The Adventures of Beth and Sarah
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!!
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