We're Home!

For those of you that are still following our blog, I thought I would write to let you know that we made it back into the country on December 17th at about 10am. We have now had 2 days being in Lexington and it will definitely take some getting used to! We went to the mall yesterday, not knowing what we were in for; Super Saturday was overrun with people looking for last minute items for Christmas and I was unprepared for the hustle and bustle of this, now, foreign culture of mine. I purposely, all be it naively, thrust myself into the world of consumerism far to soon!
It is now 5:20am and I've already been awake for 1 1/2 hours; I can't seem to rid myself of the jet lag. Unfortunately for those that want to see me in the evenings, I am a miserable, worn-out mess by the time we get together. I get tired at 7pm and get up at 4am, this makes for a fabulous night person!
Coming back has had its share of pleasures and heartaches; it has been great to see my friends and family, but something is different this time. I've heard people, after a trip of significance, say that after their trip they felt profoundly different and wished that others could understand, but now I know it first hand. I feel vastly different from the man I was prior to my leaving, but I come back to a home, aside from the blanket of snow, that feels largely unchanged. This incongruity has been a challenge and a burden for the last two days. I know I'm newly back to the culture in which I left, but I can't help feeling an emotional pull for the other side of the world.
With that said, this transition back into American life has been harder than I expected, but I think my anxiety is abating slightly each day. I can't expect to jump between, literally, two contrasting fields of vision without certain repercussions. I have been encouraged, however; the sweets here are much more to my liking!

Coming Home Soon!

I’ve been singing Christmas music for 1 week now, but still haven’t been able to conjure up the typical nostalgic vibes. Not only is it pretty dang hot here (my tan is getting pretty nice J), but I also find out that you all back home are having a good ol’ fashioned snow storm and I’m not there to enjoy it! How long has it been that we had significant snow amounts in December and it happens to be in the same year that we decide to not be around! Anyway, we began packing for home this past weekend and it was a bittersweet feeling. For one, I’m so looking forward to coming home to the Christmas feel and the joys that home brings, but the concept of home seems to have changed. This place has given me such a feeling of purpose and an opportunity to be fully in touch with myself, that it is proving difficult to leave. One thing is for certain, my aspirations have been augmented and my determination for seeking my goals has been enhanced. I think that I am coming back a changed man; perhaps not so changed that I am different at first sight, but distinctive upon probing. I now find that it will take me a lifetime to live up to the desires I have for myself, and an equal span of time to contemplate what’s warranted the change.

-Ben

Update on Psychology Work with Snap

I thought I would write a little blog to just to keep you up to date with my volunteer work for SNAP (Swaziland National Aids Program). On Wednesday, December 8, 2010, I went to Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland, to meet with the King’s Cabinet members to discuss some data that was collected to better understand the prevalence of stress and anxiety within the health care community. The government had hired a company to collect and analyze data for their study of over 2500 health care workers/participants from all over Swaziland. I was contacted by the office of the Swazi Minister of Health to come to a meeting, as an outside consultant, designed to overview the data and develop protocols to enhance the government’s psychological care. My assessment of their 85-page manual was that it was pretty lacking and I offered to take a more in depth look into how to make the data tell us something useful. Reluctantly, during the meeting I had to inform the other members of the cabinet (the ones who originally collected and analyzed the data) of some noticeable holes in the data. The team took my suggestions on ways they could clean up the data, but in the end, I noticed that the data, previously analyzed (by an outside source), needed to be revised. Seeing a need from the team and the possibilities of brushing up on my stats, I agreed to reanalyze the data. I plan on working on some validity and reliability studies once I get back stateside and then sending them my findings. I’m looking forward to continuing my relationship with the Swazi government and hope to, perhaps, get a publication out of the data.

-Ben

Why can’t we ever have an uneventful road trip?

We woke up yesterday and wanted to watch Harry Potter 7. We decided to drive to the nearest movie theater to watch said movie. The nearest theater is 3 hours away in South Africa. We suffered through slow Siteki internet, as usual, to find directions. We left Mabuda. We came back to Mabuda. We got all the stuff we forgot and left Mabuda again. We got lost but said that we planned the detour. We drove an hour out of our way. We found the road that we were supposed to be on. It was a dirt road. The Gracia doesn’t like dirt roads. We took another “detour”. We made it to the border post. We got a bad border post official. We couldn’t get into South Africa. We got a good border post official. We can stay in South Africa as long as we want now. We followed a cow through the border gate. We got stuck behind a wedding processional. They were swerving through both lanes of the highway. We passed them. They weren’t happy. We followed another cow on the highway. We turned toward Nelspruit onto a dirt road. Did I mention the Gracia doesn’t like dirt roads? We turned back to the paved road. We took another “detour”. We went another half hour out of our way. We got to the movie theater. We were 3 hours early. We left the movie theater. We called a backpacker’s hostel to find a place to sleep. They didn’t answer. We called again. They still didn’t answer. We called again. Ditto. We called another backpacker’s hostel. They also didn’t answer. We called again. Take a guess at the result. We drove to the first backpacker. My computer battery died. It had the directions on it. We took a wrong turn. We justified it by looking at the nearby restaurants. We found the correct road. The backpacker’s hostel did indeed exist. We got the last rooms they had. It was more expensive than we wanted to pay. We found another hostel. The Pakistani that I talked to scared me. We decided to go with the first hostel. We went to watch HARRY POTTER 7! The air conditioning in the theater was out. We watched it anyway. Before the movie started we quickly recapped 6000 pages of Harry Potter for Eric. Eric was still confused the majority of the movie. We left the theater very happy. We gorged ourselves on pizza. We went back to the expensive backpackers. We tried to stay up late. We only made it to 10pm. Ben wasn’t so lucky. He had an in-depth conversation with a Zimbabwean with aspirations to be an international businessman/televangelist. For two hours. He went to bed. Grace told him off in her sleep. We got up in the morning. Apparently there was a huge thunderstorm the night before. I slept through it. As usual. I wore a hat because I didn’t want to shower. I went to breakfast. I didn’t make it to the kitchen. The Zimbabwean international businessman/televangelist thought I was Ben. I didn’t realize this until it was too late. Blasted hat. An hour later I ate toast. We left before I had time to brush my teeth. We backed out of the parking lot. We realized we had a flat tire. With one of our “new” tires. I brushed my teeth with my newfound time. We put the doughnut tire on. It gets a lot of use recently. We went to get Fix-A-Flat. It doesn’t work for tires that are off the rim. Our tire was off the rim. We bought it anyway. We went to a tire store to get the tire fixed. It was closed. We went to another tire store. It was also closed. It was Sunday. Everything is closed on Sunday. All the traffic lights were out. The storm apparently knocked out all of the electricity. We went to a gas station to pump up the tire. We worked for a half hour to get the tire back on rim. It didn’t work. We went to another gas station to try the same tactics for getting the tire on the rim. Why we thought that would work is beyond me. We found another tire repair store. It is open 24/7. It was closed. Remember the electricity issue? We went back to the second gas station to try to get the tire on the rim. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It worked this time. We were happy. We pumped up the tire. It still didn’t hold air. We had a mini meltdown. We went to McDonald’s. We were happy again. We went to the grocery store. It was closed. Still no electricity. We tried the Fix-A-Flat. It didn’t work. We put the doughnut tire back on. Did I mention how much use it gets? We decided to drive back to Swaziland. On the doughnut tire. Ironically, the doughnut tire is the most reliable tire we have. We tried a new “shortcut” back to Swaziland. It wasn’t a shortcut. We turned around and tried another shortcut. It was a shortcut. We got to the border gate. We had a good border gate official. We were through the gate in 5 minutes. No cows blocking our entrance in to the country this time. We got pulled over at a traffic stop. Eric said he was a doctor and they let us go right through. We got back to Siteki. All tires were still intact. Except our “new” one. We passed the place that sold us the tire. We weren’t happy with them. We went back. We asked for a new tire. They actually gave us one. We were happy with them. We saw a small child riding in the back of a truck. There were 8 goats in the truck with him. Welcome home.

-Brad

Sorry we have been so late in updating the blog, but we have put up many new pictures and 3 new blogs. Enjoy!

Update on Ben's Work with SNAP!

SNAP(Swaziland National AIDS Program) Psychological Care and Support Unit is the governmental group that I have been working with for the last few months and I wanted to give you an update on what I have been up to! I work with a team of psychologists and psychiatrists from around the country to understand and develop stress management techniques for health care workers assisting the HIV/AIDS population in Swaziland. We have collected a large amount of data from over 2,000+ participants in all 4 quadrants of the country and I am part of a smaller group that is working to analyze, critique, and draw conclusions from the data. On Dec. 8th I will be traveling to Mbabane (the capital city of Swaziland) to meet with other government officials along with King Mswati III's council member, the Minister of Healthcare and Social Welfare, to display our findings.
I've really enjoyed my work with them, though it has been short-lived, but really hope that this meeting goes well. I've also addressed the council on trying to set up a way to continue my work with SNAP as an outside contributor to which I have received positive vibes!
-Ben

Update on the Garden

For those that are keeping track of the progress of the garden, we are in our last 2 weeks of work for Brad and myself so we are at a fever pitch to get many things done prior to handing off the job. Brad and I just completed the focal point project for the garden which is a large waterfall that flows into a series of 3 different pools on its way to the avocado garden. Brad has 2 men working with him planting ferns, lilies, vines, trees, poinsettias, etc. I have 3 other men working with me on all the hard scape work. We have just put in another two sets of steps, leveled the area that is the future site of the cabana/barbecue area, and preparing for the massive set of steps leading up to the main terrace. We are also in the process of routing a 1/2 kilometer pipe from a distant dam to the upper waterfall (first of 3 main waterfalls in the feature) as well as putting a 4 kilometer fence around the perimeter of the garden.
With the water collection system in place, we are now able to provide the farm and community approximately 10,000 liters of water per day in the dry season and 10,000 liters every 6-10 hours in the rainy season.
We are starting to recognize the debilitating effects of the weather now. We lost a our work day today due to a massive amount of early morning rain and it looks like the rain will continue tomorrow as well. We are working 9 hour days and 6 days a week now trying to complete these major projects before we leave.

One thing is for certain, we have had a great time putting our blood and sweat into this project and will probably want to come back to Siteki in a few years to see its progress!

Thanksgiving Day in Swaziland

Eric's parents, Ken and Alice Higgins, came to visit us here in Swaziland on November 20th in order to see the country, visit Eric, and have Thanksgiving here in Siteki. We picked up Mr. and Mrs. Higgins in Johannesburg then took them on a short vacation up to the northern parts of South Africa to the Mpumalanga region of the country, famous for its large waterfalls. We stayed in a small town called Graskop while enjoying such sights like the Three Rondavels, God's Window, Bourke's Luck Potholes, and Mac Mac Pools before going back to Kruger National Park for a whirlwind tour through the southern part of the park. We were able to see many of the larger animals from our previous visit (elephant, kudu, hippo, crocodile, impala, etc.), this time we were also able to see many smaller, more unique animals, than we did in the 8 days on our previous trip.
The crowning achievement of our final trip to Kruger was only 2 km away from the park exit, when just to the right of our vehicle, we looked 10 meters into the bush to find a cheetah that had just brought down a kill and was chowing down right in front of us. To those who are wondering how exciting this was, many people will go to Kruger on multiple trips and never see a cheetah, let alone one that has just chased down his lunch!
We got back into Swaziland with some struggles of our own. We were driving a loaned SUV from Dr. Pons since we were going to some rugged country and while driving through some seriously hot temperatures we noticed that the air conditioning would periodically switch off. We thought nothing of it and just opened the windows. The climax came when we were driving up the steep mountain road going to Siteki when we heard a large boom from the engine and steam billowing from the hood. We were only 4 km from our destination when we cracked the radiator!
Thanksgiving was only two days away so once we finally made it back to the farm with the broken SUV we quickly began preparing our epic Thanksgiving Day meal! On the menu for this festive occasion was turkey (we had to drive 4 hours away to find one!), mashed potatoes, butternut souffle`, cranberry salad, green-bean casserole, pumpkin pie (thank you, Mrs. Higgins, for bringing the french-fried onions and canned pumpkin!), apple pie, homemade rolls, and Southern Sweet Tea! We had a total of 14 people around our beautiful table and 4 countries represented. After our meal, Eric gave a great history lesson on the beginnings of the holiday. This Thanksgiving was particularly interesting due to the vast changes in scenery and guests, however, one thing stayed the same, we ate a exorbitant amount of food for which we were suffering for 2 days afterward!
-Ben

New Photos

Check out the new photos!

-Brad

As if one vacation from our vacation was not enough...

We are excited to pick up Eric's parents tomorrow from the airport in Johannesburg. They are traveling here to celebrate Thanksgiving with us! This weekend and early next week we are going to travel in the Mpumalanga area which is famous for its waterfalls and good hiking. Then we will arrive just in time to prepare for a Thanksgiving meal. We surprisingly located a turkey in South Africa (turkey is not a staple food in South Africa or Swaziland). We have been able to locate everything else except canned pumpkin (for pumpkin pie) and french fried onions (for green bean casserole). We're going to share our US holiday with some South African and Swazi friends and there will likely be a fair amount of improvisation with dishes, but I am looking forward to the challenge. We'll update when we have internet access about how our trip goes!

Bulungula, Wild Coast

Our final destination on our epic trip through the southern part of the South Africa was brilliantly completed at a place called Bulungula, a very small village outside the electricity, mail, and telephone grids in a place untouched by western tourism. This place prides itself on using ones brains to come up with eco-friendly ways to conserve resources while still using the gifts of the earth. I know what you are thinking; “You are going to a place with no electricity, no hot water heaters, no connection to the outside world for our vacation destination? Are you Crazy?!” Well, yes we are crazy, but that’s beside the point. This place was spectacular! The Bulungula lodge was nothing more than a shack that has been turned into a haven for nature loving, free thinkers from around the globe. We were able to learn how some bright people have started using solar power for cooking, boiling water, providing hot water for showers, and providing a bit of light all while using nothing from the electricity grids of the world. Everything there is self-sustaining! While there we were able to speak to people from a dozen different nationalities about a plethora of topics. This place was more than the activities surrounding our visit, rather it was a place where movers and shakers from around the world could find a meeting place where internet, nice homes, an amenities of all sorts were not the priority.

Grace was able to get in on a group of people doing yoga while I had some great conversations around a big fire overlooking the ocean. Brad and Eric also met some interesting people; physiologists, surgeons, engineers, sociologists, economists, mathematicians, and all sorts of others all met here for the weekend. We were able to do some kayaking up an estuary where we found a beached whale that was decomposing on the beachside. We spoke to the owner of the lodge and he told us that after the spinal disks of the large blue whale stopped stinking he was going to turn them into chairs for around the fire. Now that’s a reclamation project!

-Ben

Garden Route Trip

Our trip to Knysna, a quaint vacationer’s town on the coast, gave us 4 days to relax, hike, and take in some great food. We stayed in a place called Brenton-on-Sea, a beachfront village just to the southwest of Knysna, at Chantalle Vorster’s (a new friend we met in Pretoria) holiday home. We spent 4 days at her house, but used this location as a home base for all the hiking and sight seeing we did in and around Kynsna. We hiked the Heads, two massive hills that constrict the water prior to entering into a large secluded bay, on our first day of our visit, which still gave us time to have dinner out. We have found that eating out in this country is not nearly as expensive as it would be in America. In fact, if we choose moderately priced restaurants we can eat out for the same price as eating in. Obviously, we have found ourselves eating out quite a lot lately!

We also had a great hike in the Tsitsikamma National Park. We hiked a 10 kilometer trail along the ocean called the Otter Trail, a widely renown trail worldwide. Along our hike we were able to see massive fissures in the rock where the power of the ocean has been eroding the ground for millions of years to create massive cave structures overlooking the ocean. Our hike came to an end at a 200+ foot waterfall falling into the ocean. This was a sight to behold! Please see the pictures for visual stimulation!

-Ben

Gondwana Game Reserve

We got to Gondwana Game Reserve on Saturday, November 6^th by the graciousness of Will’s parents who own a home in the private game reserve. This is a Big 5 game reserve close to the ocean in the middle of South Africa. The game reserve sits on 25,000 acres of pristine untouched parts of the countryside overlooking the ocean on one side and a great mountain range on the other. Our house sat in the middle of the reserve with no one within 5 miles of our location. The mountains in the distance provided picturesque views that have reminded me of places such as Colorado and Idaho yet has a character all its own. This place gave me a peace that I’ve only felt in 2 other places in my life. I definitely will not forget this place.

-Ben

More New Photos

More new photos are up of our trip through South Africa. We are finally to the end of our trip and it was amazing! More blogs are to come detailing our adventures. In the mean time, check out the slideshow on the side!

-Brad

New Photos!

Check out the new photos of our most recent adventures along the southern coast of South Africa! (Click on the slideshow on the left)

Cape Town!

We got to Cape Town on October 30th and boy were we astounded at its beauty! This trip to South Africa was brought on by a need to go to Human Affairs in Cape Town to get an extension on our travel visas. Since we had to drive so far to do all this, we decided to make a trip out of it! We stayed in Cape Town for 6 days and we filled up every day!
Day 1
First we went to a community market in the heart of the city. We picked up a few cool things and then met up with our good friend Stewart Jackson (met him in Swaziland, from Scotland) for a lunch and some beach time. We also traveled around to some of the famous wine estates in the valleys around Cape Town.
Day 2
we hiked the famous Skeleton Gorge up to the highest point on Table Mountain. This was quite a strenuous hike, but it was so worth it! We hiked up a waterfall for the majority of the trip which made it pretty slick, but provided awesome views. While coming down from the summit, we decided to jog down. This wasn't one of our finest ideas as our joints were hurting pretty bad by about the midpoint. We tried to do a bit of recovering by sitting in the Kirstenbosch Gardens on the side of Table Mountain. These gardens are considered the finest gardens in the whole of Africa. They span a massive area and provide excellent views of the mountain range while giving its visitors the fabulous sense of peace and tranquility. The flora and fauna of this place was breathtaking! We ended the night with a great meal in downtown Cape Town.
Day 3
We got up at 5am in to get to Human Affairs really early so it wouldn't kill the rest of our day. This was not fun! We waited from 6am till 7am until the doors opened got in at the front of the queue and after R450 in money spent to get a new visa we found out that we would have to come back in two days and do this all over again to get a paper that would let us travel legally throughout the country while we waited for our new visas. The rest of the day was spent driving down to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. This was an amazing trip just stopping by this little sleepy towns, getting coffee on the waterfront, and finally, getting to our destination at the bottom of the continent!

Day 4 We spent this day on the beach (or on quiet a few beaches actually) then for some awesome ice cream. This was our day spent nursing our aching bodies after our hike up Table Mountain.

Day 5 This day was used to visit some of the downtown areas including the District 6 Museum (famous for the struggles during Apartheid). At 4pm we met at the Cape Town Royal Yacht Club because we had been invited to crew a 42ft sailing yacht in an evening Competition Regatta in the Atlantic Ocean. This was so awesome! Our jobs included manning the ropes when tacking, watching for points on the horizon-line for positioning and directionality and moving from one side to the other to ballast the boat. We didn't come in first, but thankfully we didn't come in last! I haven't had so much fun in a long time! Grace, Stewart and I were on one boat while Brad and Eric were asked to help crew on another boat due the some of that boats crew missing a few members.

Day 6 We went back to the Human Affairs office to get some paperwork then we were off to Hermanus, a small town on the cliff sides overlooking the ocean. A great place for whale watching!

More to come soon!
Ben

Whale Watching in Hermanus

On our trip through South Africa we stopped over at Will Mapham's (friend from Swaziland) parents home. The house is on the side of a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in a section of the country famous for its whale watching. Right Whales from the Antarctic come up to this area to breed and hang around for a couple months. We only had a couple of days here, but we tried to make the most of it. Walter Mapham (Will's dad) welcomed us so warmly and made it feel just like home! We walked around the town a bit and took in some whale watching with him then went back to have a great Pakistani-Curry meal before finishing the night off with some drinks around the fire watching the sun go down.
The next morning we woke up at 5:30am for a "Sunrise Swim" in a natural stone pool just beside the ocean. Cold is an understatement! Nonetheless, it was a great morning swim which woke us up for the rest of the day. We did some more sightseeing then headed out to our next destination; a private 5-star game reserve (also free due to our good friend Will Mapham!)

Ben

I call the backseat middle with my feet on the hump!

Friday, October 29, 2010


Currently, as I type, we are driving down to Cape Town! This exciting trip down to the Cape, along the Garden Route, and then back up the western coast of South Africa has been a long time in the making. Brad has sincerely researched, planned, and hooked us up with a great itinerary. We will keep you updated with all the adventures we encounter. Thankfully, Eric’s investment in a white Toyota Camry Gracia has made it possible for us to have a car for all our traveling. The car works great and it has a large boot (trunk), and we figured out how to stuff it full!
I have been truly excited about this foray into South Africa for a few reasons. First of all, I am so excited to see more of this beautiful country about which we have heard so much. Also, I am very excited about a change of pace. Though I am enjoying teaching and our lives are not very stressful in Swaziland, I am feeling the pangs of homesickness more and more and this will be a very welcome distraction.
I don’t know if you are interested in mundane details, but here goes. We left yesterday (Thursday the 28th) at 2:00 pm after Eric finished surgery. We made it to the border quickly and encountered some unfortunate news. Despite all our efforts to find out what we needed to get an extension for our visa and despite all our informants stating that we had to do nothing and would have no problem, we were only given a 7 day extension for our South African visa. We tried to talk with the border guard explaining our situation and that we would certainly be leaving their country in 1 ½ months. Though we were very calm and respectful we decided it was time for us to move on when the guard stated that we were asking her to do something illegal, her eyes started to bug out, and she started quoting immigration law (“Let me explain this very clearly, statute 94.7.01 in subsection B states that ….blah, blah, blah”). We thought we would just take the 7 days. Basically, this means that we have 7 days to either return to Swaziland or go to a South African Home Affairs office, pay R425 per person (about $60-$70), and apply for a visa extension. Obviously only having 7 days to return makes our 3 week stay in South Africa kind of tricky. So, we’re going with option #2 and hoping they’ll grant our extension!
Well, we made it into South Africa safely after only one joking comment from the guard patrolman saying that we were hiding 3 people in our trunk. We drove all evening and arrived at our Bed and Breakfast around 10:00 pm (in African time 10:00 pm feels more like 1:00am). It was a quaint and lovely place with extremely comfortable beds. Unfortunately, we only enjoyed them for less 5 ½ hours as we awoke at 3:30 am so that we could be on the road by 4:00 am for our 14-15 hour drive. The trunk was literally stuffed, so we had left our luggage in the car. We all slept in our clothes and had a quick morning departure. Thankfully, the B&B had some tea and homemade rusks (dry, dense scone-like food that you dip in hot tea—sounds unappetizing, but they are really quite delicious—Thanks to Vicki and Francois for introducing us to the delights!) that we enjoyed for our early morning pre-breakfast before leaving at 4:00 am.
This morning we were able to enjoy a stunning sunrise for the first leg of the trip. When we stopped for cereal at a rest stop at 7:30 am, it felt very satisfying to have already been on the road for 3 ½ hours. Now we have been traveling in beautiful country down through the Free State and the Karoo National Park. Here there are vast miles of undeveloped prairie and mountainous land. The blue skies combined with the golden land and green scrub make it feel very much like the American West, and it has been lovely. Except for some annoying construction stops and the hyper-vigilant border guard, our trip has been pleasingly uneventful. Well, enough for the mundane….I’ll fill you in when something interesting happens!

-Grace

Our Three Week trip around South Africa!

On Thursday, we will be leaving Swaziland for 3 weeks to do some traveling through South Africa. We will have a bunch of stops on the way, from Cape Town all the way on the sea shore around the horn of Africa. It should be quite an experience! It's been nice having some connections in the country because we've been hooked up with many places along the way to stay for free. We will be staying on a five-star game reserve in a personal chalet on the side of the mountain, visiting waterfalls along the way, stay in an awesome house in Cape Town right on the beach; staying in an awesome house right on the beach in Knysna, hiking Table Mountain, whale watching, visiting the wine country, going to the Cape of Good Hope, spending a lot of time on the beach and enjoying the wonder of SA's coastline. We also have some people that are going to (hopefully) take us out on their yacht for the afternoon! Going to be a crazy trip.

We'll have sketchy internet on the way, but we will try our best to keep you up to date!

Ben Counseling in the Community and with the Government

To those who are following my adventures into Developing World counseling, I thought I would fill you in on some news. I have been working in the community with the Government of Swaziland on developing new initiatives for bringing HIV/AIDS counseling into rural communities. Mostly, I've been sitting in meetings, but coming up after our trip, we anticipate further community counseling. Not part of the government work I'm involved in, I have been meeting with a teenager and his parents this past week. HIPPA doesn't look too kindly on my divulging of any information about the patient, but I can tell you that the child has really stretched me! Not only is the language barrier a challenge, but the reason the parents have pursued counseling for the child is out of my league! Many times I've thought, "Wow, I'm just not prepared for this!" But then someone reminds me, "This is Africa! If the child doesn't get assistance from you, they won't receive any!" Even a little help is better than no help, so I continue with our sessions! I covet your prayers in this matter!

I have so many things on my plate right now, but all of them give me so much joy that I am excited to wake up early in the morning to meet the new challenges of the day! This is truly a dream of mine being lived out!

Keeping you Up to Date on the Garden Project!

Just thought I would write and tell you about the progress in the Garden! For those who don't know, in my time when I'm not counseling I have been building a massive indigenous tree and flower garden on the side a mountain looking down through a beautiful valley. Here are the specs:
We just put in the last waterfall and stream today. We have been clearing more of the thick bush around the perimeter of the garden to construct a perimeter fence. The garden has
now ballooned to over 20 acres and will be up to 30 acres in a couple weeks!

The garden consists of 3 waterfalls, 2 beautiful gorges, 5 large terraced surfaces, a large dammed area for a future pond, an avocado tree field, two tree enclosed camping areas, 2 roads, 7 new walls, 4 sets of steps, 2 bridges, an in-progress Cabana and barbecue, a roughly 2 mile long fence (around the perimeter of the garden), and a massive underground water collection system! There are places in this garden that make you feel like you are stepping into Lorien (the famed secret wood of the elves in Lord of the Rings). I'm really proud of the work that we've done so far, but it feels like i have more to do now than ever! I have scouted out more than 5 miles of future paths and found some more lookout points. Occasionally, I'll have monkeys that come and eat the fruit in the trees. It's an understatement when I say it is a totally different world!

This garden is kind of bittersweet though; I have had more fun on this project than any project I've ever put my mind to, but this will be the acme of my gardening experiences. I doubt that I will ever have the space, means, workers, and heavy machinery. Well, here is to hoping that I'll have another chance in my life!

Ben

Rain Covers Swaziland

October 15^th, 2010

This is the fourth day in a row that rain, fog, and a fierce cold chill has stolen my workdays in the garden. With all the rain creeping in, I realized that the water collection system needed to take precedence over the garden so I shifted my workers to planting all the pipes in the ground to collect the underground spring water. At first, having a few extra hours in the day was enjoyable and gave me a much-needed reprieve from the strenuous days. It seems, however, that the days have caught up with me. I’ve exhausted my available movies on Brad’s computer, I’m down to my last book, and I’ve caught myself thinking more and more about home. I don’t mean to say that I am unhappy here in Swaziland and I certainly look forward to our upcoming trips, I just have been thinking of home and those who dwell there a lot lately.

The rain has brought about the contemplative corner of myself; most of the time I really enjoy these experiences, but this one is bittersweet. What will it be like when we finally arrive home? What responsibilities await our arrival? How should we expect to re-acclimate ourselves to our world? These are all questions that the rain has brought to mind; all of which are questions that I don’t want to think about just yet. We have been away from family, friends, school, and the enjoyment of our home for two and a half months now. It’s hard to believe that our journey is already half way over!

Whatever my current predicament, I must stay determined to live in this day and not in December when I will see you all again. Thinking of you all fondly.

Not just another Pleasant Valley Sunday…

We tried another new church this weekend, Siteki Church of the Nazarene. It was different from our other Swazi church experiences; this was an event. As is the Swazi way, we were warmly greeted when we arrived. The service was already in full swing by 11:00 am (we didn’t know that is started earlier). We sat in the back together only to realize that the men and women were sitting separately…oops.

Unfortunately, the service was in Siswati, so we couldn’t quite follow it all. However, from the clip art of elderly people on the bulletin and the group of old people at the front I supposed it was “Honor Old People Day” while Brad supposed it was “Bring Your Old Person to Church Day.” Well, it was something like that.

The service proceeded in the manner of a variety show. An old lady sang “Where He Leads Me, I Will Follow,” a blind choir sang two songs to soundtracks (they all swayed to the rhythm while the main soloist danced and dramatically kicked up her legs drawing cheers and applause from the congregation), and some more people sang solos and duets. A group of four women, three older women with coordinated peach dress suits and fancy, white hats and then their token young soprano dressed in black, sang a quartet. They sang heartily (I think one or two of them may have legitimately been basses) in English, giving new meaning to “singing all the verses.” I think there were four false endings to the song that drew scattered applause before the women launched into each next verse. They finally ended and began flipping through their lyrics book. Brad whispered that this was intermission and verses 17-36 were coming up. Thankfully, they did not go on with verses 17-36, but they did sing another song with even more complicated harmonies that made us all uncomfortable in our seats.

What was interesting was that “anything went” in the service. People were walking in and out of the building, talking to each other, walking around and taking pictures. One person even came up and randomly took Brad’s and my picture while we were sitting in our seats. Most entertaining was seeing one of the pastors taking pictures on his cell phone of each act that performed. Since cell phones don’t typically have a zoom, he had to stand on stage close to the pulpit and hold out his phone in the performers’ faces for the best shot. We even had a lady come and ask us where we were from and whether we had something to “render” to the service. When you’re a visitor in Swaziland, you better have something prepared for church! Thankfully, our only recognition was the pastor referring to us in the sermon and saying that all races are united in Christ.

Following the musical selections they proceeded to have musical prizes. A bag was passed around the group of old people while the pianist played music, whomever held the bag when the music stopped chose a prize from the bag. Then some elderly people were selected to come out, dance, and strut their stuff on the stage. Brad coined this particular event Gogo Dance Off (Gogo means Grandma). Two women had canes swinging, another shook her hips, and one woman appeared to making gang symbols. This dancing caused riotous cheers, applause, shouts, and laughter. It was a regular catwalk! However, in the end one of the small old men won the most votes for his smooth strutting; he won R100 and some other people won cell phones.

You may be wondering if there was any sort of message during this church service variety show. Yes, there was a sermon that was emphatically delivered. Unfortunately, it, too, was in Siswati so we only caught a few words here and there. This proved to be the most unique church experience we have had so far. However, despite the eccentricities of the service, one thing was clear that the Swazi people have an energy and fervor for God, people, and music. It was refreshing to see the joy, love, and respect that the people showed for us and for each other.

Five years….has it been that long?

Ben and I celebrated our fifth year wedding anniversary on September 24^th of this year. To us, five years sounds like a long time, especially when many people our age are not even married. However, at the same time it seems like the time has flown and we are still newlyweds. Anyway… since we have had plans over the last two weekends, Ben and I were able to commemorate our anniversary this past Saturday.

We took the car and traveled to Manzini (the largest Swaziland city about 45 minutes to an hour from Siteki). There we enjoyed browsing and bartering at the Swazi hand craft market where colorful paintings and material adorned the walls, and carved animals, wooden bowls, beaded jewelry, and much more were laid out for view. Oranges, apples, bananas, tomatoes, greens, potatoes, onions, and all sorts of freshly harvested foods were on display. Even specialties such as tailoring, barbering, and freshly ground herbs were available. If you can picture a stereotypical African market, you are not too far from reality.

After that, we enjoyed visiting the Swaziland Candle and Craft Centre where intricate animals and unique colors and shapes were remarkably shaped into wax candles. While the market is much more stereotypically African, this center catered to the tour groups and was quite the tourist destination. Three or four busses full of travelers stopped while we were there. When everything became really busy we decided that we wanted to get out of there fast!

Ben and I then went to the Summerfield Botanical Gardens where we walked around and ate at a picturesque restaurant amidst the beautiful lush tropical greenery. We enjoyed an elegant meal (However, with the currency exchange my Duck Frittatela dish was only $7 and Ben’s Butterflied Chicken was $11.) and shared a dessert. It was a lovely opportunity for us to be together and reminisce about our past and share our dreams for the future. Overall, our weekend was a great mix of relaxation, romance, and fun!

-Grace

A week’s worth of excitement in Southern Africa

Since we last updated the blog our activities have run the gamut from mountain climbing to partying to watching elderly dance-offs, with a little bit of work thrown in here and there… For some reason, Swaziland never seems to be boring! Two weekends ago Eric, Ben, Grace, Will (a South African friend of ours that lives on the farm with us), Stewart (a med student in Scotland that was working at the hospital for a few weeks) and I went on a beautiful drive (that ended up being about 4 hours each way) to the Ngwempisi Gorge in southwest Swaziland. We packed 6 people in Will’s VW Golf (not advisable) for a 1.5-hour drive to the Malkerns valley where we met up with the Swaziland National Historical Society, a group led by old South African and British ex-pats, and about 20 other people representing 6 different nationalities and spanning ages 1 through 65. We drove about 30 minutes before we turned off the paved road onto a glorified dirt path (most of the roads in Swaziland are similar…) for 2 hours of 4X4ing (thankfully we were no longer 6-high in Will’s Golf at this point) to one of the most incredible places that we have yet encountered in Swaziland! (Considering the abnormally positive way we talk about our weekend trips you might think that we have become Swazi tourism ambassadors—unfortunately, it is an unpaid position…) It is so nice to go to so many beautiful locations that feel untouched by capitalism—most Swazis don’t even know that this place exists and you can tell by the condition of the roads! We spent 8 hours driving for about 2 hours of hiking and sightseeing but, nonetheless, it seemed to be well worth it.

We weren’t quite ready to head home at that point so we went to the Summerfield Gardens for some Cokes (the food was expensive so “dinner” turned in to “drinks” quite quickly) and wandered about the beautiful grounds for a while. This is yet another example of “whoa, I didn’t expect that”. It was so nice that Ben and Grace went back this past weekend.

This past week was Stewart’s last week in Siteki prior to heading to Cape Town for a month so we took the opportunity to have multiple parties to celebrate. We had an evening braai at the lily pond that involved copious amounts of food, as usual, a great sunset, and S’mores! It’s amazing how good S’mores taste when you’re not expecting that you can make them. We had to be creative with some of the ingredients but overall it was a great success.

With party #1 out of the way we were on to planning party #2—Grace started planning early on what kind of cake she would make, we got large quantities of beef, we found a new location for our party (we try out a new location almost every time we braai to keep things interesting) and we were set. Grace made yet another knockout cake, we gorged ourselves on beef, and we finished off the night with some very interesting, very strong orange liqueur.

The week at school was interesting, as usual. Very rarely are any classes on time or in the correct order, classes are cancelled on a whim, and teachers just don’t show up sometimes so you just learn to go with the flow. I’ve been trying to work on the concept of accountability when it comes to doing work and consequences for actions, but that is probably going to take more time to resolve than the two months we have left here… Anyway, things are going as well as possible, especially with the advanced students that I have been working with. They are moving pretty well through the new subject matter that we have been covering and it has been pretty satisfying to see the results. I’ll keep you posted on how the others fare…

This past weekend we sort of split ways—Ben and Grace had a day to themselves to celebrate their anniversary (two weeks after the fact) while Eric and I went hiking in Mlilwane Nature Reserve. I’ll let Ben and Grace tell you about their time but Eric and I had quite a time not only in the park but also just trying to get there to begin with. Ben and Grace took the car for their relaxed day together while Eric and I made our way to Mlilwane via bus, taxi, and leg-power. We road on the bus for the hour drive to Manzini, then hopped a taxi to the Malkerns valley, which dropped us off at the road to the park. We then walked 3.5 km to the park entrance and then another 7 or so km through the park to get to our destination: Executioner’s Rock. This mountain is an incredible sight—sheer rock faces going up to an impressive peak surrounded by huge pieces of granite, waterfalls and trees. We didn’t want to go to the welcome center where we would have gotten our park maps because it was another 3.5 km in the opposite direction so we trekked out with barely a clue, just trying to go in the overall correct direction. After a while of hiking we found a trail that looked promising (although we went the wrong direction on it for about 10 minutes before we realized that it wasn’t going to pan out) and we started heading up as fast as we could because we wanted to hike the mountain and still have time to make it back to Manzini to catch a bus back to Siteki. The trail looked very promising until we got to something that you don’t see every day: a toilet inset in a small crevice between two 10-ton boulders. That was the end of the trail. The end. The trail clearly said that it went to the summit so what were we to do? We jumped over the toilet between the 10-ton boulders and started making our own trail as directly up the mountain as we could. This highly fined activity (leaving the posted trails) involved jumping from boulder to boulder on the side of a decently steep mountain, trying to maintain forward momentum while avoiding the occasional hidden chasm. After a rather exciting deviation from the posted trail, we picked up another one that took us to the top of the mountain for incredible views of the surrounding area. You may wonder why it has the name “Executioner’s Rock”. If you see the photos (although they probably don’t do it justice) there is a sheer rock face that descends quite a long way to an unfortunate end at a rock pile—the mountain is aptly named due to its rather barbaric previous use. But, putting that mental picture aside, it is quite a sight to behold that begs to be experienced in more depth later on.

By the time we got to the top and had our fill we were quite a bit past our “turn-around” time, which meant that we had to figure out a faster way to get back to the bus stop. We quickly justified more illegal behavior that involved cutting cross-country far from any posted trails, through brush, across streams, and over “koppies” to a farm that looked like our ticket out. Unfortunately, we found a gatekeeper on our road to freedom that, after talking with his supervisors, said that he would be fired if he let us out that gate. That means that we had another 7-10 km walk across the park in store for us to get out the front gate.

We did not do that.

We then went around the corner out of eyeshot and hopped the fence, barbed wire and all, to achieve our long-sought egress.

Then we got caught.

The beauty of Swaziland is that no one really cares so we just said “sorry…too far…” as we kept walking. At that point, our highly motivated gatekeeper turned around, hung his head and walked back to his ill-attended post. We never saw him again. We eventually got past the kids (and adults) asking for sweets and money and made it back to the main road. Thankfully, luck-sack Eric was with me so we got a taxi within 30 seconds of getting to the road. We made up enough time with that fortunate turn of events that we had just enough time for Malandela’s (good, wholesome, fattening food) for dinner outside on a perfect evening prior to catching another taxi to Manzini in a downpour, and the last bus of the night to Siteki.

What a great weekend! We seem to have way more than our fair share of those. Grace will enlighten you about the rest of the fun we had this past weekend (involving “gogo” dancing grannies and never-ending quartets) so stay tuned!

Thanks for continuing to follow along with us as we live and learn in Africa.

-Brad

New Photos!

Check out our new photos! Click on the Slideshow on the left to go to larger photos. Just a few at this point, but there are more to come!

-Brad

The Big City!

We had the opportunity to spend this past weekend in the large cities of Pretoria and Johannesburg, South Africa. We stayed with Chantelle Vorster (our new South African friend-thanks, Elani, for hooking us up!) in her home in Pretoria. The time in the city was a much needed reprieve from the slow, rural pace of Swaziland.

We were so excited for our trip, and so thorough as we packed clothes, snacks, drinks, iPods, Rand (South African currency), cameras, and everything we thought we would need for a good journey. Ironically, as we entered Siteki (about 2 km from the farm), Ben questioned us, “Uhhh….do any of you have your passport?” All four of us were passportless. After a few slaps on the forehead and several exclamations, we were able to turn around and retrieve our passports quickly. We would have had a less than enjoyable 2 hour drive to the border post and 2 hour drive back without our passports! The rest of the drive was rather uneventful and despite crossing the border with our car for the first time and some confusion about two “Forest Drives” on either side of the highway, we made it safely to Pretoria.

When we reached the city we met several of Chantelle’s friends at a braai on Friday night. We had a great time sharing about each other’s culture and meeting new people. Since I love food, I will expound on several of the South African foods we eat regularly and some new ones we experienced this weekend. At the braai we had steak, boerwors (a less spicy sausage-like meat that is cooked on a braai [grill]), milk tart (a milk-based custard type dessert in a crust), and cook sisters (a fried, twisted donut-like pastry that is soaked in a sugary syrup). All were delicious…as if you could go wrong with grilled meat, custard, and fried dough!

We were able to experience Pretoria on Saturday. After awakening early, we visited the Boers Mark (Farmer’s Market). This large market was a collection of fresh produce, local cuisine, flowers, South African handcrafts, and much more. We thoroughly enjoyed the sights and smells of well-made wares and cooking food.

That day we also met new people including Landie Erasmus who made us a lovely welcome basket with all kinds of special South African foods. Some we had tried before and some were new. These included biltong (dried meat), droerwors (dried boerwors), Astros (bite-sized chocolate covered biscuits with a hard candy shell), Jelly Tots (fruit flavored gummies), Speckled eggs (soft jelly eggs in chocolate with a crisp candy shell), vanilla fudge, more cook sisters, mince fattis (which are just what they sound like—seasoned hamburger on fried dough), funky fruit sticks (dried fruit sticks rolled in sugar) and some other cookie-like things; I don’t even know what they were but they were good to dip in tea. Needless to say, we not were short for food this weekend! We also had tea with Elani Fourie’s (our South African friend who lives in Kentucky) witty grandmother who lives in Pretoria. We enjoyed meeting with her and hearing some of her fun stories.

Some of the South African governmental offices are located in Pretoria. We visited and basked in the ornate and beautifully designed, curved Union Buildings. We were able to see the high school where Chantelle and Elani attended as well as the University of Pretoria where Chantelle currently attends. We also saw a part of the city center called Church Square where several old, stately buildings and palm trees surround a square where Johannesburg was founded.

Our day was extremely enjoyable overall, but I especially enjoyed going to some malls in the afternoon. It just felt comfortable to be in civilization again. Even though we consider Mabuda Farm in Swaziland our “home,” I definitely needed some external stimulation. These South African malls were awesome and huge! One of the malls had a climbing wall, bumper boats, inflatable jumping rooms and a drive-in movie theater on the roof. As you can tell, by the evening we had had a packed day; therefore, we were all pleased to have dinner at home (Chantelle’s mother graciously made us a meal) and watch a DVD (P.S. I Love You for all you chick-flick lovers).

On Sunday, we went in to Johannesburg. We saw several places including Montecasino. It is an artsy area with a casino, two theaters, bird garden, fountains, many restaurants, and quaint shops. However what is unique is that it is constructed to look like old world Italy, and it does! Being there definitely hearkened back to our travels through Italy in 2007 and I was sorely tempted to sample some of the fine gelato offered in the piazza.

We also saw Sandton, which is very modern and urban up-and-coming area of Johannesburg. We saw Nelson Mandela Square where a larger than life statue of Nelson Mandela overlooks a square of hotels, restaurants, library, and theater. We had lunch at a great restaurant with delicious gourmet pizza. We had been craving pizza and it totally hit the spot! We had a welcome diversion at the Johannesburg Botanical Gardens Included in the day was seeing the Nelson Mandela bridge, Mary Fitzgerald Square, Melrose Arch (a new area of chic restaurants and shops).

Our afternoon adventure was a drive to Soweto. This is one of the slum areas of Johannesburg that was designated for black people during the apartheid regime. At that time they were divided up into zones (if you have seen the recent movie District 9, it is loosely based on this area). Both Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmund Tutu (both Nobel Laureates) grew up on the same street in Soweto. It is still an extremely run down and poverty-stricken area. Though we had some difficulty finding it at first because the main road was closed down and then we drove off the map, we were still able to see the pitiful squalor that people live in just outside of the main part of Johannesburg.

We left Monday morning after stocking up on some food items in South Africa that we cannot find in Swaziland. Despite some significant low-lying fog and some crazy Swazi drivers, we arrived safely home. The day had significantly cooled to approximately 55 degrees, which was a wonderful taste of the fall that we will miss in the states. All in all, our jaunt into civilization was stimulating, relaxing, and an ultimately a success.

-Grace

September 13, 2010

Having a Huge Braai, Hiking, Swimming in mountain waterfalls, and Frisbee… Could it get better?!

This past weekend Will’s (another doctor working with Dr. Pons) girlfriend and close friend came for a visit from Joburg, SA which was a ton of fun. Saturday night we got together with Jono and Helen, Will’s friends, and “The Four” for a huge barbeque (Braai in South Africa) and we pulled out all the stops! Three different kinds of meat, rice, salad, Potato salad, sweet potatoes, papaya, chakalaka and CAKE!

That next morning we went on a big hike in one of the game reserves on the western side of the country. Our hike led us from the top of the ridge down into a valley filled with lush landscapes, great rock formations, and beautiful waterfalls. As the Swazi summer is starting to ramp up now, some people in our group of 7 decided to take a little dip in the pools underneath the waterfalls; very cold, but quite refreshing with the sun beating down on us. The only casualty was Grace’s pride as she took an unfortunate spill into rushing water; thankfully no physical pain and a good laugh after she was dry!

After our hike, we met up with some people in Mbabane for a game of ultimate. Our group consisted of Swazis, Mozambiquans, Afrikaaners, South Africans, Canadians, Middle Easterners and Americans (quite a few other than just us). We had some great fun and were invited to play in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament being held Joburg in October.

All in all, this was a great past weekend. For those keeping up with our activities, the secret garden is going well (putting in a new road to get a tractor in… I’ve had enough of manual labor!), Brad and Grace are in the swing of the school season, Eric is having great success as both a surgeon and teacher for Will, I will be meeting with a psychologist on Monday to discuss working with the government on their counseling (private and group) protocols. This looks to be a big week!

Sorry all for this blog entry being late, Swaziland is in the middle of a very dry time of the year and many places are catching fire and burning the telephone polls which have left us again without internet.

-Ben

Psychologists’ Meeting in Mbabane And Swaziland Burns!

September 16, 2010

(Sorry this is only coming up now; I had some more Internet woes! Oh, and prepare yourselves for a long blog entry!)

Psychologists’ Meeting in Mbabane And Swaziland Burns!

This has been one of the craziest weeks so far in Africa! I’ve given an account of this past weekend and about all the new friends we met, but I forgot to tell you about the new medical student that arrived on Sunday night. His name is Stewart Jackson (lives in Redding, England, but goes to university in Edinburgh, Scotland) and the small amount of time we’ve spent with him has been enjoyable and an optimistic start to our relationship. He will be here for a full month so we look forward to getting to know him more.

On Monday the 13^th of September I spent the majority of the day working on the garden (as is the norm). I filled the day with building a road and harnessing water from a mountain spring. The job consisted of funneling the spring water into a tube running under the road in order to eventually connect that water source, along with many other springs, together to create another source of water for the farm. As I have said in the past, I am trying to establish dual purposes for the garden. First, by using the natural topography of the land, we will establish a location where we will harness badly needed water and, second, we will create a place of beauty and serenity for guests of the farm.

While building a garden on the side of a vine-infested mountainside, one recognizes the copious amounts of debris that needs to be cut. Since there is no real option for taking the debris to another location, the only suitable solution is to make large piles of debris and burn it. My first team of Swazi men spent the majority of Monday doing just that: cutting out vines, trees, and weeds and setting them ablaze. Knowing that the bush veld (bushes on the side of the mountain) was very dry, I made sure to spend extra time dousing the fires to prevent flare-ups. We put the flames out and headed up to get ready for a birthday party being held for Will that evening. The party went very well and the food was delicious [my first time for having prawns (really big shrimp with gross looking heads)]. We got back a bit late, but made it to bed at a reasonable hour.

As I slept, Jono Pons came to my window and started knocking feverishly! We jumped up to see why we were being woken up at 11:30 at night. “Ben, your garden has caught ablaze,” Jono said, “and I fear that if we don’t go tend to it the whole mountain will catch fire!” I collected myself and looked out my window to view a cauldron of fire sitting at the valley’s end. Grace and I jumped out of bed and ran to Eric and Brad’s room to tell them to quickly equip themselves with flashlights, drinking water and gloves, as we needed to go to rescue the mountainside and the garden. We rushed down to the garden just in the nick of time to move a large collection of brush and logs that, if caught on fire, would have resulted in a fire too large to control.

We fought the fire as a whole unit until 12:30am when 2 more Swazi men came to give further assistance. At that point we decided the blaze was contained enough to leave the Swazis as sentries and we returned to bed. Brad and I, feeling the pangs of immense guilt and frustration, decided to stay while Grace, Eric, and Jono left to get some sleep, as the morning brought a big surgery day. “I nearly caught the whole mountainside on fire,” I reiterated to myself as I spoke to Brad and kept an eye on the fire. I couldn’t believe I had made such an error in judgment.

With morning coming soon and knowing that I needed to be up early, Brad and I decided to leave the hillside to the care of the other men and we headed back to bed at 2am. After a night of near sleeplessness, I boarded a van at 7:25am to travel to a governmental meeting regarding the treatment of psychological issues for the people of Swaziland. Government officials in charge of the country’s psychological care initiatives received word that a new person studying counseling psychology was now living in the country (there are VERY few psychologists in the country so the word passes quickly when there is a new face) and they contacted me to participate in the meeting. You may be thinking, “A government official sought out someone that has very little psychological training and asked them to come to a meeting of all the ranking psychologists and psychiatrists in the whole country?! That’s a bit hard to swallow!” Well, I assure you, I feel the same way! In the States, I am a counseling nobody, but ironically I have more psychological training and education than many of the persons providing psychological services throughout the country.

The meeting went great! Though I stayed mostly silent throughout the meeting, there were areas where I was able to provide a small amount of assistance. To make a long story short, they asked for my help in creating a protocol for stress management and also asked that I give a course on signs of depression and how to assist those who are struggling with its effects. Though I felt woefully inadequate to take on this task, I said that I would do what I could to help. After accepting their offer, I later found out that the work that I will be doing, along with data that has been collected over the last many months, will be used to create government protocol propositions that the King of Swaziland will review and, potentially, put into action. Though I am excited about this crazy opportunity, I feel very overwhelmed and have to come up with some way to keep my head clear. Rest assured, I will be reading and studying like mad to feel equipped to make this happen. I feel like I’m back in grad school again! To those of you back at school who are reading this, pray, meditate, give ohms or whatever you do on my behalf! Also, if there are any suggestions that you have, please, Please, PLEASE! give me your feedback! I’ll keep you abreast of all that transpires!

While at the meeting, I also met with a woman working with the ICAPS program through Columbia University (International Counsel on AIDS treatment and Preventative Services). She said she would love to have some help as well. I’ll be calling her later this week to set things up so I’ll let you know!

We drove back to Siteki after the meeting in the capital city, Mbabane, and arrived safely back at the farm. The sunset was casting a beautiful glow over the mountainside… oh, wait a minute… holy crap the whole mountainside was on fire (Not the garden side, but the other side of the farm)! Brad, Grace, and I rushed up to the Pons’ house to tell Jono. We knocked on the door, “Jono, have you seen the fire on the west side of the farm?” I asked as we ran out of the house to see the fire. “Get everyone together and be back up here in 15 minutes!” Jono said as he rushed back to the house. “We have a lot of cattle over there that we need to get to!” Thankfully Eric, Will, and Stewart were together and we all were able to get our dirty clothes on, get water, grab the chainsaw, and be back up to the house shortly thereafter. We all jumped in the Land Rover and careened down the road toward the blaze. We hurried past fire after fire, as our main purpose was the care of the cattle. We pulled up to the pen holding the beef cattle just in time as the fire quickly encircled the herd. I jumped out and started cutting down tree limbs to use as “fire swatters” and quickly went to protect the cattle.

The rest of the crew went down the fire line to create a perimeter while others started “back burns” to suffocate the large fires. We succeeded to some extent, but the devastation was too great to control for the most part. The tractor pulling the water tanker arrived about an hour later and I turned into “hose operator” for the next 2 hours. The enormous flames and suffocating smoke made the entire experience surreal as if we were all characters in a Lifetime made-for-tv film.

Our night ended not knowing just how big the fire was or how large it would become through the night. At any rate, we felt pretty good about our work saving the crops, cattle, hay, fences, and houses. The next morning, we went to see the reach of the fire and it was amazing just how little we did to curb that fire’s vigor! As we stood on the highest point overlooking the hillside, we saw a path of devastation stretching roughly 500 feet wide and over a mile long! More pictures of the fire will be up soon!

I’ve spent much of the week after these events not sleeping very deeply-constantly fearful of another flare-up. However, things have calmed down recently as we had our first mist of the season that helped the veld to be less dry. Strangely, fighting these fires has been kind of fun! The rush of excitement coupled with the satisfaction of keeping your home (or pseudo-home) safe feels so rewarding. I suspect this won’t be the last time we fight fires on the farm!

I apologize for its length, but for those who made it through this whole blog, I appreciate your willingness to stick with me as I detailed the week!

Ben

Back to School...

Another interesting turn of events occurred the day before school began on the 8^th. Brad and I were asked to teach at the Global Revival Mission School (primary school from Kdg. to 7^th grade). Brad would continue teaching Math and Science the 6^th and 7^th graders and I would teach English to some of the grades. Though quite exciting, this stirred a strong nervousness in me for many reasons. First of all, I am not trained as a teacher (I don’t think playing childhood “school” in my barn was quite enough), secondly, I don’t know how to teach English as a second language, thirdly, I don’t speak Siswati, and lastly, this is a big job!!! However, I went with it and Wednesday was our first day of school. After participating in a rousing assembly complete with group songs with hand motions, a sermon message, special choir numbers including “I Will Call Upon the Lord,” and a specific thank you to us for painting the desks, we began our first day of school. After speaking with the teachers, we determined what our schedule would be and Thursday we began working with the students.

The first class I taught was the first grade class and it was pretty much a disaster. The students could hardly understand me and they were a rowdy bunch. Their elderly teacher seemed very eager for me to teach for her and she left! I spent most of the class time trying to read the kids’ names on their workbooks and pass them out (too many letters and clicks!), trying to teach “in, beside, behind, under, and on,” and trying to play “Siphiwe Says” (Swazi version of Simon Says).

Today, it went a little better. I wasn’t supposed to teach today, I was just going to assist the teacher. However, when I arrived, the teacher was gone and the kids were chaotic! She had written some things on the board, so I just jumped in. We worked on action words, which was easy to convey and something I could act out. I was walking, winking, jumping, crying, sitting, holding, and eating all over the classroom! We had fun having the children come up in groups to act out the words as well. The difficulty came when we began the workbook page. As we were counting and identifying positions, I asked them to, “Write a 2 beside the two balls.” I received many blank stares and even the most accomplished English speaker in the class said he could not understand. I repeated myself several times, paused for many seconds, and wracked my brain. Finally I said, “Rrrrite a too by tha 2 boals.” “Oooohhhh,” they said and starting writing (this had a feeling quite similar to the story of We call her Leenda. J). Therefore, the rest of the hour consisted of Grace speaking in some sort of Swazi-British-American accent to communicate the instructions. Though, still not a wholly successful venture, hopefully, I can continue to assist the first grade teacher in English class.

I was supposed to teach my first lesson to the sixth graders today. I prepared diligently and was geared up to go; however, somehow, when it came time to teach, all the children were outside playing, eating, or getting ready to finish for the day. Since I have been genuinely confused by their class schedules already, I approached the teacher to figure out what was happening. He said that the day was over and they were skipping the last period. Apparently, on Fridays they start a ½ hour early to let out early. No one bothered to tell Brad or me until the day was finished. (That’s why I seemed to be late to every class today!) So, obviously, there is a lot I need to learn about Swazi schools, communication, and timing. What I can figure is that, 11:00 means 10:30 on Fridays, and 12:00 on special days or days with delays, and 11:30 or 11:35-ish on normal days. I will never understand. Anyway…after observing the teachers in the 5^th-7^th grades over the last two days, I am very excited about teaching those classes. They understand English much better and I feel like I have a grasp on the content. I’ll keep you updated on how my first lessons go next week and we’ll see what happens with the first graders!!

-Grace

Tutoring and Swazi culture lessons

Well, a lot has transpired since the last time I blogged. Sorry for the delay! I will try to fill you in on much that has happened in the last week or so. I have been meeting with two female high school students (ages 18 and 20) to work on English. Though I had little curriculum to use and little idea of how to proceed effectively, I tried to be creative. We had several conversations about Swazi and American culture including things such as weddings, daily life, and hair. I really enjoyed learning about them and their way of life in such a fun way…I hoped that just having conversation couldn’t hurt their English. We also read Swazi guidebooks (I have little appropriately leveled literature here!) and looked up words in the dictionary to learn new vocabulary.
One of my favorite interactions was when I was pronouncing “circle.” For some reason the girls could just not figure out what I meant. (I thought, “Oh, no, they don’t even know the word ‘circle’!” However, after several attempts and laughs, the girls said, “Oh, seer-clee!” (Apparently, the Swazis struggle with the silent ‘e’.) Anyway, we had another interesting conversation about hair. One day I wore my hair curly. This was new as I had had it straight the days before. The girls were very interested in how my hair was like that, so I talked about air-drying and blow dryers (at that point, I think I lost them) and white people’s hair. They both figured that because my hair was so long I had never cut it since I was a baby. Most of the women and girls here have shaven heads or very short hair. These interactions were all innocent, fun, and interesting and helped me learn a lot.
The girls also needed assistance in Algebra and, thanks to Brad, all three of us received some lessons in factorization and the quadratic formula. It definitely hearkened back to yester-year for me and, thankfully, Brad was able to explain it so that I understood at least that one concept so I could help the girls with it later.
Also on Tuesday, I had my first bout of stomach sickness. I don’t know exactly what did it, but I think I ate some bad fish!! I had made tuna salad and it was a day old and, apparently, it did not receive adequate refrigeration in the cooler. I vomited all afternoon. By the next day, though still somewhat squeamish and weak, I had recovered. I just may avoid the tuna salad for a little while!

-Grace

New Photos!

Check out our new photos in the slideshow on the left!

-Brad

My Routine

It's probably time to break my silence, as several have asked about my typical routine.

Monday- Surgery either in Siteki (where we are living), or Manzini (largest city in Swaziland, 45 minute drive from Siteki).

Tuesday- Clinic in Manzini

Wednesday- Clinic in Siteki

Thursday- Surgery in Siteki

Friday- Post-ops, short clinic, and administrative details in Siteki

Clinics can be quite busy and full of pathology. Efficiency is paramount. Patients line up on a bench, and at the end of the bench sits me and a slit lamp on wheels. Once the patient on the end of the bench is seen, he stands to leave and all the other patients slide down one slot on the nicely oiled bench (sort of like the reload of a revolver). The list of medicines has been pared down to only the necessities, and glaucoma is a surgical disease, as people cannot afford the many trips for follow-ups and medicine re-fills. The clinic sees about 75 patients on a typical day, but most of these are "doctor" cases, as the nurses have already pre-screened and treated the easy problems (red eye, corneal foreign body, chalazion, etc).

If surgery is indicated, the patient is admitted to the hospital for surgery the following day. Many patients cannot afford to go home and come back again, so the hospital is essentially used as lodging to ensure the patient gets the surgery they need. No patient is turned away for lack of resources, but all are asked to pay what they are able. A typical surgery day might include 2 cataract phacoemulsifications, 22 Non-phaco cataract surgeries, 2 trabeculectomies (glaucoma surgery), and 3 conjunctival cancer removals.

The clinic also has the capabilities for YAG and argon laser (to treat diabetic patients).

Overall, I feel the clinic provides excellent eye care. My mentor is fully capable, and a wonderful instructor. This experience has already greatly augmented my ophthalmic knowledge, and I will undoubtedly gain more confidence as my time here progresses.

-Eric

August 30th, 2010

(Please excuse our lack of posts over the last couple weeks; the internet feed throughout the whole country has been very tenuous. Welcome to a third world country! At any rate, these are the blogs that I have written over the last couple weeks that we are now able to upload)

Montezuma’s Revenge strikes with undue cruelty! Yes, I know this is not South America and I am not attempting to steal any gold, but I (Ben) was the first to succumb to sickness presumably from a water source. The bed and breakfast where we are staying has three springs that provides clean “earth filtered” water, which has been such a blessing. However, my first experiment with the city-provided water at the local school where we have been working went very badly! As you might imagine, my “constitution” has been pretty shaky for the last three days, which lead to some pretty bad dehydration. This whole experience coincided with our first trip to Bulembu, in the mountainous region of the North Country (where we will be going to serve for the last month of our time here). I felt very feeble on our way up the bumpy dirt roads that led to the mountain town and got a bit worse once at Bulembu due to the dehydration. (Brad, I believe will be writing about our time in Bulembu so check into his post for more info.) By the last day of our time there, I began feeling better and it was no hour too soon! After getting back from getting pizza, Brad, Eric, and I went down to the soccer field only to find a field that had good short grass, no wind, perfect temps… A wonderful Frisbee night! You might find it weird that I judge a night on how well a Frisbee flies, but this was one of the finest Frisbee nights (#2 on my best Frisbee nights list) I’ve ever had!

Feeling much better and looking forward to the Reed Dance and the coming week!

September 3rd, 2010

A Secret Garden to Create, Counseling to begin, students to tutor… It’s turning into a very busy month! Oh yeah… We bought a car too!

A few weeks ago, we heard about a secret garden that had been left many years ago to become the wild once more. Due to many things on our plate, extra travelling, and the “secret” nature of the garden we had yet to find it until three days ago. Brad and I had a bit of extra time so we decided to find this garden though we had only a vague direction to follow… on a 2500-acre farm; this is much easier said than done! Well after a bit of time and a lot of bushwhacking we finally stumbled upon an area that looked to be something of an overgrown garden scape. After twenty minutes of envisioning and “mental mapping” of the location, we decide to leave by a slightly different direction. After another couple minutes we stumbled upon a large rock with a small plaque on it. Long story short, we were in the totally wrong area and then had to start our envisioning once more.

Yesterday, Brad and I were sitting by the Pons’ pool when Jono Pons came out with Coca-Cola in hand and decided to have a bit of a chat. We excitedly discussed our findings and envisioning experience with Jono who excitedly replied that our discovery was most fortuitous. He has wanted to do something with that location for years, but just hasn’t had the time or the vision to make the old garden a reality again. Jono told us that he would give us a team of workers with all the tools one would need, his connection to the countries indigenous horticulturist (with whom he is friends) and his account to the local indigenous nursery if we would provide some oversight of the project and our ‘landscaper’s eye’. For someone who loves nature and creating in nature, how can you turn that offer down?! Needless to say, I’ll have something to occupy my time for a while.

On the counseling front, Grace and I found out that many of the government agencies have been without telephone and computer access for the same amount of time we have been without, about 1 ½ weeks; so our paperwork is still waiting to be finalized, but we have been assured that our skills and time will be needed. So we wait! I think God wanted to teach me some more patience, so that’s why He sent me to Swaziland!

To keep you up to date with Brad and Grace’s work with some of the students at the school; Grace has taken on two teenagers to tutor in English while Brad still has the class of 7^th graders (which ranges from ages 12 to 21… yeah, weird I know) that he will continue to teach math and science to into the school season.

At the last, we bought a Volkswagen Golf Wagon on Tuesday and should be receiving that on Tuesday the 7^th around 3pm. That will be really handy as we have been walking about 10km (6.6 miles) roundtrip each day to go to the school, internet, and grocery store and back to the B&B.

We hope you are all well as we have been feeling the pangs of not hearing your voices and seeing your faces for nearly 1 ½ months now, but we are healthy, happy, and full of purpose during these days.

Ben

Two Weeks In: Our First Road Trip

In three short days this past weekend we were both overwhelmed with the cutting-edge as well as intrigued by the age-old. Monday was a national holiday celebrating “Umhlanga” so we took the opportunity to set out on a road trip to visit Bulembu, Swaziland, our next volunteer location as well as get a glimpse (more than a glimpse, though, as you’ll see as you read on…) of traditional Swazi culture at the Umhlanga Reed Dance.

We packed up the Pajero (our SUV on loan from the Pons’s) early Saturday morning and set out on what would be a beautiful (and very bumpy) 3.5-hour drive through northern Swaziland on our way to Bulembu. For those of you who do not yet know, Bulembu was an asbestos mining town that shut down (for obvious reasons) in the 90’s and by 2001 had decreased in population from more than 10,000 residents to less than 50. A group of social entrepreneurs with a very big vision bought this ghost town to rejuvenate it to a self-sustaining entity that combines sustainable, innovative enterprises with orphan care for 2,000 of Swaziland’s most vulnerable children.

What should have been a 2-hour drive (according to Google Maps) quickly doubled when we turned off the paved road (no, this is not a Jeff Foxworthy joke) onto “roads” that heavily resembled logging paths. Safe to say, having an SUV made our trip to Bulembu not only more comfortable but also just plain possible! But the drive into the Bulembu valley was well worth it! It is completely surrounded by the tallest mountains in the country and sits in this bowl hidden from most of the outside world. Besides the fact that it sits on a huge asbestos mine, it is difficult to imagine a more idyllic location, let alone a more exciting vision.

After a tour around the town to get our bearings and to hear about the history and future plans, we dropped our luggage at our house and set out in search of cool sights and mountain air. We found an impressive set of waterfalls in what seemed to be a rainforest (not what you usually expect from southern Africa) as well as an incredible indigenous forest. We then started heading back to town only to get sidetracked by another interesting trail that took us to the very nearby border with South Africa. And, being us, we then commenced with making a funny movie about sneaking across the border to the freedom awaiting us in the developed world. It was tacky, but the source of a lot of laughs! From South Africa we got to see the sunset over some incredible mountains prior to heading back to town at 5:30 (remember, it is winter here now). We finished the night off with sitting around a fire in the fireplace laughing at our most recent photos and videos and just hanging out prior to going to bed at our normal 8:30 pm….

Sunday we were graced with another perfect morning for hiking followed by an interesting church service that more resembled what you would find in the West than what you would expect out of Africa. We got a chance to meet with some of the staff about the details of our impending involvement at Bulembu and then we quickly head out for another adventure that involved a last minute jaunt to another country for the sole purpose of buying pizza…. Looking back at it now, I don’t know how we convinced ourselves that this was a bright idea; we left 2 hours before the border gate was to close for a 45-minute drive each way through treacherous mountain roads to Barberton and we didn’t even have a clue where a pizza restaurant would be. Thankfully, we had the luckiest person we know with us (Eric) and we quickly happened on a great pizza restaurant that rushed our order so we could make it back in time. Nonetheless, I don’t think we could have cut it any more closely getting back to Swaziland before the border gates closed: All of the staff at both the Swaziland and SA border gates were amazed that we made it in time (which happened to be within 5 minutes of closing), but we made it and had enough time to find a really cool place for our long-awaited dinner (which happened to be on top of a “mountain” made out of asbestos slag—yet another decision that could have used more foresight).

We finished off a perfect day with barefoot Frisbee, idyllic mountain weather, and unmatched views. Safe to say, it was difficult to leave Monday morning. But leave we must; we droved down through the mountains to Mbabane, the capitol, and on to the Ezulwini valley to experience something that could only take place in Africa: 20,000 bare-chested maidens doing a Swazi cancan in celebration of the Queen Mother. As with everything here, the Reed Dance began on “African time”, which translates to “whenever it is convenient”. Two hours after it was supposed to start we were graced by the presence of the King and Queen Mother as well as the U.S.’s best pal, Robert Mugabe (the president of Zimbabwe), and the leaders of many African countries that happened to be in Swaziland for a trade convention, and we were ready to start! Over the next 1.5 hours, enough almost naked women poured into the stadium to fill the entire field even though they seemed to be packed in like sardines. I can safely say that I will never again have such an innocent mental picture of somersaults….

Well, there was our weekend in a not-so-small nutshell. We are continuing to have a great time with great people here in Swaziland. Be checking for new photos up soon as well as some videos. Thanks again for following along with us as we live and learn in Africa.

- Brad