“It’s all fun and games until someone shits themselves and has to walk home naked.”

I’m getting pretty good at handling large numbers of Swazi children by myself now; on Monday I had 53 to myself again! We also had a little accident at Injabulo; one of the little boys was crying but we couldn’t understand why... Then just as we were tiding up after teaching Nelsiwe comes over and tells us that he’s upset because he’s wet himself, great. So we give her some water so she can splash him down... Then Nelsiwe asks us for some soap and a cloth because ‘it’s all down the back of his legs’, this doesn’t fit in with the wetting himself story.
Turns out that there was a slight miscommunication and this poor boy had actually pooed himself! We went outside to find him stood in a bowl of water, completely starkers, embarrassed and still crying. Nelsiwe gave him a good wipe down and then we sent him on his way; for some reason he chose not to put back on his top which was un-soiled and went home wearing nothing but his birthday suit! Shame.  

It’s now about 7 weeks in and we’ve only just discovered that the radio in our truck actually works! We’ve found a half decent East Coast South African station that has some really weird adverts, but they play decent English and American music. So we’re having great fun cruising along in the African sun with our windows down, belting it out to some songs!

We also took Tracey and Agnes (teachers from Moriah Centre) along with us to soup kitchen; we had a lovely time with the kids all in a big circle chanting ‘DANCE BABY DANCE, DANCE BABY DANCE’ to which they all took turns going into the middle of the circle and they danced their little hearts out. We also played this game where they all ran around screaming ‘there’s a fire on the mountain, run run run’ which ended with about 30 kids throwing themselves on top of Ashley and myself in a massive pile on... I still don’t understand the aim of the game, all I know is that when it was finished I was covered in dirt, children and aching everywhere!

There’s also been another one of Swaziland’s frequent and impressive thunderstorms, only this time with the side effect that I can now access the school wifi on my laptop! I then had a skype session with Lucy, and spent the first 10 minutes looking really confused that I even had access to the internet.
The second side effect of the thunderstorm is that when we came to drive to Injabulo on Wednesday the bridge that we cross the river on was completely non-existent. Ayanda was with us in the back of the truck and she hates crossing the river at the best of times, so she was freaking out and shouting that if we tried to cross it she’s strangle Ashley with her bare hands (who was driving) and get out to walk home! Hahaa, we literally couldn’t see the bridge, so crossing wasn’t an option... We had to go back into Big Bend and go the long way around.

Normally a bridge here, oh maaaaan.

This weekend is mid-term for Sisekelo, so everyone in hostel goes home for a long weekend, apart from Ashley and I. Hostel is so creepy when there’s no one around! We felt a bit lonely without the girls there; but Selma had asked us to dog sit for her, so we got to sleep at her house and cook for ourselves which was pretty cool, however it made us realise that if we had to fend for ourselves all the time we probably would struggle! There was also one day where we had cooked our lunch and sat down outside in the sunshine to eat it before realising that the dogs were nowhere to be seen. S**t. We’d lost them.
We looked all over the grounds before asking a security guard if he’d seen anyone drive down; turns out that Selma’s sister had come along in her car and taken them for a walk or something, we were so worried that we were responsible for 3 lost dogs. We also found out that while we’d been looking after them they’d viciously murdered a cat one night when we’d been out, but we hadn’t realised. Worst dog sitters ever.

Kathy and Richard took us to Hlane on Saturday! Hlane is a Nature Reserve up country, and it was so muddy we were skidding everywhere; sometimes we were horizontal to the tracks we were travelling on... If it hadn’t been for Richards impeccable rally driving skills I could’ve easily seen myself up to my ankles in mud pushing a truck for the second time in as many weeks. We saw rhino’s, crocodiles, hippo’s, giraffe, impala (impala are everywhere, I’m sick of the sight of them!) and dung beetles, which are the most hilarious beetle I think I’ve ever seen in my life. They push along balls of dung 3 times the size of them like children rolling up snow at winter to make a snowman. They choose to roll their dung balls right along the middle of the tracks, so Richard was playing a dodging game to try and avoid flattening them to the floor. 

Dung Beetle!

The Queen Mother was also meant to be having lunch at Hlane, so there were large numbers of security men walking around admiring the hippos and waving around massive guns. We also had an argument with a group of men in Swazi cultural dress over whether or not the crocodile next to the watering hole was in fact a crocodile or a large lizard. It was a crocodile, it was obvious and there’s no doubt that fact; but they seemed to think that it was only a lizard. I really worry about these Africans sometimes, no wonder loads of them get eaten by crocodiles, they’re walking around thinking that they’re harmless lizards!

Sunday was a calmer day; we spent the morning baking a birthday cake for Mary at Moriah Centres birthday, only to discover that after our first attempt we are rubbish bakers. It probably didn’t help that I’d accidently used a ‘Microwavable Recipes’ book without realising, and that the gas oven we were using seemed only to have two heat settings, on and off. The first cake I made was so hard I actually took it outside and snapped it over my leg into little rock sized pieces all over the grass!
Attempts 3 and 4 were much more successful and we managed to make a pretty decent cake after about 4 hours in the kitchen. The only downfall was that it was so hot outside the icing ran everywhere and the ‘Happy Birthday’ that Ashley had piped on top was illegible by the time we actually got to Mary’s house. It tasted good though! 

We decided that we couldn’t face another night cooking for ourselves, so we walked to the club for dinner. The country club is a really nice place, but compared to the westernised prices we’re familiar with it is still dirt cheap! You can get a steak dish for £4, and I’m pretty sure the most expensive meal on the menu was no more than £6. It was a good night, however at about 9:40 we were rudely told by the bar man “let’s go now”, because they apparently close at 9 (oops), but no one told us! It was pretty hilarious though, and we couldn’t believe that those were the words that actually came out of his mouth... He obviously had only basic English, but even so, “let’s go now”... c’mon man, throw us a ‘please’ in there.

Time is going so fast, I can’t believe we’re 7 weeks in already!

Loving life in Swaziland 2K12 ;)

Kate xx

Africa Unite

Tuesday morning this week I was hating life. At 1.00am we had a fire drill in hostel. Even though I knew that it was coming someday soon, I was still hoping and wishing that it would never happen. Since being here both me and Ashley have built up some kind of superhuman deafness to the bell in hostel, this is fantastic because we can quite happily snore away as the 5am, 5:30am, 6:00am alarm bells scream (and I mean scream) through the hostel corridors. Not so good when that same alarm is the alarm to wake you up and save your life when you’re in danger of burning to death.

So at this ridiculous time I was sleeping away and only vaguely aware of a noise in my head, 10 minutes later and it’s still going and I realise what must be happening... So I put on some more clothes because we’ve heard teachers laughing about this one time a boy ran out fully naked, and I didn’t want to give them anything to talk about in my short jammies, haha ;) 10 minutes later after being informed that we’d all done a terrible job and were now (hypothetically) dead, I returned to my warm bed as happy as could be.

Tuesday did improve considerably after work though. We met up with some boys who had pulled up outside the Moriah Centre while we were working on a dirt bike. Obviously attracted to the idea of making new friends with expensive things to have fun with (which is a rarity in Big Bend, as there is basically nothing here to do) we ventured outside to them and Ashley managed to persuade them to wait for us after work so we could have a go on their bikes and quads!
We went down to the sand by the river at Game 5 and had some great fun on their quads, we were meant to be getting back to start cooking for soup kitchen, but you know... easily distracted!
Covered in sand, dirt and sweating under the African sun with no sun cream on I knew it was only a matter of time before my ginger gene kicked in and I developed an instant case of skin cancer. (Honestly, I’ve burned here even when the days have been cloudy and there have been no shadows on the ground. Thanks DNA.)
The boys decided they were too hot and were going for a swim in the river. Now, here’s the thing about water in Swaziland; unless it is coming out of a tap it has probably (more likely definitely) got crocodiles living in it. But because these lads had grown up in Swaziland and were well informed on the whole crocodile situation we decided to trust them and began jumping off the bridge into the water below. Although the water was murky brown and warm it was great fun, the crocodile issue was on my mind but I took comfort in the fact that there were 3 boys there with us, each with considerably more fat on them than I had on myself, I went with the logic that we all leave the scrappy chips until last!
All of us being pretty much in our underwear we had attracted quite a lot of attention from the on looking locals, most of them watched us from a safe distance from the water, probably betting on us all in SiSwati who would get eaten first... silly white people.
Back at hostel we told the Aunties about our exciting day; Aunty Rose went absolutely ballistic at us and told us that if we were ever to go in the river swimming again she would beat us with a big stick; because if we died then she would cry, and she doesn’t want to cry. I love Aunty Rose but I don’t doubt for one second that she would beat me with a big stick if I went in that river again!

On Thursday at Moriah we were told that after we had been swimming in the river on Tuesday a large crocodile had been spotted just where we were jumping off the bridge (news travels fast in Big Bend). Apparently the noise attracts them, and this story prompted more of the teachers at Moriah Centre to tell us stories of dead children and one legged children. I think the moral of the story was to stay out of the river, and stay the f**k away from the crocodiles!

On the plus side, Injabulo is getting slightly better as the weeks go by. We already have so many great memories from the preschool and we never have an uneventful day there! After we had handed out peanut butter sandwiches on Friday one child decided that he was going to throw up all over the front steps at the school. As Nelsiwe was not yet here and my SiSwati is still only on the level of “hamba en toi” – go to the toilet, and “tulani” – be quiet I had no idea how to ask this child what was wrong. I took the high fever, shaking, ragged breathing and throwing up instantly as malaria or something deadly and began to freak out in a professional ‘teacher’ manner. All I could do was lay him down at the back of the classroom, give him water and put a cold compress on his head. He didn’t die right then and there which was a relief, and was back the school the next day after we had dropped him home. I think it was just the flu. But all the diseases and infections in a place like this just play on your mind and I was terrified for this kid! Overreaction of the sniffles I think.  
Ashley also made this tiny toddler cry like nothing I’ve ever seen before! She tried to hand them a peanut butter sandwich only to have them immediately scream in her face and burst into tears for about 10 minutes! Nelsiwe said it was because they’d never seen a white person bend down really close to them before, haha! So Ashley gave the sandwich to the kids friend who wasn’t crying, score for them.

Kate xx