Oofda
! So much has happened since last time I wrote! Where to start, where to start...
Ok, so on August 23rd we got signed in as officialvolunteers. There was a beautiful ceremony and I got to meet the King's brother, Prince Masitsela. There were speeches by the Prime Minister and some American dignitaries. Very nice. Then on the 24th I moved to my permanent site! I LOVE it! The sun was beating on the front of my hut when I arrived in the afternoon and really heated the cement walls making my hut a little oven. So the next morning I went up into the brush and started hauling fallen trees onto my homestead to make an awning to shade the front of my hut. Some neighbor boys saw me and came running with saws and bush knives to help. It was great! Five hours, two trees, three nails, and a whole bunch of barbed wire and palm-like leaves later I had a NICE front porch.
The next day I woke up and looked at the floor and thought I was dizzy because I saw the floor moving... then I realized it was. There was a carpet of ants hustling in squadrons around my hut. It was sick. So I walked to the shop (only a mile away to the little “sitolo” area) and was pleasantly surprised to find DOOM insect killer. I came home and took my table outside into the sun along with all my food. I moved all of my furniture into the middle of the hut and DOOMed around the whole inner perimeter. Soon I was able to sweep a mountain of bodies out the door. While I waited for the chemicals to clear the air, I sat on my new front porch and sewed hems onto one of my new traditional Swazi skirts (emaheya I think is what they are called... something like that). A little boy was hanging out on my porch with me, but my siSwati language skills are pretty limited (like, to “hello, how are you”) so when his sister came to sit with us I decided to have them help me build a “tippy-tap” so I could teach them to wash their hands. We went up into the brush and I had them help me saw some logs, then we got a pick ax to dig some good holes to set up our tap. We found a laundry detergent bottle on the side of the road that I washed out, and some rope that I had was the last piece we needed. I made up a little song to teach them to wash their hands properly (the words were lost, but the tune and the motions worked out pretty well). Thank you Bakers Dozen for the miming skills, the whole afternoon was communicated in mime.
The next day was again spent on my porch. I sewed another skirt (sewing by hand takes FOREVER) and a different little boy was intrigued. He spoke English, so I asked him if would like to learn to sew. He was pretty excited so I got him some pieces of fabric and taught him how to sew a bag. Boy was he proud!
Unfortunately in the night a cow came by and ate the soap from the tippy-tap and kicked it over. But, I took this as a learning opportunity to grab a new bunch of little kids and rebuild it! Kids love washing their hands. I think just getting to play in water is pretty cool.
I am not going to chronicle every day, sorry to get so lengthy.
This past week was the Reed Dance. All of the girls in Swaziland (from the start of puberty until they are no longer virgins) are invited to partake, and MOST do. They are all taken (you literally see trucks- flatbed semi trailers, dump trucks, you name it- FULL of girls being taken) to Lobomba where they all walk to a certain place at a certain river (I don’t know where) to cut a reed and then walk back and present their reeds to the queen (this takes a couple days). Then they spend a couple days dancing for the king. I went on Monday to watch them dance. I got the only bus out of town (I should have taken a khumbi later in retrospect) at 6:50am and got to the stadium where they dance around 8:45. I walked in with thousands of Swazis who all filed onto the field. I watched them line up in groups of maybe 300 or so and march across the field and disappear. I was the only one in the stands. I went and found a group of police and asked what was going on. Apparently they feed EVERYONE before the dance (everyone as in Swaziland). So, I hung out with the police until about 12:30 until other Peace Corps volunteers started to show up (why was I the only one who didn’t get the memo?!) Get this, one of the cops I was talking to, her husband’s grandfather is brothers with my grandfather (yes, we actually dissected that - I had drawn out a little family tree of my host family just the day before, weird timing!)! AND not only that, but her brother is currently attending Luther college! In IOWA! I couldn’t believe it! This world is TINY! Unfortunately the dance did not start until after 3pm, so I had to leave before it started as I had to get back to my site before sundown. So I took a bunch of pictures of girls coming in as I was leaving. Sorry no exciting pictures of the dance!
Well, I’d say this is about as long as a blog ever needs to be. If you’ve actually read this far, congratulations! You win... uh... all my love and adoration! Thanks for keeping up with me, and thank you to those of you who have sent letters!! I LOVE receiving them!!!
As my sister, Lizzie, likes to say:
Do Good! Be Happy!
