“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

“One five minutes, one five!”

Sadly it is time to leave the beautiful Amapondo backpackers in Port St. John’s and move on... I will surely miss the thick jungle and amazing views.
So it is back to the Shell Ultra City (a petrol station where we have been spending quite a lot of time due to the Baz Bus shuttles) and then we move on to Coffee Bay! We were all excited at the prospect of spending some time in Coffee Bay as it has had a great reputation among the past Project Trust volunteers, so we were about to find out for ourselves why it was so amazing.

Coffee Bay
We arrive and it is beautiful, it is a tiny little place with a couple of beaches and hills that you have to wade to across a rivers’ mouth to reach, and the landscape is pretty much untouched. We had a walk to the ‘main part’ of the town which is home to; two backpackers (Coffee Shack and Bomvu), Kaleidoscope Kafe (a little hippy shop and cafe, who also sell the most amazing homemade passion fruit ice-cream!), a pizza place on the top of a ridiculous hill, an Indian run family store (who have all of their products behind what looks like prison wire, so they’re clearly conscientious about safety) and... well, that’s pretty much it.
I’m lying, that’s almost it; I’ve nearly forgotten about the jewellery ladies! As you hop across stepping stones over a little river to reach this area the grass banks are lined with ladies sat on blankets selling their handmade jewellery. Unlike stall owners in Swaziland these ladies don’t sit quietly and hope you will buy something...
As we passed by what must have been 15 stalls all selling the same thing we had 15 ladies all introducing themselves to us, telling us we must buy from them and saying that we must remember them and come again tomorrow. I smiled apologetically and said that I had no money and carried on walking, Ashley however stopped to have a look at one stall and that was the end of her. As soon as she was stationary all the ladies grabbed pieces of jewellery, sprinted from their stalls and threw themselves onto Ashley; within seconds she was laden with necklaces, bracelets and anklets, and she was surrounded by women so desperate to sell that their approaches to customers were more intimidating than friendly. In the end she paid for pretty much everything that had been attached to her body as it was the only logical option for escape!
This happened to us every time we walked past, which was a few times a day. I took on the inspiring motto of “if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball” and zigzagged my way through the danger zone with my reflective aviators on so that no one could catch my eye.  

Arriving, it's a tad cold, but the weather will soon pick up!

Our accommodation at Sugar Loaf backpackers! Finally I get to stay in an African hut!

 Tuesday morning starts with disaster, we booked a surf lesson for 7:30 in the morning and set an alarm so that we could get up and walk to Coffee Shack in enough time. Unluckily for us Ashley’s alarm decides to not go off and we get a call from the backpackers at 7:20 asking where we are and the answer is in bed. We all jump up that second (it is the quickest we have ever moved on a morning), throw on some clothes, grab our swimming gear and run to Coffee Shack which is about a 10 minute walk away. At 7:25 in the morning you do not want to be running for your life in flip flops on a dirt track wearing nothing but a bikini and a top. We made the surf lesson though and it was pretty fun! The water in Coffee Bay is as warm as a bath because it is the Indian Ocean, lovely.

We spend the day sunbathing and swimming on the beach and then head off for some pizza and ice-cream, I love holidays. 

Nothing says "Welcome to Africa" quite like cows on the beach...

Me not having a poo on Coffee Bay beach, just unfortunate timing!

Mmmm! Sun sea and sand <3

That night we decide to get in touch with some African culture and we head to Bomvu backpackers for the free drum lessons around the campfire! Considering I am the most unmusical person in the world I really enjoyed the drum circle, the guy lead us with some simple beats and we just copied him, when there’s about 20 people all playing in time on the dijembe drums it sounds quite impressive (even for a bunch of amateurs).

Dijembe Drums

Looking sunburned and sweaty, sums up my time perfectly really!

 The next day is hell, Ashley and I contracted third degree burns from the beach (the boys weren’t as bad), but none of us can move very far. My lips have blistered (which has never happened before in my life, and I’m very familiar with sunburn) and my face is so red and shiny I look like a prematurely born baby. Ashley looks like she has skin disease because she sun-creamed in patches before getting bored and presumably giving up. We took advantage of the aloe-vera plants growing in pots around the backpackers and cut off big leaves to take to the bathroom, there we spent half an hour covering ourselves in think, green sticky (but amazingly cooling) goo.

East London
LANDAN BABY! We head off to East London from Coffee Bay, and on the way back to our favourite petrol station (Shell Ultra City) we pass buy Nelson Mandela’s house and old village! WE SEE HIS REAL HOUSE, WHERE HE LIVES! And just like the Queen when he is home a flag flies from the rooftop, but when we passed there was no flag, because he is in hospital.

The Big Man's house.

We bump into the Polokwane girls at the Shell Ultra City; they’re getting off the Baz Bus to head to Coffee Bay. It’s so strange seeing them again after all this time, they visited us within our first 3 or 4 weeks into our stay in Swaziland, but when I see them again it doesn’t even feel like we’ve been apart for very long!

Our stay in East London was quite a long one, so we took advantage of the time and fitted in some activities. We went sand boarding on our first full day; sand boarding for those who don’t know is basically snowboarding on a sand dune. What we didn’t think about when we booked it was that in order to sand board DOWN the dune, you had to climb up it first. Unlike snowboarding there aren’t any lifts to the top; so in 30 degree heat and bare foot on scolding hot sand we were jogging up this sand dune, carrying our boards and struggling against the constant sand avalanches which hindered our progress.
Physical exhaustion (and embarrassment about how unfit I have become) aside I had a great time! Ashley, the Sam’s and myself bit the dust, literally, many times but before the end of our 2 hour lesson we all managed to make one full run down to the bottom! Sam Rutherford was so hardcore by the end he managed to snap his board in half, good effort my friend.

The next day we set off for a family friendly animal park; not the normal choice of destination for a group of 18 year olds but there was one good reason we were heading there... lion cubs. Need I say more?
For 30 rand (£2.15) you had access to view all the animals at the park (tigers, lions, crocodiles, cheetahs, rabbits and some of the biggest tortoises you will ever lay eyes on), and the opportunity to play with lion cubs! Money well spent.
It was a pretty funny day; I managed to electrocute myself on the cheetah enclosure (which is also on video because Sam permanently has his camera on to document everything that happens) and we found a llama that looked exactly like Ruth (a woman who worked at Kaleidoscope Kafe in Coffee Bay). Therefore we entertained ourselves for a good 30 minutes doing voice-overs to the llamas in a posh Johannesburg accent; it was almost like Ruth was with us.   

Howzit Ruth?

It's not everyday you get mauled my a Lion Cub :D

So, that’s it for this week! I’ve seen some more beautiful places and I’m definitely catching the travelling bug. 

Kate xx

P.S. The title of this post is dedicated to the one and only Petros, the best Baz Bus driver South Africa has to offer.

Petros: “Ok guys, we have fifteen minute stop, yes? Everyone back here in one five minutes... one five, one five!”

We love Petros.

Sockpoi at Amapondo Backpackers

Next time I will be playing with FIREEE, trust me.

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.