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