SarahAndBethInSwaziland.com

The weeks just keep on getting busier and busier here!

Recently we have been helping Kerry (the lady who has been running Bethany NCP over the last couple of years) a lot with putting together uniforms for those children who have been sponsored to go to the school this year. And yes, we haven’t got our timings all mixed up, it is March!! However in Africa things tend o take a little longer than planned as finally after nearly 2 months of delay we had the money to go to Manzini with Kerry and buy shoes, socks, shirts, trousers and all the other essential items for full uniforms for all 26 children. We then had to sort out the uniforms (some of which had gone missing between ordering at the shop and getting them out the next day!) and put them all together in their new bags. It took almost a week to obtain all the uniforms and sort them all out but by last Wednesday we were ready to present them to the children. Their family members gathered to collect the uniforms and they all have promised to do 20 days work for Bethany NCP in return for the sponsorship of their children.

Last Tuesday we had four extra volunteers come with us to Bethany so we took this as an opportunity to have a craft day, linking in with our current topic of Home/Farm Animals. We asked the volunteers to help the children colour in sheets we had prepared of farmyard animals whilst Sarah and I made a backdrop using their handprints in blue and green paint for the sky and grass! It was an extremely successful day as you can see from the photos and we have been able to use it as a learning resource over the last week too!

Happy St Patrick’s Day to you all for last Wednesday 17th! We celebrated in style with face paints, t-shirts, hats, flags and a couple of drinks at Malandela’s bar with all the volunteers and many locals. After (A LOT OF) Irish dancing all night we celebrated one of the volunteers, Alex’s birthday on the 18th. We went to House on Fire again on Friday night for a good evening before getting up early on Saturday to go to Nelspruit. Nelspruit, South Africa is probably our nearest South African city and is our nearest cinema here in Swaziland. Yes, in the whole of Swaziland we have no cinema! so in order to see Tim Burton’s new “Alice in Wonderland” film we had to take a 5 hour journey by Khombi across 200km of Southern Africa!

A very busy week but very fun and very rewarding!

This week we have taken school photos of all the children and a class photo which we are going to try to give to all the children in the class. Believe me we felt really proud when they lined up when we told them to for the photo and even managed to stand on their chairs and listen to us. Here are some photos of Bethany and our children for you to see. Hope you love them as much as we do!

Sanibonani!!

Sorry to all those who have been nagging us about the lack of a blog this last month but it seems to have gone so quickly with every spare minute being spent lesson planning, holiday planning or learning siSwati(which I am told I am getting very good at apparently!)

It has sadly been a month of emotional goodbyes as volunteers come and go but we have a new group of volunteers who are all lovely and we will again miss them when they leave. Huon, Craig and Alison left on Monday the 15th Feb, and we also dropped Hugo at the airport but helfway through check in he discovered his flight was in fact the next day nd so we came back and did the same thing on the 16th. Tuesday also happened to be Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day!! We got up early to cook Pancakes as a farewell to Lucy and Hugo!

On the 21st Feb we waved last months group farewell as they traveled to Tofo, Mozambique for their tour. We (Sarah, Paddy and myself) then were left at the lodge as the only volunteers. On the Tuesday we needed to renew our Visas so we took a Khombi to the Ngwenya/Oshoek border and walked into South Africa. We then bought a bag of sweets and literally sat on the side of the road for about half  an hour before strolling back into Swaziland completely unquestioned!!

That week we decided, as it was just the three of us, to be civilised and lay the table for dinner every day – we even attempted dessert two days! Then we went back to House on Fire for Friday night as they had a DJ playing. One of the best experiences I have had on a night out has to be when everyone kicked off their shoes ad started dancing barefoot which is a lot more comfortable than dying in high heels back home. Blagging a free lift off our neighbour, Robbie, we arrived back at Lidwala at about 3:30am, collapsing tired into bed!

The Mozambique volunteers arrived back, exhausted from their 12 hour drive, the next day so noone was up for doing much…..so we thought. That is until we got dragged to this “Coyote Ugly” night at a local Rugby Club. After what was a mad but hilarious evening we decided Sunday would be a day to relax.

We waved a sad goodbye to Patrick at Matsapha Airport on Monday the 1st and greeted the new volunteers still a bit sad from thedays departures. Seriously……Paddy, Emma, Kendra, Kylie, Tim and James. How could you leave Swaziland???

The next couple of days were sad as we were all missing those who had left and to top all of it off we arrived at the NCP on Wednesday to find it raining, no teacher and NO discipline. The 15 odd children who had turned up had been running wild for 45 minutes already and were set to terrorise. One boy, Sibusiso, had  cut on his forhead and some of the boys were running around with Sticks ad jumping on the (very fragile) tables. Regardless of all our Mani(Stop)s and Beka Phansi(Put it Down)s they weren’t going to listen to us. One girl through a rock at my head which really hurt and at that point I had had enough and we left! Thankfully the next day Teacher Glory was back and told them all off! They have actually listened to us pretty much ever since.

And with the (vaguely) good behaviour has come good weather it seems. This week it reached 40 degrees at Bethany and some days it has been a struggle to even play outside in this heat! Even so it gives a real sense of achievement when you know you have taught them something as simple as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So after a quiet weekend its back to work tomorrow to start week number two of teaching 6, 7, 8, 9, 10!! Off to think up some games and exercises to make this interesting now so wish us luck!!

Hope you’re all well.

Salakahle (Stay Well)!

Happy belated Valentines Day everyone!!

The weather here has been pretty spectacular over the last couple of weeks, really really hot and sunny, so we are not at all envious of all your snow! There have been a few amazing thunderstorms though, one in particular where we were trying to get back from Bethany NCP (which is an hours journey on public transport….). at one thirty, having been waiting for the only bus for an hour already, it began to thunder and lightning, and then rain….within minutes we were absolutely soaked, and the storm was right on top of us! we had one of the little girls from the NCP with us as we were meant to be making sure she got on the bus, and she was terrified, and we were terrified…it is a miracle we werent struck by lightning!! so after waiting four hours in the rain, the little girls mother had walked from her village to find us, and we finally managed to get to the main road to get a kombi home!

despite that little mishap though, we are having an amazing time. a fresh load of volunteers arrived last week, so we took the boys with us to do a sports day, which the children loved. their faces were incredible when 5 people walked through the door carrying footballs, and skipping ropes and tennis balls and other exciting things!

last weekend we headed into Manzini – the major city, and visited the market there, which was incredible, full of really cool african things that had been made by the women. loads of wooden carvings, and beaded jewellery, and paintings, and swazi material. this weekend, everyone went to House on Fire, which is a live music venue. they were holding a special valentines day market to celebrate the arts, crafts and music of swazi women, so there were ladies there selling things they had made. it was really good to know that the money you were paying was going directly to the women who are doing the hard work, and that, thanks to you buying some pretty jewellery, they would be able to buy food for their families. the music was absolutely brilliant, very african, and the place was full of people, black and white, all dancing together and singing along.

the teaching is going really well, the children are gradually learning basic english, and have now mastered red, yellow, green, blue, circle, square, triangle and rectangle!! they are also getting very good at the games and songs we try and teach them, but if anyone has any circle games, or nursery rhymes with big actions, or an educational theme, please let us know!!!

keep safe, enjoy the snow!!

So, the flights through to Jo’burg were uneventful…lots of time spent sitting around doing nothing, and reading…I managed to finish an entire book before we landed in South Africa!

The plane to Manzini was…interesting! We drove on a bus away from the terminal, past all the huge jets, and then stopped outside this TINY little plane, with propellers and everything. It was veeeery noisy, and rattled and shook and creaked and there was turbulance, which was an experience to say the least! Eventually though, we arrived in one piece. Manzini was absolutely baking hot, which was nice. After a lovely chat with the immigration guy (much nicer than English ones!) I headed through into the “Baggage Collection” area, which was a little hall, with our bags in a pile on the floor!! Beth and Wawa, who had been sent to collect me, were hiding behind the door. However, this little foot in a grubby flipflop suddenly appeared and I thought “I know that foot!!!!” We then loaded up into the All Out Africa minibus to head to the lodge…

Yesterday was the first day which Bethany NCP was open, so Beth and I will be based there, since we are going to be here for such a long time. The children are lovely, there are a few terrors, as with any class, but most of them are darlings, eager to learn and do whatever you want. Communicating is challenging, because our grasp of Siswati is limited, as is their English, but we manage! At the minute we are trying to teach them colours, as most of them are under five, so teaching them to read and write is probably too hard.

The lodge is quite quiet, most of the other volunteers have headed over to Mozambique for a little holiday, but they will be back at the weekend, and then next week we will get a fresh load of arrivals. The weather has been mostly good, today it has rained pretty much all day, but hopefully tomorrow will be hot and sunny again!

So its Sunday morning, and in a few hours, I will be at Heathrow, on the first leg of my epic journey to join Beth in Swaziland! Finally finished packing last night, after a last minute trip to Sainsbury’s for suncream and batteries!!

I am very excited, can’t quite believe that after two years of planning and last minute setbacks, the day has finally arrived, I think I won’t believe it’s real till I am standing in Manzini airport.

Thanks to everyone who donated, it has been very much appreciated, and thanks for all the support we have had over the years, and with the quiz.

Keep checking for updates and pictures!

Thanks for the comments guys.

Ok so on Monday me and Claire went to Bethany to do some more painting. The Ncp is looking really nice now and i think it should only be a couple more days until its done! On Monday i finished painting the alphabet and then played ‘Spotty Dogs’ (Sam do you remember that game? made me think of you!) and snakes and ladders which was really fun. We then went to get the bumpy combi back only to find that it was full. We had to wait 3 hours for another one which was an interesting experience and not one i will do in a hurry! we got some funny looks from locals!

Yesterday was another Kombi disaster story as we never managed to get the Kombi there as our connections got delayed. I also managed to get Red Acrylic paint all over my hands from washing the paintbrushes so we came back to the lodge at about half past nine with me covered in red paint! All was not lost though as in the afternoon we went to the hospital to visit the childrens ward. A typical african hospital is a million miles away from those in england. There are wild cats roaming around as they leave the bins outside and there are people lying on the sides of the corridors everywhere. In the childrens ward there are a coupe of isolation wards for the TB patients before a main room with side rooms for malnourished children. It was really good to go round with balloons and stickers as I dont think they often get visitors.

Today we finally got to Bethany and back without any complications. When it is finished I will be going through what I will be actually doing with the teacher and looking at profiles for the children which I am looking forward to. This evening was Traditional Swazi food again which is amazing! Basically we each are assigned nights to cook on for everyone, and told what to cook which works out well and then the following night we have to wash up. Exept on Wednesday where a lady comes to cook traditional Swazi food and puts us all to shame!

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Hi all,

So this week I have been going to the NCP at Bethany to paint it so its ready for the new term which starts on the 26th January. It has taken a while but we have pretty much given the walls their new base coat and are ready to start painting on top. On Friday i started doing the alphabet accross one of the walls and were going to do the numbers, colours, days of the weeks and months this week.

On Friday we also went to Bethany by Kombi for the first time. I think I talked about them before but they are like nothing you get in england. To get to Bethany you have to get a Kombi to a place called Mahclane where there is a fruit and veg market and then change. It then goes down this really bumpy untarmacked road which is a bit of an experience! Then we had to walk up the hill to get to the NCP. I think I will get very fit by the end if I have to walk up that hill every day in the sun.

I am putting some pictures up now. the first couple are of the lodge and then there are some of the NCP(mostly taken by the little girl who lives there as she was really taken with my camera and took loads of photos) then finally there are a couple of dinner on friday and some of this waterfall that we went to today! (although saying that we never actually got to the waterfall as we got quite lost and ended up just wading through the river for hours!)

I will start from where I left off because it has been a busy few days!!

In the evening on monday we just played cards and relaxed at bit. Then I was really tired from the flight so sent to bed pretty early – its really funny sleeping under the net but it kind of feels really cool like im all protected in this little bubble!!

I then got up at 7(eek) the next morning to get ready. At about 10 we had a talk about All Out the organising company and about Swaziland and our projects. I am going to be volunteering in an NCP (Neighbourhood Care Point – like the Orphan centres basically) called Bethany which is about 20 mins drive from here. For the next 3 weeks while the children are off for the summer there is loads of stuff to be done there like painting the inside and fixing tables. The lady in charge of the orphan care is called Notula (dont ask me how it is actually spelled) and she took us all through what we’re going to do.

I then went for a drive around to see some of the other NCPs and the Sports Centre. Its so funny because the national football pitch is so small compared to the ones in England – but they’re going to use it for practice matches at the World Cup!

After lunch we went for a walking tour of this part of Swaziland. We got a ‘Kombi’ (little buses they use here) down the road and then walked to the national Swazi Museum. After that we wlaked through a village and the palace that used to home the old king that died in ’82. We tried some local Beer which was pretty horrible and went to a guys house that is also an Art gallery. Then they did a little performance for us in the house of their band called ‘Stick and mud’ and lots of little children came in and sung along.

We then went for a Braii which was interesting for me obviously as I am vegetarian – I ate an interesting combination of salads! and lots of Mealie pap.

Then, exhausted we came back to the lodge and practiacally fell into bed.

This morning I went to the NCP in Bethany to start the painting with two other girls who have been here for a while and Hugo who did turn up and is doing Sports which arent happening at the moment. Some of the other volunteers have gone to kruger for a couple of  days so it is much quiter now. I will write more about the project next time.

For dinner we had traditional Swazi food which was really nice, I had this bean type stew and more pap!

Hope you’re all having fun in the snow – it was SO much warmer today – i think im even getting a tan! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I HAVE ARRIVED IN SWAZILAND!!!!

After what seemed like a never ending journey I have finally arrived at the lodge in Swaziland and …it is raining! But nevertheless is still very beautiful – and it not exactly like im not going to get any hot weather is it!!

I managed to meet up with the two other ‘Real Gappers” at the gate at Jo’burg before boarding the miniscule plane here. We are still to meet the fourth member of the “buddy list” as he hasn’t turned up yet.

I have now unpacked and set up my mozzy net round my bunk (I share my room with 4 others) and have even personalised my cupboard with piccys (courtusy of Marie x).

I now have a bit of a lull, but really excited bout starting volunteering tomorrow morning and our orientation round the town and country in the afternoon.

Miss you

Beth