Wow! I Am Bad At Blogging!

Hello friends and family! If you are reading this, I am sure you are already aware that I have decided to extend my Peace Corps service a few months longer. Many of my good friends with whom I came to Swaziland have already gone home, and over the next few weeks, all but three will be gone. It has been rough saying goodbye to all of my friends - my core, my support, and my family from the past two years, but I am excited to see what everyone does now, which direction people take their lives after their experiences here.
I am going to stay here until mad/late November. I chose to stay to finish programming a couple preschools (I rewrote curricula and make new material to match different themes every week), and to get my little buddy, Jaden, the love of my life, through grade 1 in his new school where I send him. Of course, as it goes, everything has changed since I made the decision to stay. One of the preschools will be closed in December, and Jaden will no longer get to go to his new school after next week. The children's home is sending all of the children age 1-6 to another home we have at the bottom of the mountain and bringing all of our high school students back from that home to where I stay on top of the mountain. So, now, my extra months will be spent transitioning Jaden to home schooling (a guy is going to come and teach the few kids that were at the private school, including Jaden, at home so they don't have to travel to Piggs Peak every day) and setting up new programs for the high school kids who will be moving up next month. It will be tons of work, and now I am scrambling to get all of the programming done for one preschool before I have to stop going there (it is at the private school where Jaden goes, so I won't have a way to get there any more if the kids are not going to school in an orphanage vehicle every day).
On a day-to-day scale, things are going well. Yesterday Rachel, my roommate, and I took the grade 1, 2, and 4 kids (all of the other kids are still taking exams, so we just took the ones who were finished to allow the others a nice, quiet place to study) on a nice hike with a bag of books. We sat on a large rock (we call it "Coffee Rock") overlooking Maguga Dam while I read almost a dozen books to about 20 kids all cuddled and crowded around. It was a really nice afternoon.
Other events: This past weekend we had "Moo Poo Day" at Jaden's primary school. It was a fundraising event to raise money for a new printer/copier. We had a parade from town, and I got to be the "Grand Marshal". I lead our cheer all the way through Piggs Peak  ("We are Hlanganani School!" *We are Hlanganani School!*  "We are smart, and we are cool!" *We are smart, and we are cool!* "Sound off!" *1, 2* "Sound off!" *3, 4* "Sound off!" *1, 2, 3, 4! YEAH!*), and needless to say, my throat still kills from the hour of shouting. We ended the march at school where kids and parents had set up booths to sell food, crafts, etc in a little market. I set up some games for kids to play (ring toss, soda walk, etc) and actually made a couple hundred Emalangeni for the school off of the games! During all of this, of course, was the "Moo Poo" event. We had the sports field divided up into marked squares, and people bought raffle tickets which coordinated with each square. We let a cow loose on the field, and in whichever square the cow took its first poo was the number of the winning ticket holder. It was a fun day. Next week I will be going to Durban to purchase Jaden's home schooling materials with a couple women from the orphanage. I might go record a guy this weekend who performs at a backpackers a few miles from Maguga to make him a  promotional CD. GLOW Club has been going absolutely awesome! Simphiwe, a teacher at the primary school who grew up (and still lives in a room) at the orphanage, has been coming and slowly leading more and more GLOW lessons. The girls love learning from a native siSwati speaker. And finally, after almost a year of fearing the head teacher and his threats to kids who interact with me, girls from the community have started coming! It was just orphanage girls for the last 10 months, but now, we have almost a dozen other girls who come every week! It is pretty great.
Well, there is my random list of things in no particular order. Just little did-bits of this and that to give you a picture of what my life has been lately!
I hope everyone is well, and I hope I get my butt in gear and put a few more posts on here before I see you again!!!
Do Good! Be Happy!!!

My friend, Stevie, (college housemate) came to visit with her dad, Bob, and her friend, Sarah earlier this year..

Stevie was absolutely AMAZING and brought me to Zimbabwe where we had the time of our lives at Victoria Falls!

I spent New Years in Tofo, Mozambique with a big group of Peace Corps buddies. This is Janna, Piers and I living it up on the beaches of Tofo - SO beautiful!

This is me at Victoria Falls.
This picture is about 1% of the falls. Don't judge its size by what you see here.

The Holiday Season

Boy has it been an eventful holiday season up here on the mountain! We had another huge group of missionaries up here for December, which was just awesome for the kids! It was really a great break because between the mission and Rachel (my roommate) and I, we came up with some really great stuff for them to do. Like with the group that came in October, each kid got to be partnered with their very own missionary. It worked out so well in making sure each kid got special attention and even the shyest of them did not get left out. I asked the mission group to really focus on education (especially English and reading) and gave them a proposed teaching schedule, and boy did they step up! Not only were the kids occupied and learning over their summer holiday (southern hemisphere- summer holiday coincides with Christmas), but the holiday season was by far the best these kids have ever had! First there were the “shoe box” gifts from the primary school where I teach swimming. The school did a little fund-raising project where kids and families signed up to make Christmas shoeboxes for the kids at our orphanage. So each kid got a big box full of soap, wash rag, school supplies, toys, treats, and a piece of clothing. Oh, they were SO excited for that! Then there were the missionaries. Each person bought a special present for the child with whom they were partnered, and on top of that, one gal got over $2,000 USD donated to buy gifts for the kids! Each kid got two new outfits, a pair of shoes, sweatshirt, and Vasaline, AND we had a HUGE cookie baking party where the kids made SO many cookies (Rachel was in the kitchen for two days just baking them -one sheet after another), it was awesome. And to top it all off, another gal had a friend come down and visit (he lives in Zimbabwe - big, bearded American fellow) who played Santa and handed out all of the gifts to all of the kids! It was the best watching everyone- so excited and so happy!

Then on the 27th another gal got a big donation to take kids on a field trip, so we hired khumbis to come pick up the gang and took the kids to Malalotja reserve to hike and have a special lunch. Man, it was the best Christmas ever for these kids (and this kid sure had a good time too)! 

After hiking around Malalotja, I headed south to meet up with friends and load up to go to Mozambique!

A group of 15 of us went to Tofo, Mozambique for a whole week over New Years. It was such a necessary break, and entirely relaxing. The perfect reset. Days laying on the beach and swimming in the ocean - the clearest water I have ever seen! Then on the 30th a few of us went snorkeling with whale sharks! We took a little raft out into the sea and jumped overboard whenever we saw fins - what a rush! I wish I’d had a camera because seeing those things swimming, face out of the water, mouth opening, strait at the boat was the craziest scene! Then jumping in to get a closer look - wow! At one point I was beside the shark, examining his beautiful bright spots, and it turned, nearly tearing my mask off with its tail as it whooshed by my face! (Don’t worry, while whale sharks are the largest sharks/fish on Earth, they are completely harmless to humans as they only eat plankton - hence “whale” shark).

So, now it’s back to the grindstone. This week is GLOW training camp for the counselors who will be leaders at the GLOW camp in April. From Monday to Friday we will have women’s empowerment workshops and all sorts of trainings. Then next week school begins! I am implementing a whole new preschool system where I was teaching swimming last year, so it will be a lot of work ironing out kinks and getting things going this year.

I hope this finds everyone in good health and happiness in the new year. And I hope everyone had a great holiday season! 

It’s 2014!!! I’ll see you all THIS year!!!