“This is a disaster, Debonaires aren’t delivering.”

So we’re back on holiday for some more travelling! Ahhh I love to travel after a long stint of hard work. Instead of trying out some place new we decided to revisit one of our favourite stops from our Christmas travels down the coast. COFFEE BAY.
This time around we managed to stay in Coffee Shack; probably one of the best known backpackers in all of South Africa and we were reunited with a fellow PT friend! Sally works in Mthata (about 1 hour away) so she came down to Coffee Bay for a bit of a party with us on the Friday night before she had to go back to work. The night was joyous, with flowing drinks and many pool challenges; I was even so lucky to find R300 on the floor of a toilet cubicle, but in my stupidly truthful drunken state I insisted in finding the owner of the money instead of just spending it on drinks... which was the worst idea ever looking back now because I’m pretty sure the girl I ended up giving it to was just lying. I think I should just stick with the mantra of “finders keepers” in the future, for I have never been so lucky.

Anyway, the next morning was actual hell, we woke up early in order to get ready for the ‘beach day’ we had booked; a fun filled day of beach activities, surfing and toasties, which was just the perfect thing to be doing with a massive hang over. Despite our less than fit states we actually had a really great day sunbathing, napping and surfing! We really did surf too, stood up properly and everything!

After our great weekend in Coffee Bay getting reunited with the locals and their colourful business pitches, haha, we headed off to Mthata to meet Sally on her project! Bethany Care Home is an orphanage for babies and children and provides them with education and a safe place to stay. THE BABIES ARE THE CUTEST THINGS I HAVE EVER SEEN ON THIS PLANET. I know that I say it all the time, but I really really really would steal one of them back to England if I could get away with it.

So we stayed with Sally for a few days and helped her out on project; it’s basically a room filled with babies and toddlers and you just get to play with them! And obviously wash them, feed them, sniff them for bad smells and change diapers. So this was my first experience looking after babies as an ‘adult’ and I have to admit that the diaper thing was pretty disgusting the first time, and the second time... actually, it was disgusting every single time but once you’ve started getting to know the babies you don’t mind as much because they are just so adorable! Now I know that it’s probably bad to have favourites but I couldn’t help it; one little girl completely stole my heart with her Asian looking features; she apparently has no Asian in her what-so-ever so I don’t know where the look comes from but she was totally irresistible. She was gorgeous but always looked sad; until the evening where I helped Sally on night shift, for some reason at 3:00am in the morning she was the happiest little baby ever and that was the only time I ever saw her smiling... well, and the time she sharted on me but that was probably more of a grimace than a smile.  (And for anyone who doesn’t know; a ‘shart’ is the word for when someone farts and follows through, i.e. a shit-fart. Just clearing up any confusion).

See, look how happy she is!

...but this is what she normally looked like. So sad :(

And this was after the 'shart' - tactically holding her away from my body here! Hahaa.

The girls at Bethany have their hands full all of the time, it felt like being a full time Mother to about 11 babies all at once, so many demands! I now feel like I’ve had an introductory lesson into how to be a Mother, and I can tell you right now it does not seem easy – thank god this is far in the future for me! Being with the babies kind of reminded me of when we used to take the neighbour’s dog for a walk... they’re cute and you want to play with them but as soon as they go to the toilet you can’t wait to pass over the poop bag and the responsibility to someone else. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I loved being on the project for a short time, but I don’t know if I could handle the puking, pooping and crying every day... yeah, the girls do a fantastic job.

So now the visit is over, and it’s time to go and meet my family to Johannesburg!

Kate xx

“I just had s-s-s........” aaargh!

Good things never last forever, and now that our departure date is coming ever closer I am more and more aware of just how much I am going to miss this place when we do have to leave. I’ll just be contently working on project watching as my kids work away and all of a sudden the thought of the last day here hits me... The moment where I say bye to them for the last time, the moment where I’ve hugged the last child and put them down, the moment I turn around and have to walk away, and the moment I lose sight of them as we drive around the corner; my heart is breaking at the thought of these things and stopping impromptu crying in front of children has become quite a regular occurrence in my daily routine.

All our work at Injabulo is going great and the kids are even better, I actually feel like a proper teacher! The best thing is that we’ve had someone else instil their own opinion in us which has boosted our confidence of how brilliantly we are doing on project. It might seem obnoxious of me to say that we’re ‘brilliant’ but when we take a look at the progress we have made this year; the improvements to the school, the increased knowledge of the children and the more advanced English that they are learning there’s really only one word for it! Being at Injabulo makes me glow with pride, it is literally our school and we can do whatever we want with it, which means that it can go two ways; you either constantly make improvements or you let standards slide. I absolutely love being there and you get out twice as much as you put in, and we’ve really been throwing ourselves into the place, and the children are absolutely wonderful because of it. Their level of knowledge is wonderful, not their behaviour though! Haha.
Two workers from the Lutheran foundation came for visits to Injabulo and they congratulated us on the job we were doing there; they said that we were one of the smallest and least supported care points that they had visited but we were also one of the best! They thought that we did a fantastic job with the children and that their English was some of the best they had seen for their age group; we couldn’t have been happier.

I’m afraid this is another short one; I’ve just been so busy educating young minds ;)

Don’t hate on me :)

Kate xx

P.S. The title is from a rather unfortunate event at Injabulo; the Lutheran workers were over and holding a meeting with parents from the community. We had all the children playing outside and were playing music from my laptop for them to dance to... ALWAY BE WARY OF SHUFFLE. Anyway, a rather inappropriate song by The Lonely Island popped on the shuffle list and began to play out full blast in front of children, parents and well, basically everyone. I have never hurled myself at the pause button so fast! I made it just in time.

A Scottish Visitor

My pretty regular visits to Facebook keep me well updated on how warm it is getting over there in England, I can tell that the short shorts have been donned and the shades have been dusted off from a long hibernation. Down here in the Southern Hemisphere things are a little different; Africa is now experiencing winter, and it is not what I expected at ALL. In the early days of this year I scoffed and laughed when the Swazi’s were talking about winter; all their worry about acquiring thick blankets, fires and woollies seemed unnecessary to me as I couldn’t believe for one second that this heated hell-hole could actually cool down. Oh how wrong I was.
Not only does it cool down in Big Bend, the nights are now freezing cold! Okay, maybe not freezing by thermometer standards, but when you’ve been used to ‘low’ temperatures of 20 degrees for 9 months it comes as a shock to the system when temperatures fall to 5 or 7 degrees and you can see your breath as you walk to the bus rank on a morning.

I came to Africa completely unprepared for any cold temperatures as my naivety and ignorance of this diverse and wonderful country led me to believe that it is hot all year round, and that the African people have no idea what it is like to be cold. Talking to the teachers we work with about winter makes me feel guilty for not wanting to get out of my cosy bed on a morning; these women (like many others) sleep snuggled up with their children in tiny breeze block and tin roofed houses to keep warm, they rise at 4:00am to boil water and wash outside in the freezing cold before they and their children prepare for the long walk to school or work at 6:00am... and I used to get cold anxiety when it came to getting out of the shower on a morning before college. Don’t lie; we all get it, ever stood in the shower for a good 5 minutes longer than you need to just because you can’t face opening those doors? Shame on us.

I’ve talked too much and strayed off topic. This post is about Ashley’s best friend Jodie coming to visit!
Jodie visited for about 3 weeks and for that time she came with us every day on project and helped out with the kids; it was like having a 3^rd volunteer! When Jodie arrived it was like Christmas had landed in Ashley’s bedroom at hostel; with a 37kg suitcase she had brought everything but the kitchen sink to Swaziland and probably put some airport workers back out in the process. There was everything in that suitcase; football tops, shoes, toothbrushes, sweets, games, books, clothes, toys and I don’t even know what else! Needless to say Ashley’s class at Injabulo were more than happy when they all tottered off back home wearing brand new football tops and had their mouths full of Tangfastics.

Coincidentally Jodie’s visit and Swaziland’s biggest Arts, Music and Culture festival overlapped; which meant that the 3 of us packed up the minimal amount of clothes, took a tent and a kombi to Manzini and set ourselves of for an International weekend of culture at MTN BUSHFIRE! Bring your fiiiirree!
Bushfire attracts large numbers of people not just from Africa but from every corner of the world; we were camped next to some Spaniards and South Africans, camped opposite some Germans (one of whom we had already met on our Christmas travels!), heard numerous Australian and American accents, met a fair few Brits and even bumped into a topless Scotsman leaving the porta-loo wearing only shorts, a tartan flat cap with the ginger wig inside and the Scottish flag as a cape. As I said, INTERNATIONAL.

Jodie, Ashley and I

The MTN Bushfire festival is held every year at ‘Malandelas - House on Fire’ in Manzini; it boasts the Swaziland Fair Trade Market where independent businesses come from all over Swaziland to sell their wares, and an International Food Market – my favourite place, obviously. You could eat; Portuguese, Chinese, Spanish, English, African anything you wanted, all within 30 seconds walking distance of each other. Safe to say I ended up at the Chinese stall in the early hours of one morning ordering spring rolls back to back with a girl from Joburg, judging by the rate that we were scoffing the scalding hot rolls we were equally as starving as one another. Definitely better than a dodgy kebab, although the English stall didn’t even sell those.

We camped for 2 nights at Bushfire and the acts were fantastic; after being in Swaziland for 9 months we finally understand the African House music, which is just as well because that was the main genre! We felt much more confident about cracking out our African dance moves this time around than we did back in October at the Simunye Fair. 

So we’ve now been introduced to a few new artists in our lives and it has broadened our minds to different kinds of music, great music that hasn’t even reached the UK yet! If you’re interested get yourself onto Youtube and check out these guys; Veranda Panda, Toya Delazy, Jeremy Loops and Euphonik.

Sunday morning saw us dropping Jodie off at the airport and making our way back to Big Bend on a kombi. I was still drunk from the night before, smelly, dirty and lugging around a poorly packed up tent; everyone knew where we had been.

MTN Bushfire... been there, done that, got the t-shirt. No really, I actually did buy a t-shirt.

Always bring your fire.

Kate xx