May 11th & May 12th

May 11th Evening

Welcome To Swaziland – Where Your Phone Card Doesn’t Work

So we left Ermelo today and piled into two cars with all of us and the luggage for the trek to Swaziland. On the way we crossed the Continental Divide and saw a lot of land that looked more like New England with the trees than Africa. We were brought to the Swazi border and passed off to two Rotarians. After going through the SA customs and the drive check and then the Swazi customs and drive check – we final made it into the country. Meesh and I noticed a bunch of school girls staring at me in the front of the car and waving and OB (the Rotarian we were traveling with) told us that I probably look like one of their blond dolls that they’ve never seen in person before. I’m hoping it’s a Barbie doll ;)

We went to the Rotary meeting – which is at a very nice hotel – and I almost passed out when I hooked my computer to the projector and my laptop screen went black. No whoops I went into sleep mode – flat out nothing going on. The team leader finally stopped chatting and saw the despair on my face and I tried to get things going. I finally got the computer back up after a few “shut downs” (i.e. popping the battery out) and I told her we were winging it today and not using my computer. Think that might have to be the game plan moving forward.

It was a very interesting Rotary meeting – there are no women in the club and they really aren’t encouraged to join. And yet the men know the club is really imbalanced and reference it through out most the meeting. We did our presentations and there were no questions. Alrighty…

Following that we went to the Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS. 40% of Swazis have HIV/AIDS. While we were walking around the Mall earlier Meesh pointed this fact out. 40% - that’s incredible. The age group with the highest rate of HIV/AIDS is the 25-29 year olds. The programs the council is doing are interesting – a combination of education, grass roots, etc. It’s an interesting mix of messages of abstinence, safe sex, committed partners etc. The topic of sex is a much more casual conversation in this country and South Africa than it is in the US. The posters in the community show young kids playing sports or in school with the message of “I am important – sex can wait” or “I have a dream – sex can wait”. I can’t see any of those posters flying well in the US…

Following the visit my host, Pastor Ken, picked me up and we went to his house. I met his wife Brenda who is a nurse. Both lovely people and they live in an amazing house with a beautiful pool in the back – too bad it’s chilly out. We went out for a bite to eat and got a bunch of “Hello Pastor Ken” at the restaurant. We just got home and I tried to call Eric but learned that a phone card bought in South Africa doesn’t work in Swaziland – and the distance in driving for South Africa to Swazi is about the same as from Virginia to Maryland.

May 12th

Monkey Love

4:45 am wake up call. If I could find the rooster that woke me up at 4:45 am we’d be having rooster for dinner tonight. ;)

So Pastor Ken and I started out for the Candle Factory this morning. True to my sense of timing and Pastor Ken’s we were there at 9:30 am. Everyone else was late – on Swazi time. The Candle Factory was a candle factory but everything was too heavy to even think about buying and outing in my suitcase. I saw these wooden giraffes that were about my size that I felt in love with – but I’m pretty sure that South African Air would have made me buy an extra seat to bring it home – so I figured the $1,350 plane ticket would set me back a little to much.

Following – we went to the Swazi Cultural Village where we were told the history of Swaziland in dance and song. It was very beautiful and of course they pulled a few of us up to dance one of the dances – very much like country line dancing so once I got the moves down this white girl could dance. While at the village we took a tour of the native houses and ran into some very close contact with monkeys. They got near someone’s lunch kettle and tossed the tops off to get the food. After watching the monkeys eat, most everyone, except me, was paying attention to the tour guide. Me, I was still watching the monkeys, and let me tell you I saw some monkey love ;) Apparently after the male broke into the pot and fed his loved one he decided he wanted some lovin’ as well. So they went at it. I felt like I was watching the National Geographic special on mating. I tried to tell the other girls what was going on but I was almost in tears I was laughing too hard.

After witnessing the monkey love, we went to lunch and then went to the glass blowing factory. Man, it was hot. There were so many beautiful pieces, but again there’s only so much room in my suitcase and I know they’d never make it home in one piece.