The sun disappears too quickly here! Managed to catch some pictures with it on the way back from Soup Kitchen though.
Wednesday, 19 September 2012
"WHEELBARRA"
Delivery of our wheelbarrow present to Aunty Vina! So she can transport water from the river for the orphans.
Friday, 14 September 2012
Soup Kitchen
Today we went to soup kitchen for the first time. It's really rough. I came away feeling pretty upset.
So far we've only really seen Big Bend (which is fairly well off due to the sugar cane plantation and the sugar mill business), so this came as a shock. It's even more rural than the Injabulo project, it's in the middle of nowhere.
We were greeted by Aunty Vina, a lady who oversees the soup kitchen because she runs an orphanage in some buildings on the plot of land that we serve off. She does an amazing job with the kids considering how little there is, but the extent of the poverty here did really hit home today.
The houses that the children live in have no doors, and we found out that snakes getting in is a really common problem for them. Two little boys showed us massive snake bite scars that they had, it was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. I asked Vina if it had been a Black Mamba and she said no, therefore I thought that it may have been a big snake but one that wasn't as dangerous... But it wasn't. Turned out they were cobra bites and they'd actually found a snake in one of the rooms just the night before. I really can't fathom this, doors are such simple things and these children are sleeping every night with the risk of receiving a deathly snake bite.
Most of the children didn't have shoes either and today was cold and rainy, it was such a depressing sight being up at the soup kitchen and realising just how lucky you are. These children have nothing but they manage to find joy out of the simplest things. We were again asked to dance; this set the children off laughing and imitating what we were doing. They really are amazing people, even in their situation they are still some of the most friendly and lively people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.
Now, I know that this isn't nearly as important as the children but another thing that just added to the sadness of visiting soup kitchen was the puppies. There are a lot of dogs roaming about Aunty Vinas land and I presume that one of them had puppies. There was a pile of breeze blocks with some corrugated steel over the top and I could hear this wailing and crying coming from inside. When we went over to check it out there were 5 puppies inside, sodden hungry and shaking. Their crying was the backing track to the whole visit, it was absolutely heart-breaking.
On the plus side there is so much that we can improve on at soup kitchen and we know that these people will really see the benefits. Even the smallest things such as buying Aunty Vina a wheel barrow will really help them out... it's so she can transport water from the river 2km away to her vegetable patch which she grows to make food for the children. A wheel barrow. When you think about the world is really is appalling how unbalanced everything is.
I really hope we can make a change here.
Kate xxx
Soup Kitchen 2nd Visit:
So far we've only really seen Big Bend (which is fairly well off due to the sugar cane plantation and the sugar mill business), so this came as a shock. It's even more rural than the Injabulo project, it's in the middle of nowhere.
We were greeted by Aunty Vina, a lady who oversees the soup kitchen because she runs an orphanage in some buildings on the plot of land that we serve off. She does an amazing job with the kids considering how little there is, but the extent of the poverty here did really hit home today.
The houses that the children live in have no doors, and we found out that snakes getting in is a really common problem for them. Two little boys showed us massive snake bite scars that they had, it was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. I asked Vina if it had been a Black Mamba and she said no, therefore I thought that it may have been a big snake but one that wasn't as dangerous... But it wasn't. Turned out they were cobra bites and they'd actually found a snake in one of the rooms just the night before. I really can't fathom this, doors are such simple things and these children are sleeping every night with the risk of receiving a deathly snake bite.
Most of the children didn't have shoes either and today was cold and rainy, it was such a depressing sight being up at the soup kitchen and realising just how lucky you are. These children have nothing but they manage to find joy out of the simplest things. We were again asked to dance; this set the children off laughing and imitating what we were doing. They really are amazing people, even in their situation they are still some of the most friendly and lively people I've ever had the pleasure of meeting.
Now, I know that this isn't nearly as important as the children but another thing that just added to the sadness of visiting soup kitchen was the puppies. There are a lot of dogs roaming about Aunty Vinas land and I presume that one of them had puppies. There was a pile of breeze blocks with some corrugated steel over the top and I could hear this wailing and crying coming from inside. When we went over to check it out there were 5 puppies inside, sodden hungry and shaking. Their crying was the backing track to the whole visit, it was absolutely heart-breaking.
On the plus side there is so much that we can improve on at soup kitchen and we know that these people will really see the benefits. Even the smallest things such as buying Aunty Vina a wheel barrow will really help them out... it's so she can transport water from the river 2km away to her vegetable patch which she grows to make food for the children. A wheel barrow. When you think about the world is really is appalling how unbalanced everything is.
I really hope we can make a change here.
Kate xxx
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| Ashley at Soup Kitchen |
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| The puppies :( CRY. |
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| Baby girl belonging to one of the women at Soup Kitchen |
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| The boys with their new football that Ashley bought for them to play with :) |
Thursday, 13 September 2012
"Injabulo? Preschool? School for small children? Oh, no english? Never mind, thank you."
Today we had our first drive out to Injabulo! We roughly knew which direction it was in so we jumped in Butch and set off. We found the village no problem at all but couldn't find the pre-school! Not many people spoke English so asking for directions was pretty difficult. After a while of driving along dirt tracks a building to our side caught my eye... I'd seen it before, definately. Turns out the village was a circle and we were right back where we started! Damn. Finally a lady saw us and recognised the truck, so she pointed us in the right direction and after travelling down a tiny 'path' we found Injabulo. We thought she was having us on though because all her friends were laughing at us, but I've since realised that everyone laughs at the white girls driving the 4×4.
The school was covered in goat droppings so we're going up on Saturday to clean it before it starts on Tuesday. We stayed there for a few hours and played with some of the kids in the community, they loved doing the limbo and playing basketball! Not so keen when we wacked out the cha cha slide though. :S
Later on we went for a swim at hostel, Ashley picked up a fallen leaf from a tree (they're these massive long black things like sycamore leaves on steroids) and threw it at me screaming 'SNAKE!' I genuinely shat my pants because we've been told about the Black Mambas and they're really dangerous, I felt like a right tit though. I'll get my own back on her in due course. ;)
Kate xxx
The school was covered in goat droppings so we're going up on Saturday to clean it before it starts on Tuesday. We stayed there for a few hours and played with some of the kids in the community, they loved doing the limbo and playing basketball! Not so keen when we wacked out the cha cha slide though. :S
Later on we went for a swim at hostel, Ashley picked up a fallen leaf from a tree (they're these massive long black things like sycamore leaves on steroids) and threw it at me screaming 'SNAKE!' I genuinely shat my pants because we've been told about the Black Mambas and they're really dangerous, I felt like a right tit though. I'll get my own back on her in due course. ;)
Kate xxx
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| Wire cars that the boys make themselves - they are honestly so ingenious! |
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
Leadership Camp (Shear Rock Adventures)
Leadership Camp, okay. In a nutshell Sisekelo High School decide that the best way to pick Prefects and the Head Boy and Girl is to put all of their Grade 11's through two and a half days of actual hell and see who comes out the other side alive. The course is compulsary (haha) and it is definately worth it because being a Prefect has it's perks. However, neither Ashley or myself are ever going to be a Prefect at Sisekelo, no matter how alive we are at the end... we just did it for the laughs.
Monday
Wake up at 5am, get breakfast and pack the bus for 5:30 (want to die), travel to Hawane. Not Hawaii as I first thought, so I began the whole experience feeling rather underwhelmed.
Arrive at Hawane Resort, it's really nice... But we're not staying in the nice part. We get sorted into groups of 5 and get given a mattres in a horse stable. Hilarious.
Get sorted into teams... PINK TEAM. We get bandannas to wear, yaaaaaay! That is getting tied around my head Rambo style. Sorted.
Play loads of team building games, one of which includes rolling over each other across a field. I honestly think I slipped a disc in my spine at one point, these Grade 11 lads are not small.
Later on we go on a walk and get told to wear clothes that we don't mind getting muddy. They were being serious. We were all taken to a Swazi Nature Reserve with a lake, the lake was surrounded by think clay mud which we were made to sprint in and play murder ball in! It was great; did a little bit of exfoliating, drew some warrior mud stripes on my face, I was loving it. Loving it so much that when the girls wanted to write their names on my back and arms with the mud I was like 'hell yeah, go for it'... Later on I realised this was a massive mistake.
Shower time is the single thing that has confused me the most about being in Swaziland. Back home when the showers are full you line up and wait for one to come free. After standing in the girls toilets/shower room for about 10 minutes and watching as girls ran past me screaming into occupied showers I concluded that they do it differently here... I decided to give up. Instead I had a wash in the trough sinks outside the bathroom, these are very public. Embarassing. Ashley had to clean my muddy back while I layed across this sink half naked for everyone to see :(
Dinner - another team building or character building exercise. The situation was that we had survived an aeroplane crash. We had to pick un-labeled tins blindly out of a box and hack them open with two blunt knives. We also had a loaf of bread per team and some cups to tip the contents of the tins in. Everyone who knows me knows that I like to know what I'm eating, and opening tins in the pitch black and smelling them to guess the contents isn't my idea of a decent meal, or a fun time. It was horrible. It was the worst thing I had to do the entire course. It was especially bad when we acciently mixed tinned peaches with cold baked beans, and when I stuck my fingers in this can to pull out the contents and it was some sort of rotting stinking fish. The smell didn't go away, not until the next day when my hands were covered in cow shit... But I'll get to that in a bit.
So right now I'm smelling of fish, covered in mud and have been up for 16 hours. Obviously it's time to go and create war cries and play mental games in the conference room. Ugh. After that we watch a south african comedian's set (he was really funny when I understood the situations he was on about!) and a relevant film about leadership (some American Football film), and it gets stopped every half our for the camp leaders to make sure that everyone is awake... "Because leaders have to learn how to stay awake even when they are tired." All I want to do right now is sleep. And we get to, at like 12am.
Tuesday
Get woken up at 6:45 by a vuvuzela, an experience I never wish to repeat in my life. We are then dragged out of the stables to go to another set of stables (with horses) to feed and groom them in the freezing cold.
Now, here's something you need to know about Hawane - yes it's in Africa, but it's in the highvelds of Swaziland which have a slightly surreal climate. Monday was boiling hot, like BOILING. Tuesday however brought rolling mist and cold temperatures even by UK standards. This I was not prepared for. We went for some crazy blind folded walk up the side of a mountain where we were all tied together in our teams and the person at the front had to lead (with no blind fold obviously). So there I was on the side of a mountain, tied to my team, with a blind fold on and a pair of leggins wapped around my neck as a makeshift scarf... And then on the walk back down we're told to fill a bucket with fresh cow shit. I'm seriously not in the mood.
Turns out that the cow poo is for later, we have to make 6 bricks out of the stuff, and everyone has to touch the poo bucket :( So in team spirit I get stuck in so that we don't lose points... At least the fishy smell is gone now. After everyone started off touching the poo quite timidly, it sure as hell didn't take long until the orange team decided to chuck their poo at us in lovely pooballs. One poor girl on my team got one right in her face, i've never seen such a sad sight! This quickly turned into a full scale war and the camp leaders took cover inside... Well that escalated quickly.
Shower incident was the same. I washed my feet in the sink and declared myself clean. There was also a slightly awkward moment when Aunty Rose (one of the cooks from the kitchen, we call them Aunties) asked me to tell one of the camp leaders to turn the stove off. This doesn't sound awkward, but it was... She flung the shower curtain open when I came out the toilet and confronted me with this request fully naked. I seriously didn't know what to do, the shock paralysed me. That's another thing I've learned about Swazi women, when they're together they don't have any qualms about nakedness, we've already seen many a naked girl running screaming down corridoors because her friend snatched her towel away from her. This is something I will never get used to.
One of the camp leaders cracked out his guitar and all the boys began singing the chorus to 'Hero' by Enrique Inglesias, they all ran en-masse down the stables and serenated the girls... They murdered it, but it was pretty funny.
For dinner we had a braii (a BBQ) and froze our asses off because the only place to eat is outside on picnic benches, it was so misty I couldn't even see my own plate.
Conference room again. Another team building game that included puzzles and ended in a full scale riot. If anyone says that puzzles are boring, they clearly haven't played this game. We then had another film (Cool Runnings! It's really funny) and got sent to bed late again.
Wednesday
Final Day! The vuvuzela came out again -_- and we had to feed the horses, again. But this time we got a ride! The students are really freaked out by horses and the girls ran around squealing whenever they came near, this spooked the horses into another direction which created more screaming... it was a vicious circle.
More physical games with no breakfast, some girl fainted from overheating and we got food! Yay. They are crazy here, (this day was hot) they walk around in massive hoodies and coats when it's like 30 degrees, that's not even cold. At all.
Had a massive tug of war and my team won! Because of me clearly. Then all the girls took the boys on and we beat them every time... Seriously, this isn't a joke, even I was surprised! They weren't happy about it, seeing as the whole of the Grade 11 boys rugby team was also included in their numbers! Hahahhaaaa.
Another school arrived as we were leaving and this lad jumped out of a minibus window to beat one of Sisekelo's lads up, Aunty Rose was screaming "it's like being in a movie!" I actually love this woman.
Bus journey back was hell, I drank too much juice and we had to stop at KFC in Manzini cause I was on the verge of wetting myself right there in the bus. In Swaziland they have security guards on the toilet doors who only let you wee if you buy something, I hopped around and pleaded until he let me in, I think he knew the alternative would include him and a mop and the KFC floor. Had to use the men's though, ladies was full and I was in a dire situation. Hawane to Manzini was the most uncomfortable and terrifying 45 minutes of my life, Ashley slept through my pain and Aunty Rose found it funny as hell, she told me it made her day and did impressions of me to all the other Aunties when we arrived back home. They howled at me for about 5 minutes. I see the humor though!
Well, that was Leadership Camp... Sorry it's so long but so much happened!
Kate xxx
Monday
Wake up at 5am, get breakfast and pack the bus for 5:30 (want to die), travel to Hawane. Not Hawaii as I first thought, so I began the whole experience feeling rather underwhelmed.
Arrive at Hawane Resort, it's really nice... But we're not staying in the nice part. We get sorted into groups of 5 and get given a mattres in a horse stable. Hilarious.
Get sorted into teams... PINK TEAM. We get bandannas to wear, yaaaaaay! That is getting tied around my head Rambo style. Sorted.
Play loads of team building games, one of which includes rolling over each other across a field. I honestly think I slipped a disc in my spine at one point, these Grade 11 lads are not small.
Later on we go on a walk and get told to wear clothes that we don't mind getting muddy. They were being serious. We were all taken to a Swazi Nature Reserve with a lake, the lake was surrounded by think clay mud which we were made to sprint in and play murder ball in! It was great; did a little bit of exfoliating, drew some warrior mud stripes on my face, I was loving it. Loving it so much that when the girls wanted to write their names on my back and arms with the mud I was like 'hell yeah, go for it'... Later on I realised this was a massive mistake.
Shower time is the single thing that has confused me the most about being in Swaziland. Back home when the showers are full you line up and wait for one to come free. After standing in the girls toilets/shower room for about 10 minutes and watching as girls ran past me screaming into occupied showers I concluded that they do it differently here... I decided to give up. Instead I had a wash in the trough sinks outside the bathroom, these are very public. Embarassing. Ashley had to clean my muddy back while I layed across this sink half naked for everyone to see :(
Dinner - another team building or character building exercise. The situation was that we had survived an aeroplane crash. We had to pick un-labeled tins blindly out of a box and hack them open with two blunt knives. We also had a loaf of bread per team and some cups to tip the contents of the tins in. Everyone who knows me knows that I like to know what I'm eating, and opening tins in the pitch black and smelling them to guess the contents isn't my idea of a decent meal, or a fun time. It was horrible. It was the worst thing I had to do the entire course. It was especially bad when we acciently mixed tinned peaches with cold baked beans, and when I stuck my fingers in this can to pull out the contents and it was some sort of rotting stinking fish. The smell didn't go away, not until the next day when my hands were covered in cow shit... But I'll get to that in a bit.
So right now I'm smelling of fish, covered in mud and have been up for 16 hours. Obviously it's time to go and create war cries and play mental games in the conference room. Ugh. After that we watch a south african comedian's set (he was really funny when I understood the situations he was on about!) and a relevant film about leadership (some American Football film), and it gets stopped every half our for the camp leaders to make sure that everyone is awake... "Because leaders have to learn how to stay awake even when they are tired." All I want to do right now is sleep. And we get to, at like 12am.
Tuesday
Get woken up at 6:45 by a vuvuzela, an experience I never wish to repeat in my life. We are then dragged out of the stables to go to another set of stables (with horses) to feed and groom them in the freezing cold.
Now, here's something you need to know about Hawane - yes it's in Africa, but it's in the highvelds of Swaziland which have a slightly surreal climate. Monday was boiling hot, like BOILING. Tuesday however brought rolling mist and cold temperatures even by UK standards. This I was not prepared for. We went for some crazy blind folded walk up the side of a mountain where we were all tied together in our teams and the person at the front had to lead (with no blind fold obviously). So there I was on the side of a mountain, tied to my team, with a blind fold on and a pair of leggins wapped around my neck as a makeshift scarf... And then on the walk back down we're told to fill a bucket with fresh cow shit. I'm seriously not in the mood.
Turns out that the cow poo is for later, we have to make 6 bricks out of the stuff, and everyone has to touch the poo bucket :( So in team spirit I get stuck in so that we don't lose points... At least the fishy smell is gone now. After everyone started off touching the poo quite timidly, it sure as hell didn't take long until the orange team decided to chuck their poo at us in lovely pooballs. One poor girl on my team got one right in her face, i've never seen such a sad sight! This quickly turned into a full scale war and the camp leaders took cover inside... Well that escalated quickly.
Shower incident was the same. I washed my feet in the sink and declared myself clean. There was also a slightly awkward moment when Aunty Rose (one of the cooks from the kitchen, we call them Aunties) asked me to tell one of the camp leaders to turn the stove off. This doesn't sound awkward, but it was... She flung the shower curtain open when I came out the toilet and confronted me with this request fully naked. I seriously didn't know what to do, the shock paralysed me. That's another thing I've learned about Swazi women, when they're together they don't have any qualms about nakedness, we've already seen many a naked girl running screaming down corridoors because her friend snatched her towel away from her. This is something I will never get used to.
One of the camp leaders cracked out his guitar and all the boys began singing the chorus to 'Hero' by Enrique Inglesias, they all ran en-masse down the stables and serenated the girls... They murdered it, but it was pretty funny.
For dinner we had a braii (a BBQ) and froze our asses off because the only place to eat is outside on picnic benches, it was so misty I couldn't even see my own plate.
Conference room again. Another team building game that included puzzles and ended in a full scale riot. If anyone says that puzzles are boring, they clearly haven't played this game. We then had another film (Cool Runnings! It's really funny) and got sent to bed late again.
Wednesday
Final Day! The vuvuzela came out again -_- and we had to feed the horses, again. But this time we got a ride! The students are really freaked out by horses and the girls ran around squealing whenever they came near, this spooked the horses into another direction which created more screaming... it was a vicious circle.
More physical games with no breakfast, some girl fainted from overheating and we got food! Yay. They are crazy here, (this day was hot) they walk around in massive hoodies and coats when it's like 30 degrees, that's not even cold. At all.
Had a massive tug of war and my team won! Because of me clearly. Then all the girls took the boys on and we beat them every time... Seriously, this isn't a joke, even I was surprised! They weren't happy about it, seeing as the whole of the Grade 11 boys rugby team was also included in their numbers! Hahahhaaaa.
Another school arrived as we were leaving and this lad jumped out of a minibus window to beat one of Sisekelo's lads up, Aunty Rose was screaming "it's like being in a movie!" I actually love this woman.
Bus journey back was hell, I drank too much juice and we had to stop at KFC in Manzini cause I was on the verge of wetting myself right there in the bus. In Swaziland they have security guards on the toilet doors who only let you wee if you buy something, I hopped around and pleaded until he let me in, I think he knew the alternative would include him and a mop and the KFC floor. Had to use the men's though, ladies was full and I was in a dire situation. Hawane to Manzini was the most uncomfortable and terrifying 45 minutes of my life, Ashley slept through my pain and Aunty Rose found it funny as hell, she told me it made her day and did impressions of me to all the other Aunties when we arrived back home. They howled at me for about 5 minutes. I see the humor though!
Well, that was Leadership Camp... Sorry it's so long but so much happened!
Kate xxx
Saturday, 8 September 2012
Chucked in at the Deep End
We've moved in! Yesterday we moved into our new rooms in the hostel and spent our first night there, it was a bit eery because obviously school hasn't started yet so it was just me and Ashley in this massive building.
Yesterday afternoon we had a meeting with the ladies from the Moriah Center, they're mental. They made me and Ashley dance for them and taught us some SiSwati. Sawubona!
Yesterday afternoon we had a meeting with the ladies from the Moriah Center, they're mental. They made me and Ashley dance for them and taught us some SiSwati. Sawubona!
We went to the nature reserve for a walk with Kathy and Richard on the night and saw a warthog, some impala (basically deer/gazelle type animal), a massive bird of prey and some giraffe tracks! Sadly no giraffe though. Afterwards we had a lovely dinner with Kathy and Richard and some of the staff from Sisekelo; they told us lots of stories of people who have been dragged away by crocodiles in the river we have to drive across to get to Injabulo pre-school (eek!) so that's slightly terrifying. Plus, judging by our first drive in "The Almighty Butch" we're not yet at the dodging crocodiles stage with our truck driving skills!
We're fending for ourselves at the moment though, Kathy and Richard left for England this afternoon to visit their daughter in London so we're packed off on a leadership course at 6am Monday morning with the seniors of the Sisekelo High. We'll be trekking and swimming in mud pools until Wednesday, so that should be pretty fun! This is how they choose their prefects, slightly different from the one interview that we had... but I guess it's the best way to separate the strong willed from the weak ;)
Laters, Kate xxx
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| My Room! |
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| Messy desk, doesn't look like that now :P And the cute sign on the wall from my cousins <3 |
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| Wardrobe with all my 'Hunz 2K12' on ;) |
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| 'The Almighty Butch!' at the Nature Reserve |
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| Impala at the Nature Reserve |
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
24 hours later.
Okay so, departure on Tuesday morning was pretty hard. All the girls and family came round to my house to say bye and to wave me off <3 there were a lot of tears, photos and hugs... however I still haven't cried yet. I really do fear that I will just have a complete emotional break-down one day and Ashley will be left to scrape me off the floor.
Anyway, my most favourite memory was when the car pulled away they all carried on running after it down the street and waving! Top cuties. And if you know my friends you will know that not very many of them are runners, or even the running type... So I really really did appreciate the effort ;)
I'll skip over leaving my family at the airport cause they were just all snot and tears as imagined :P
Anyway, the flight from Newcastle to Heathrow had me feeling pretty nervous right from the beginning; I think that the idea that I was actually leaving only started to sink in then. Luckily the trolly-dolly came along and gave me free tea and biscuits, so I was pretty cushty for a while.
Then a lovely Nepalese gentleman started chatting to me from the row across the aisle - he'd seen my badges on my PT polo and started asking me what I was doing and everything. Turns out he was pretty awesome; he lives in Frankfurt Germany, and speaks six languages - none of them are Mandarin or Cantonese though, oops, I made the mistake of thinking he was Chinese but Nepal borders China! Easy mistake. He met his wife when she was wearing a backpack whilst working with orphans in India, and now they're climbing Mount Everest together on November 1st just for the craic. He also told me about his mate who travelled the world for a year with only $3,000 and slept in a tent on golf courses in London - I know I'm talking about this guy a lot, but there was no on-board flight entertainment alright.
P.S. he says go to Costa Rica if you can. Apparently they also have really nice coffee.
Heathrow is massive by the way, if you haven't been it is like a shopping centre and a train station have decided that it would be a really good business move to let people fly to it. It's mental. There were also loads of people in Paralympic tracksuits milling about the place, not many of them had any disabilities though... Maybe that explains why they were chilling in the airport, rather than being at the actual games.
The 11 hour flight to Johannesburg was actual hell. Ashley definitely had it the worst though, the German (we think) woman who was in the chair in front of her decided to recline her seat all the way back before we even took off - you should have seen Ashley's face, angry didn't even cover it. I was laughing for a bit until her husband decided he wanted to recline too, and there we were, trapped in a tiny space with our faces pressed to the TV screens and not wanting to put our chairs back from fear of upsetting those behind us... it's a vicious circle.
Overnight flights are pretty boring to be honest, I watched Dark Shadows, ate the rubbish food and slept. Ashley slept and didn't eat the rubbish food which was probably a good move because I didn't feel to great afterwards.
So, 24 hours after leaving my house I arrived into Johannesburg airport. After being re-directed about 4 times to different areas of the airport we finally found where we should be checking in, it started off horribly. The internet told us that baggage allowances were 23kg, therefore our bags were under 23kg. At the desk this changed to 20kg, so we were over weight - going away for a whole year didn't even swing any sort of understanding from the check in lady so we had to pay excess baggage. It was only E126 so that's around £11, much cheaper than if we had still been in the UK!
Then an African gentleman asked us where we were going, we said Manzini and he proceeded to walk along with us and point at all the Terminal A signs, that was where we were going. Ashley kept telling him that we knew where we were going but he wasn't having any of it... then he stopped, looked at me and said "tip tip" while holding his hand out for money. Damn. Ashley had warned me about this. I told him sorry I had no money, and we had already known where we were going, he stalked off looking pretty angry.
Next was the plane to Manzini, on the connecting bus from the Gate to the airfield there must have only been 18 passengers... This plane was going to be pretty empty. As we were driving along we approached this tiny excuse for a plane, it had about 10 passenger windows and propellers. We were terrified. Luckily this wasn't our plane, ours was the same size but had engines instead of propellers, I have never been so pleased.
Even so, it was only 3 seats wide and pretty basic. I've slept in wider sleeping bags. The flight wasn't too bad, we got free tea and cheddar cheeses - it was a little bit like being on a roller coaster.
Arriving in Swaziland it wasn't what I expected, it was raining and cold, just like England. Getting through immigration was pretty intense, they really grill you on why you are wanting to be in their country. No problems though, and when we got through Kathy our host and Richard (her husband) and our representative were there to greet us with a hug and a smile!
I'll end it here... Hopefully the weather will pick up soon and we can get a real feel for Swaziland!
Kate xxx
Anyway, my most favourite memory was when the car pulled away they all carried on running after it down the street and waving! Top cuties. And if you know my friends you will know that not very many of them are runners, or even the running type... So I really really did appreciate the effort ;)
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| Saying our goodbyes :( |
I'll skip over leaving my family at the airport cause they were just all snot and tears as imagined :P
Anyway, the flight from Newcastle to Heathrow had me feeling pretty nervous right from the beginning; I think that the idea that I was actually leaving only started to sink in then. Luckily the trolly-dolly came along and gave me free tea and biscuits, so I was pretty cushty for a while.
Then a lovely Nepalese gentleman started chatting to me from the row across the aisle - he'd seen my badges on my PT polo and started asking me what I was doing and everything. Turns out he was pretty awesome; he lives in Frankfurt Germany, and speaks six languages - none of them are Mandarin or Cantonese though, oops, I made the mistake of thinking he was Chinese but Nepal borders China! Easy mistake. He met his wife when she was wearing a backpack whilst working with orphans in India, and now they're climbing Mount Everest together on November 1st just for the craic. He also told me about his mate who travelled the world for a year with only $3,000 and slept in a tent on golf courses in London - I know I'm talking about this guy a lot, but there was no on-board flight entertainment alright.
P.S. he says go to Costa Rica if you can. Apparently they also have really nice coffee.
Heathrow is massive by the way, if you haven't been it is like a shopping centre and a train station have decided that it would be a really good business move to let people fly to it. It's mental. There were also loads of people in Paralympic tracksuits milling about the place, not many of them had any disabilities though... Maybe that explains why they were chilling in the airport, rather than being at the actual games.
The 11 hour flight to Johannesburg was actual hell. Ashley definitely had it the worst though, the German (we think) woman who was in the chair in front of her decided to recline her seat all the way back before we even took off - you should have seen Ashley's face, angry didn't even cover it. I was laughing for a bit until her husband decided he wanted to recline too, and there we were, trapped in a tiny space with our faces pressed to the TV screens and not wanting to put our chairs back from fear of upsetting those behind us... it's a vicious circle.
Overnight flights are pretty boring to be honest, I watched Dark Shadows, ate the rubbish food and slept. Ashley slept and didn't eat the rubbish food which was probably a good move because I didn't feel to great afterwards.
So, 24 hours after leaving my house I arrived into Johannesburg airport. After being re-directed about 4 times to different areas of the airport we finally found where we should be checking in, it started off horribly. The internet told us that baggage allowances were 23kg, therefore our bags were under 23kg. At the desk this changed to 20kg, so we were over weight - going away for a whole year didn't even swing any sort of understanding from the check in lady so we had to pay excess baggage. It was only E126 so that's around £11, much cheaper than if we had still been in the UK!
Then an African gentleman asked us where we were going, we said Manzini and he proceeded to walk along with us and point at all the Terminal A signs, that was where we were going. Ashley kept telling him that we knew where we were going but he wasn't having any of it... then he stopped, looked at me and said "tip tip" while holding his hand out for money. Damn. Ashley had warned me about this. I told him sorry I had no money, and we had already known where we were going, he stalked off looking pretty angry.
Next was the plane to Manzini, on the connecting bus from the Gate to the airfield there must have only been 18 passengers... This plane was going to be pretty empty. As we were driving along we approached this tiny excuse for a plane, it had about 10 passenger windows and propellers. We were terrified. Luckily this wasn't our plane, ours was the same size but had engines instead of propellers, I have never been so pleased.
Even so, it was only 3 seats wide and pretty basic. I've slept in wider sleeping bags. The flight wasn't too bad, we got free tea and cheddar cheeses - it was a little bit like being on a roller coaster.
Arriving in Swaziland it wasn't what I expected, it was raining and cold, just like England. Getting through immigration was pretty intense, they really grill you on why you are wanting to be in their country. No problems though, and when we got through Kathy our host and Richard (her husband) and our representative were there to greet us with a hug and a smile!
I'll end it here... Hopefully the weather will pick up soon and we can get a real feel for Swaziland!
Kate xxx
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| Waiting at Heathrow Airport for our flight to Johannesburg! |
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| Arrival in Swaziland - pretty rubbish weather :( |
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