Project Update

          It occurred to me that I have been posting on the fun and crazy daily events of life here in the Kingdom, but I have never really told you guys what I am up to. So here is a brief update. I figure you could use a nice short blog with lots of pictures. So, projects as of late include: making and putting library cards in all of the books in my "library" at school and organizing a color-coded book system (TIME CONSUMING), drawing up blue-prints for a pubic flush toilet we are going to build in my village (I drew them up using empty glass bottles to save us from having to buy bricks or windows and as a way to start cleaning up the village), organizing meetings with people in the village and setting up a series of lessons to teach basic food preservation and handicraft skills, and (now that Peace Corps has given me a large, black, rubber male genitalia) giving condom demonstrations all over town and talking with people about their sexual practices and how to make them safer. My most fun project lately (just a little one for myself) has been building an Adirondack chair with some neighbor kids. 

I would like to take this opportunity to give a shout-out to all of the wonderful people who have sent me books for the library (the first library... hopefully a MUCH bigger public one will be in the cards for us). Thank you SO much for your support! The kids LOVE them!!!

Nandipa is the biggest help in building this chair! She is SO interested in learning to build, and after working hard on tutoring her in math, I am finding that measuring, and counting (and now we are playing solitaire together to start recognizing counting both up and down and patterns) are ways to really get her excited about math! 

Andi brought over some snacks while he watched us build.
 (I was not privy to a taste, but to be honest, I was ok being left out of that one!)

Andi and Zwakele are absolutely the sweetest little boys!

And of course building with "Zodwa" (the name I have been given here) always turns into a photo fun-fest (which is why after over a week, my chair is still not finished).

The most horrible creature on Earth
My arch nemisis
The Rooster

Gogo's beautiful smile- posing in front of her house

Goofing around 

A group of girls who love to visit me at home and have me "shoot" them
(When people see a camera, they ask you to shoot them... that took a little bit for me to get used to!)

Sam and Melanie helping me glue library cards into books

THE Haircut!

Nandipa preparing her tools!

Finally, after two months of vacation, animal intrusions, workshops and the med hut school has started again! I was so excited to get back and see all of my teacher friends and student friends this week! I was in such a good mood, in fact, I decided to treat myself to a hair cut. My little sisi, Nandipa, had mentioned swimming in the pipe (there is a little pipe that comes out of the side of a hill that trickles water into a stream... stream is a generous term... into a muddy area through which water moves slowly... theoretically - anyway, that is where we get our water) earlier and I asked her if she wanted to go splash around. I asked if she ever took baths there and she said yes, so I asked her if she wanted to wash my hair at the pipe. She seemed pretty excited and the words, “Do you want to cut my hair?!” just jumped out of my mouth. She looked at me with a confused smile while her mom, Hlangiwe, explained what I meant. She was all in. 

We brought shampoo and a comb to the tiny pipe. You see, washing hair in a bucket is neither fun nor is it easy nor effective. I have learned to live with a perma-film in my hair as it is impossible (without using two days of water) to rinse the hair clean after shampooing. So the prospect of “running” water is quite exciting. Nandipa had a blast sudsing up my hair and combing it for ages in the stream. It was all I could do to convince her that cutting it would be even more fun. 

The girls at work

Londiwe cutting strands

After chasing Nandipa home with a lizard I’d caught (Swazis HATE lizards, snakes, and frogs), I grabbed my scissors and camera. I handed her the shears and her mother the camera. Londiwe, a high school student who came back to live on the homestead now that school is in session, came to see what was up, and I told her to grab a pair of scissors and jump in! I asked the girls not to cut more than about an inch or two [please note that A) They don’t use the ‘inch’ system here  B) My siSwati sucks and C) Nandipa speaks less English than I do siSwati, and Londiwe and I use mostly non-verbal communication]. I don’t know what the heck I was expecting, but after about ten minutes I got a sudden jolt of reality. I am the first white person these girls have ever know. Besides two hair combing sessions in the last few months, this is the first time they have ever touched “white-people-hair”. Everyone in this entire country has their head shaved (except sometimes women who have < 1 inch long hair with extensions weaved in). I think it was when, after a few minutes of conversation, Hlangiwe said in English, “No, that’s her natural hair,” and Londiwe stopped with a blank look that I finally realized what I was doing. The girls were pulling chunks of hair out to the sides and cutting hunk-by-hunk each taking a side of my head. I couldn’t help but envision my brother-in-law, Andrew, cutting his dogs hair with the exact same method. And while Jodo the terrier looks great with layered patches of hair (I don’t mean that in a bad way, she really does look cute when you cut her hair, Andrew), I didn’t think that would look particularly awesome on me. “Ok, that’s good! I think we are all done cutting now!” I blurted.  Londiwe must have seen the fear emerge on my face, as she dropped her scissors and took off. Nandipa wasn’t so quick and I had no idea what to say to make my message clear. Chunk - chunk - chunk hit the ground at my feet. I pulled my head away, “Alright no more cutting! Thank you!” I confiscated the scissors. For fifteen painful minutes, I sat while she combed and styled my hair, not knowing what I was going to look like walking into school the next day. When I finally got inside to see the mirror, I saw what Nandipa meant when she said, “No, it’s tall. It’s too tall,” when I ended the cutting session. I took a few un-calculated whacks to taper my mullet, and that night I knelt by my bed to say a prayer of thanks to God for blessing me with very curly, self-masking hair.