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