Bombaso's

The truck in still in a bad way, so we’re still using public kombi’s to get to Injabulo; the absolute worst part of this being that it means we can’t take water with us. To make matters EVEN worse Big Bend is still doing the thing it is famous for; being so hot we might as well be at the Earth’s core. 

So we have 60 sweating kids in a tin roofed building all asking us for water to drink, water that we don’t have. No work gets done, they all strip their clothes off and run about whipping each other with rolled up t-shirts; it is a complete disaster. 

Nelsiwe our translator is also ill, so she just doesn’t turn up to school meaning that the kids mess around and don’t do a thing we ask them to, even if they understand. I hate all of them this week, all I’ve done is scream my head off at them because unless you actually get visibly angry with them they don’t do one thing you want them too. Nelsiwe says they don’t listen because they’re not scared of us; they listen to her because she used to hit them as punishment. Threatening to take stars off their star chart and making them stand with their arms in the air clearly doesn’t discourage bad behaviour well enough.
The highlight of my week at Injabulo has to be at one point during my lesson on Monday morning; Nelsiwe’s baby girl Ciara (Sierra) turned up in my classroom stark naked and screaming her head off! She’d walked from their house (which you can see from the preschool) and caused my whole class to kill themselves laughing for 10 minutes. It’s never easy at Injabulo, but it is entertaining.

I’m sick of the heat here in Big Bend, it has managed to get to a point where my discomfort is visible to everyone. I was cooking for soup kitchen on Tuesday afternoon and Aunty Rose turns around in the kitchen and says “Katie Katie Kate, what is wrong with your bum?” I have no idea what is wrong with my bum at this point, and quite frankly couldn’t be any more confused.
So I have a look and it looks like I’ve wet myself; there’s a massive dark patch at the back of my shorts which I conclude to be sweat as I feel that I am still too young to be incontinent. It’s disgusting, I know, but for you all to get a real picture about what it’s like living in Swaziland that’s one for the books! ‘Swaziland – so hot you’ll sweat from your ass.’   

I’ve also added another vehicle to the list of things that I’ve driven in Swaziland! Seeing as the truck is out of action and we can’t get a kombi to soup kitchen, we had to find another way. Sisekelo has a battered old truck called ‘The 89’, so we talked to our host, sorted out the paperwork and we’re now fully legal to drive it! It’s a speedy little thing, much easier to drive than Butch but has no radio and is a shell of a truck; you feel everything, it shakes and makes a hell of a racket!  

Saw some more of the post office this week; sadly I wasn’t receiving anything but I was sending! Sent a letter to my friend Chris who is in Ghana with Project Trust, he has virtually no internet access so we’re going to be talking the old fashioned way. I really respect him for that, it’s tough as it is being out here doing the work we do but I have the luxury of being able to see my family and friends pretty much whenever I want to. He’s doing an amazing job, don’t think I would be able to manage that!  Shock at the post office though, the letter to Ghana cost me E15, when a letter I sent to England a few weeks ago was only E7 – something is wrong here SwaziPost.
Ashley also managed to scam E3 off the postal worker because she was E3 short on sending a letter; nice work my friend.

Now for Bombaso’s!

This weekend we escaped the emptiness that is Big Bend, jumped on the school bus (for free) and set off across the other side of the country to the capital city Mbabane! 

Sat on the school bus sweating like a fat kid at a disco with all the Sisekelo students fighting each other for books to fan themselves with; I felt pretty sure of my decision not to bring my Project Trust hoody with me on our short excursion. People had told us that Mbabane was colder than Big Bend, which I knew could only be true as it is impossible to get hotter (also Mbabane is in the Highveld area of Swaziland, whereas Big Bend is in the Lowveld area)... However, when an African tells me that somewhere is cold I instantly assume that because they’re African it’s not going to feel ‘cold’ for me, the well accustomed Brit. I was mistaken. The two hour journey to Mbabane left behind the sweltering heat of Big Bend and delivered us to the top of a mountain range, to weather that was cold by British standards and rain.
After catching another free lift with one of the Sisekelo girls we turned up to our backpackers to find that they were fully booked for the first time EVER. The owner, Jason, and the staff were all sound and they set up mattresses in the living room for us and said that they would only charge us camping rates E80 (£5.70) for the night.
In the end we got beds anyway because someone wasn’t using their booking – score, they kept it at a camping rate too!

In typical backpackers style the hospitality was amazing, from the minute we walked in it was like we were old friends; Jason the owner invited us out for drinks in Ezulwini (the ‘elite’ area in Swaziland) with him, his girlfriend and her friends. His girlfriend Emma has a MASSIVE HOUSE, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before, never mind only in Swaziland – I’m pretty sure we only saw 10% of it and there’s only her and her sister who live there, they are completely loaded.

In Ezulwini at Pub and Grill; Emma’s friends are two Vietnamese girls, one called Jen is actually mental, doesn’t stop talking and is still drinking on top of being drunk from the night before. She drinks vodka pretty much straight. The other girl didn’t know much English so just kept shouting ‘cheers!’ and we all clinked our glasses together... I think this happened about 20 times throughout the course of the night! There are some interesting people out in Ezulwini on a night, so we enjoyed ourselves... Until the bill came and we realised that the drinks were twice the amount we paid in Big Bend and we were now running pretty low on money.
Back to the cheaper bar at the backpackers!

We had only originally planned to say the one night, but we were loving Bombaso’s so much we spread out all our remaining money on our beds Saturday morning, and made the logical decision to stay another night but not go back to Pub and Grill!
We went into Mbabane town and had a walk around the Plaza and the Mall, something that I never thought I would be doing in Africa! It was still pretty small (as everything in Swaziland is), but it was THERE, which is something we don’t see very often in Big Bend. Neither of us felt like we were in Swaziland anymore, we felt like we were on holiday in Europe in a shopping centre. The wealth in Mbabane is apparent, and we notice it so much more now since we live rather rural... we also didn’t get stared at as much! There were plenty of white people walking around, so we attracted less attention than we do when we’re walking to work and in the local shop. That was a nice break; even though the Swazi men think they’re being friendly, charming and serenading you, in reality they’re more often than not harassing, annoying and stalking you.

African Santa Claus in the Mall!
Love the Ray Ban's.

As we were literally scraping out our pockets in order to stay in Mbabane another night we sadly couldn’t engage in any retail therapy. So we bought meat. Saturday night was braii night at Bombaso’s! So we stocked up on some chicken, beef, boerewors (basically sausage), rolls, salad, fanta grape, Doritos and chakalaka relish – I was already excited. 

The braii did not disappoint, the meat was good, the chakalaka was spicy and the company was hilarious! Jason the owner invited some friends over and a bachelor party staying at the backpackers joined in when they arrived back from a day of manly activities; fishing and paintballing. We liked them; they were handing out free Jager shots.

Sunday we decided to get out and see some of Mbabane that wasn’t a bar or a mall, so we took a walk down the hill behind the backpackers and caught some amazing views of the Sibebe Mountains – the largest exposed solid granite pluton in the world.
It was a lovely scenic walk down, but when we reached the bottom we turned around and realised we were at the bottom of a valley and the backpackers was at the top... Absolutely killed myself getting back up that hill, and of course there were no kombis that passed us! They’re always trying to get you on them when you don’t need them, but when you really do they’re nowhere to be seen – typical.

Sibebe Mountain Viewing

The beginning of the long long loooong way down the valley!

We really enjoyed our visit to the capital, and we will definitely be back! Now I feel like we’re getting a better picture  and understanding of what Swaziland is like as a country, yes there are the rural poor areas that we all believe Africa to be like, but there’s also a surprising amount that is very similar to being back home. The people are westernised, they dress differently from others in their culture and don’t share the same traditions even though there are 100% Swazi, just like the farmers on the sugar cane fields...
I’m learning more and more about Swaziland every day, and a year is the perfect amount of time to fully understand this country, its traditions and its people!

Much love...

Kate xx

P.S. On Sunday we found a Tandoori restaurant for lunch, had the most amazing peri peri chicken! But let’s just say that the next day I decided that it’s a good job I’m not on a project in India... I’ll leave that one as food for thought ;) 

Jason Foss, the owner and manager of Bombaso's!
Travelled the world and has some hilarious stories about drunk driving mini mopeds in England in the snow and getting pulled over by the police.