point where the falls cascade over the edge of the rock... you can see the water thunder down in all its glory and watch as the spray rises like smoke from the bottom of the gorge to obscure your view and engulf everyone and everything. The very best viewing platform was one called Knife Point; its entrance path was graced with a ‘Danger – Slippery Cliff Edge’ sign, and it wasn’t joking. Moss grew on every drenched stone and we waded our way through puddles with the edge of the cliff merely 1m away. The pinnacle of Knife Point was a high sharp rock (it had a definite likeness to the one in Lion King, so that’s awesome), we blindly fought our way to the top, eyes closed against the spray battering our bodies and hands groping for some sort of security that our feet were failing to provide. Visibility was 0%, it was like we were standing inside a cloud. There was nothing left to do apart from stand tall with our arms spread wide, listen to the waterfall roar past us and savour the spray as it bounced off our bodies.
Just as we turned away to leave Knife Point I took one look back and caught a rare ‘spray free’ moment, the white fog lifted and I could see the whole expanse of waterfall thundering barely 10m away from the sharp pointed rock that we had been standing on. Absolutely amazing.

Another spectacular thing about the falls is that multiple rainbows form in the gorge due to all the spray and the wonderful African sunlight, as you walk along you can see the rainbows stretching from one side of the gorge to the other... how many times are you above a rainbow?!

After a calming morning at the falls we set off for a little adrenalin rush! We had both booked to do a flying fox from the Zimbabwe side of the falls to the Zambian side, but when we got there and I laid eyes on the gorge swing I knew I just had to pay more money and do it instead!
Similar to a bungee you jump off a high platform and fall quite a distance; but unlike a bungee you are not connected by the feet... no, you are connected by a harness at the chest and you freefall with all your limbs flailing into a gorge. This was so much more terrifying than a bungee because there’s no control! I honestly felt like I was on a suicide jump off a building and I screamed like an ignored baby the whole way down. I think that the dogs in Zambia were aware of my presence.
Anyway, so you’re in freefall with your arms and legs waving around like an epileptic in a disco and the water is coming faster and closer to you, just before you reach the water you reach the length of rope and swing in a huge arc over the thundering rapids. My pants were all but soiled but I felt amazing! Scaring the crap out of myself is definitely one of my favourite pastimes.      

Flying Fox, amazing view!

The next day we went for an activity that was arguably safer but just as amazing! We booked ourselves in for an Elephant ride. The Elephant ride is definitely one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunities and we were not going to be disappointed. The elephants were led along in what can only be described an elephant convoy, decked out with their babies and all! After taking photos with the elephants and getting to touch them we were taken to the largest mounting stand you have ever seen and we climbed onto our elephants with our riders. Our rider was called Amos and we were riding elephant Tendai, who had her baby along with her too and was always by our side! We spent an hour touring around the nature reserve; being on an elephant has its advantages because the other animals are used to their presence – we came really close to herds of giraffe and buffalo and could observe them on their own level! 

Tendai and Amos waving bye, cute!

After the elephant ride we had the unknown surprise of meeting Sylvester the Cheetah, he is the only surviving cheetah from a litter that lost its Mother and was attacked by a Lion. He is used to educate people on the risks of animal endangerment and plus we were allowed to stroke him! TOUCHING A CHEETAH NOW HOW COOL IS THAT.

Seeing and being with these animals in the flesh is something that I would never have expected myself to do, coming to Africa touches your life in many many different ways, and it makes me feel sad that most people go through life without ever having the chance to explore further afield and experience these things for themselves. Yes we see these animals on TV and in photos, but nothing can beat the surprising realisation of touching the rock hard leathery skin of an elephant and feeling it’s disgustingly wet truck sucking at your hand after taking a drink of water! These places, animals and people are real and they’re in our reach to visit – I’m so grateful that I’ve been lucky enough to get to experience such things.

One thing that stood out about Victoria Falls to me was the freedom of the animals; I’m not sure whether it is to humour the tourists that visit or because it’s a really ‘African’ place but it isn’t normal (even for Africa) to walk along the street and be faced with baboons sitting on the pavement. Nor is it normal to walk out of the Mama Africa restaurant after eating a delicious dinner of spicy beef and crocodile tail to be faced with a fully grown elephant just chilling on the street outside. This IS Africa, but not everywhere is as crazy as this!
I know what you’re thinking... what does crocodile taste like?! Honestly, it was delicious, it tasted like chicken with the tiniest fishy hint and you chew on it like it is beef. I also have no idea what African seasoning was on it but Ashley and I could not get enough!

So that’s a little bit of Zimbabwe for you!

Kate xx

One Month Back in Swaziland!

My blogging style is normally one blog per week; but since getting back we have been caught in a whirlwind of stress, long hours, inconvenient journeys, ridiculous heat and so so so so so many children. There are children literally coming out of my ears.
I do sincerely apologise to anyone who has been biting their nails down to the quick in angst, just wondering where all my interesting posts are. (I doubt there are many of you). As you will soon see I have barely had enough time to shower and eat this past month, and the near future doesn’t look like it will be bringing us any relief!  

Our first week back was very uneventful; it basically included sleeping, washing all our clothes (and my towel, it smelt DISGUSTING), trying to keep cool (and failing) and taking lots of showers to try and rid ourselves of the constant sweat. Well, the constant sweat was me; Ashley seems immune to the heat whereas I am the equivalent of a snowman lost in the desert.
We spent one creepy night completely alone in the darkness of hostel due to an insane storm causing a power cut; we didn’t get to eat anything as we couldn’t cook, and Ashley walked around with a head torch on. She loved it.
The new student’s orientation was that weekend, which we had been told we had to be back for. Turns out we didn’t have to do anything at all, and we had lost a week’s travelling. However we did probably save an awful lot of money being stuck back in hostel and not gallivanting around South Africa for another 7 days. The prefects decided to wake the ‘newbie’s’ up at 2:00am with vuvuzelas which sent me straight back to the early morning horrors of Leadership Camp, at least this time I could stay snuggled up in bed! Suckers.

Contact from the UK! Specifically Scotland.
On arriving back to Swaziland it was like the Highlands had come for a visit; one of last year’s volunteers Hannah Craig sent us out a parcel for Christmas, so we had cards to hand out to everyone and also some shortbread – which I was particularly happy about! Ashley’s Aunty also sent out 3 tins of haggis for everyone to try, so Ashley cooked up a nice little meal and we tucked into the surprisingly delicious substance that is haggis.
Big thank you to the Scots out there! Your culture and culinary delicacies were much appreciated.

Injabulo Preschool
We’ve also discovered the brilliant coming home surprise in the form of food donations at Injabulo! The first 4 months that we were here we hadn’t been receiving food donations of any sort; and normally the preschool received a donation every month so we could feed the children at lunch time.
So for 4 months we had been angrily ringing around all of the local people with the power, trying to source where our food was... Then out of the blue we arrive at preschool to find our store room completely empty of our resources (panic, we thought we had been robbed), and full of food. We hadn’t been robbed by the way, only badly reorganised.
So now we can actually feed our children! Thank you WFP (World Food Programme).
FYI; Ashley and I have tried some of the food, its brown mush that tastes like burning cigarettes... I think the caregivers might need a new pot.

Nelsiwe buzzing for the food!

The food that tasted like smoke, yum.

Last year we thought we had a lot on our plate with 60 children... but after our Registration Day turned into “Registration Week - pop by whenever you like and we’ll probably let your kid in because you’re in a bad situation and we can’t turn you away/your kid is really cute” fiasco; we have now managed to land ourselves with 76 registered children. Flip-my-life. 

Luckily one of the parents who was registering a child wants to help out with teaching at Injabulo; the idea is she will volunteer for a while and not have to pay school fees, then she can receive a share of the money like Nelsiwe does. This makes our lives the tiniest bit easier because we have another body to help out... It also makes Nelsiwe’s life a whole lot easier on the days that she’s alone with all those crazy children!

This isn't even one full class...

Nelsiwe also said to Ashley and I that “when you are not here it’s like I am walking alone through a desert with no shelter, but when you are here it’s like there is a big biggg shelter over me and I know that everything is alright” – what a cutie.

Everything started out pretty peachy at Injabulo this year, yes there were a lot of children but they were kind of behaving themselves... Until this week.
Ashley and I arrived early to Injabulo to find the store room COMPLETELY ransacked, it looked like we had been robbed by a heard of blind elephants. We had a bit of a rant and a rave, complained about the state of the place and decided that we would have a meeting with Nelsiwe about the mess. Then we knuckled down and tidied it up, for an hour. Later on that morning when we were sorting out payment with Nelsiwe and Bongkile (the parent volunteer) we left to classroom to find the kids had gone into the store room; they pulled EVERYTHING out from where we had tidied it away to, strewn books all over the bloody village and decided that puzzles work better when the pieces are buried in dirt. It was worse than before.
As you can probably tell, we were not happy. At all. Ashley had a bit of a screaming fit and shouted at all the kids to go home, we screamed on about never going into the store room, respecting toys and not throwing books. I walked into the trashed store room, stood alone and took a breather; I was so furious I was about to punch a wall, and with there being so many children about the place one of them was bound to run in the way and would end up with a black eye or something... Plus Ingrid (our Desk Officer and Director of Project Trust!) is coming out to visit us in 4 days, so it would be rather bad on me if I looked like a child abuser, might just get repatriated for that. 

Moriah Centre

Moriah Centre has also increased in numbers this year! It’s about time too; the preschool has 7 teachers and there are only 4 classes, last year the largest class had 10 pupils in – when you compare those statistics to Injabulo you can really understand just how much we have to battle to complete the easiest things. So now there are 4 classes with 15 students in each, still easy as pie to manage and now more children can come to preschool!

Since coming back Ashley and I are the designated kombi drivers for Moriah Centre; we drive the kombi that has been donated by the American Missionaries, so that should mean we have lovely, calm stress-free mornings because we drive (rather than walk to) Moriah, right? Wrong.
It is currently summer in Swaziland, and also the rainy season. For the past month it has been chucking it down almost every night, and there’s been a fair few thunderstorms with tornado like winds, supreme lightning and annoying power shortages. Therefore all 3 dams in the country are flooded, and all the rivers are high, which means that no one can cross the bridge from the village ‘Game 5’ to our area of Big Bend. Every morning we have been leaving before 7am to walk 20 minutes to Ubombo Primary School (UPS) to collect the kombi, then we drive to Game 5 pack 5 teachers and about 30 kids into the kombi and drive them to preschool with our fingers crossed, hoping that the police doing traffic checks don’t look too closely into our windows.
We then drive them all back after preschool, and walk back from UPS in the blazing heat. Even the days we’re at Injabulo we’ve been doing the Game 5 run, so in between running Moriah people around we have been getting on 2 public kombis to Injabulo in the middle of nowhere, teaching, waiting (sometimes for 2 hours) for kombis back, taking everyone home, walking back from UPS and then cooking for soup kitchen. Hectic. ‘Working 9 ‘till 5’, I wish... try 7 ‘till 6.  And that’s not including paperwork.

Swaziland, please stop raining and let everyone walk across the bridge. Thank you.

However, we have had some pretty funny times since returning;

• We missed the very first day that all the kids came back because we were at Injabulo, but Mary (one of the teachers) told us that “yesterday was like a funeral, all the kids were crying like someone had died!”
• Cecelia one of the cooks decided that she was going to bash the curtains in the church hall while we were doing singing and dancing with the children... This unleashed a plague of horrible black insects that look like evil grasshoppers, they jump in all directions like tiny reflex balls on steroids and for some reason have appeared in our lives in their thousands since coming back. Summer must be their breeding season. :( The kids were running around and screaming while I was squashing anything that came near me; meanwhile Cecelia and Gugu were calmly using brooms to herd up the insects into enormous black writhing masses in the corners of the room before disposing of them with an industrial hoover. I am not exaggerating, there were literally thousands of them.
• Ashley finds a dead snake.
• Nonhlanhla and Khanyisile (two more teachers) beat down a tiny bird that was flying around the church hall with some flags... They were charging around like nutcases, wielding these flags for about 10 minutes, they nearly smashed through the windows and brought down the ceiling fans! They didn’t kill it as Ashley and I originally thought; only traumatised it enough so that it lay still while they were walking around with it pretending to eat it, and telling everyone not to free it because they were saving it for lunch. “No, not dead, just tired. It’s meat, for the fire, for BRAII! It’s nice.”“Where is it, I want my lunch. I want to eat it, want my lunch.” Ashley and I freed it, that’s where it went. To be honest, I think she was kidding about having it for a braii that day. But I don’t doubt that she probably has killed and eaten birds on other days.

Florence getting in on the action!

Nonhlanhla with her lunch.

Freeing the bird from its fate.

My re-enactment of how they were chasing the bird around - this is much tamer actually! But similar things went on for a good 5 minutes. 

 Soup Kitchen

You will all remember the money we raised before Christmas to buy shoes for the kids at soup kitchen, and to buy presents for our preschoolers... Anyway, we had a fair bit of that money left over, so we decided to buy every child at soup kitchen a lunchbox and water bottle – this way they all have a container to bring with them for the food, we don’t have to serve them 2nds into their bare hands and they can take clean water home with them! A pretty sound investment if you ask me.

New boxes!

 We also hand out loads of rejected clothes from girl’s hostel, they all leave stuff behind when they go home for the Christmas holidays and we ended up getting most of it! Amongst this large collection of clothes was a swimming costume, maybe a woman’s size 12... and Aunty Vina claimed it for herself. Now you have seen pictures of Aunty Vina and she is not a small lady. But she was incessant “For meee! For Durbaan!” So she’s going to be hitting the Durban beaches in a pretty tight black one-piece, you work it Vina!

For DURBAAAAAAN, hahahahahahaaa :D

We’ve seen Aunty Vina have quite a few freak outs in the last month; the first was over her maize crops.  A sponsor gave her maize seeds to plant in a field so she can grow it to feed the orphans who live with her; apparently a patch in the middle of the field has been stolen and she went mental at all the kids one time we were there! She thinks that either they stole the maize, or their families, or someone that they know... Thing is it could’ve been anyone, but they all got an earful, bless.
The second freak out was directed at one girl from soup kitchen; she accused Aunty Vina of keeping soup kitchen food to herself. One Friday we didn’t have transport so we couldn’t go to soup kitchen, therefore the kids were expecting twice as much food the next time, but there wasn’t because we had forgotten to defrost it. One of the older girls turned around to Aunty Vina and (I assume) accused her in front of everyone of keeping the food – which she didn’t do because we just hadn’t brought it. Safe to say Aunty Vina wasn’t best pleased at the accusations and she verbally tore a strip off this girl. I can’t say I’m not surprised, she comes under a lot of scrutiny from certain jealous people in the community, and if gossip starts (whether it be false or true) things could get difficult for her.

We have also been introduced to the Swazi drink ‘Buganu’ by Aunty Vina, which is a beer made from the marula fruit. Marula fruit trees are very common in Swaziland, and the marula season begins each year in mid Feburary – May. Everyone is Swaziland has a massive celebration of the marula fruit, and every year the Kings holds an annual Marula Festival where different families present the Royal family with some of their home brewed Buganu. Then everyone gets drunk as hell.
It’s a cloudy white substance and basically tastes like very strong beer, it’s about 8.7% and I can’t say I’m a massive fan. But it’s traditional and I can say I’ve tried it, so that’s good enough! Everyone who drinks it gets absolutely steaming, and apparently it brings out an uncontrollable urge to eat meat, and livestock thefts increase significantly during marula season... Interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50tlF3kGbT4 - hit this link and you won't regret it!

Hostel

Aunty Rose has been an absolute STAR since we got back from South Africa, her banter has excelled over the Christmas holidays and she genuinely makes me wet myself at least 3 spectacular times in a week. You have no idea about this woman, really, check out my ‘Aunty Rose’ post as there are a few more gems on there!

THE STORY OF THE BLACK MAMBA – one day at hostel Ashley and I headed down to the staff room at school, only to find all of the teachers gathered outside the computer room. We had no idea what all the excitement was about so we decided to investigate. Turns out that the IT teacher had been sat working and not realised that there had been a black mamba snake coiled up on the computer table next to him! Mambas are deadly venomous and a black mamba bite would leave you dead within 2 minutes; don’t even try getting to a hospital, you might as well just lay down and think about all the lovely things that have happened in your life.
Anyway, we went inside the computer room to have a look at the snake because since being in Africa we haven’t come across one, even though they are all over! After feeling a bit tense in the room we left to allow the security guards to dispose of the mamba. They came in wielding a double barrelled shotgun and a large plank of wood. There was some discussion over whether they should turn off the electricity and shoot it (not a great plan as they would have destroyed some computers), or wait until it slithered into an open space and shoot it. Neither of these plans happened. In the end they took the plank of wood and beat it to death. It was quite exciting.

Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary and Kathy and Richard’s New House

After a hectic week on project we decided to get away for the weekend; we caught a public kombi to Manzini and were treated to a restaurant dinner by Kathy and Richard at a rather fancy Portuguese place. We were then taken to their new house, which is MASSIVE and overlooks the hills and countryside of Manzini. There are 3 large bedrooms for the two of them, a swimming pool, two verandas and you could have a game of five aside football in their lounge. 

The next day we moved onto our backpackers ‘Sondzelas’ which is inside Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary, we walked down an unmarked dirt track for 5km in the blazing midday heat with no idea where we were going. Finally we arrived and headed down to main camp that night for a spot of Swazi Dancing! 

This track was ENDLESS. We walked right into the horizon of this photo I swear, and even further. 

Sunday morning we went for a walk in the sanctuary, we headed over to the lake and walked the ‘Hippo Trail’, unfortunately we didn’t see any hippos but we did see our first zebras! We also had our lunch kindly paid for by a group of people who were HASH-ing in the sanctuary. Allow me to explain... Rich people from Swaziland and Mozambique had met each other at the sanctuary to do what they enjoy the most, drinking and running. We were talking to 3 people from the HASH group for a few hours in the restaurant and they offered to pay for our food and drinks, score! We also caught a lift back to Manzini with one of them in return for helping out with a weekly food shop... great deal.

Oh hi Zebra.

Finished walking the Hippo Trail

Braving the animals, trooper.

It has been a stressful few weeks back, but now we’re starting to get back into the swing of things. Ingrid is coming out for a visit this coming week, so we’ll have some pressure on us! Nah, just kidding, we’ll cruise it, Swazi vols are the best vols after all. ;)

Kate xx