Well, now it feels like I`m doing something. First off, I have my bed and it`s amazing. I`ve had next to no money for the last week and a half and I`m pretty sure it`s only a matter of time before it collapses with me on it, but still totally worth it. Even though the carpenter`s workshop is just down the street, getting the thing home was a pain. It was raining, of course. The bed was bigger than the back of the truck so a thin rope was doing most of the work. Then, getting the bed into my room was another mess. I never thought I had a lot of stuff until I had to move EVERYTHING just to get the bed through the door. Thank you bhuti Kenneth, I couldn`t have done it without you.
Last week I started teaching swim lessons at a private school in the northern part of the country, really close to where we did our training. When I heard another volunteer from the group before mine taught last year, I pretty much begged them to let me help out. Yes, the water tastes funny; yes, the pool was considered “clean” just because you could actually see the bottom; and yes, there were frogs swimming around with us, but I still had a blast. It was pretty hot all of last week except for the day we were supposed to teach, of course. That day it decided to rain. Besides being half numb for the rest of the day after being in the water for 15 minutes, it was great. I should be helping out once a week until the end of the school term in December, so it should be a nice little get-away.
I got a mysterious text message a few days ago about keeping this Wednesday morning free because some “VIP from D.C.” is coming to my community. Apparently, there was an email with all sorts of details, but I never got it (this sort of this seems to happen a lot here). I`m supposed to set up a tour of my clinic, which I`ve been to maybe twice before, so this should be interesting.
Today, I FINALLY went to the high school to meet the principal and some of the teachers. Considering it`s been two month and there are still four other schools nearby, this isn`t much of an accomplishment, but still. The principal and everyone was nice enough, but getting any sort of definitive answer was next to impossible. For example, the principal couldn`t tell me what exactly the students were taught about HIV/AIDS, so he told me to talk to the Career Counselor. The Career Counselor couldn`t tell me anything, so she told me to talk to the Biology teacher. The Biology teacher just gave me some books to read and that was that. It`s weird how often you hear people say “the community needs help”, but when help is actually offered they don`t really know what to do with you.
Finally, something pretty important. One of the volunteers from the group that`s been here for a year is working with a non-profit group from the U.S., Books for Africa, to organize a project to bring books to some Swazi schools. How it`s going to work is all interested schools will apply, and then 30,000 books will be distributed among the 30 schools selected. Books for Africa will pay for the books, but it`s up to us to cover the $15,000 for shipping and handling. $5,000 of that will be raised by the schools themselves and the other $10,000 will be raised through a Peace Corps Partnership. This is where you guys come in. A Peace Corps Partnership is the official way people from the U.S. are able to contribute to PC projects abroad. Since I`m not the one organizing this whole thing I don`t know a lot of the details, but we`re all doing what we can to spread the word. If you are interested in helping out, please send me an email and I can get you more information.
Now back to reading two month old copies of Business Week and Maxim.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Friday, October 16, 2009
A Bed and the Queen Mother
This has definitely been one of the busiest weeks so far, which is a good thing. It`s nice being able to look back and feel like you`ve done something, even if it`s not much. Plus, I`ve discovered something very useful: walking is a great way to kill time.
I`ve met a carpenter. His name is Chico. Chico thinks I`m crazy. I`m pretty sure no Swazi has ever even thought of building a bed like mine. It`s nothing that complicated really (a lofted bed with a desk underneath, just like a dorm room), but I still don`t think he really understands it even with the drawing I had one of the other volunteers make. That`s ok though, he`s nice enough to let me help, and by “help” I mean just hanging out and watching him work. I actually did do some planing (?), so I`m not completely useless. My conclusion: it`s hard. Chico seems like a pretty capable carpenter, but it`ll be interesting to see how it turns out.
The Queen Mother FINALLY came last Sunday and the event didn`t disappoint. I was planning on walking to the “inkundla” (they place where the community`s council meets) where the event was going to take place, but it turned out my whole family was planning on going too so I got a ride. For some reason we first had to go to this other community the Queen Mother was at before she came to ours. We were there for about 2 minutes before we got swept up in the Queen Mother`s motorcade and got a police escort back to our community. Over the last couple of weeks I had been to a few planning meetings for this event, but I still had no idea how big it would be. Easily over a thousand people; trucks and trucks full of food and blankets to be given out; a few MPs (Members of Parliament), the Prime Minister, a few of the King`s wives, and, of course, the Queen Mother. Lots of speeches, dancing, and singing (including my Babe – check out the YouTube link →). Luckily, my sisi was there to explain what was going on because I was pretty confused when they gave an old man a bicycle. Overall, one of the more exciting things I`ve done in Swaziland.
Monday was our one night away from site for the month. One of the other volunteers had a birthday this week so it seemed as good a time as any. Definitely a relaxing experience, but not without some excitement. The hostel we stayed at this time had a barbecue so we attempted to make shish-kabobs. The problem was that it was so windy the charcoal wouldn`t stay lit, but, eventually, we were able to get the meat cooked by using a whole lot of bug spray and rum as lighter fluid. The highlight of the day was definitely the pool. AMAZING! Although the water was freezing and it was partly drizzling most of the afternoon, not going in was never an option.
I put the pictures I took from the Queen Mother`s visit up on my Picasa page under “Philani Maswati Charity Event” (link on the left →). I`ve started putting captions with some of the pictures, so hopefully they`ll make more sense. (I`m planning on adding captions to some of the old pictures as well.) I also put up a link to my YouTube page (on the left, below the “Picasa” link →). The only thing up there right now is a 40 second clip of my Babe singing for the Queen Mother, but I`ll put more up eventually. Enjoy.
I`ve met a carpenter. His name is Chico. Chico thinks I`m crazy. I`m pretty sure no Swazi has ever even thought of building a bed like mine. It`s nothing that complicated really (a lofted bed with a desk underneath, just like a dorm room), but I still don`t think he really understands it even with the drawing I had one of the other volunteers make. That`s ok though, he`s nice enough to let me help, and by “help” I mean just hanging out and watching him work. I actually did do some planing (?), so I`m not completely useless. My conclusion: it`s hard. Chico seems like a pretty capable carpenter, but it`ll be interesting to see how it turns out.
The Queen Mother FINALLY came last Sunday and the event didn`t disappoint. I was planning on walking to the “inkundla” (they place where the community`s council meets) where the event was going to take place, but it turned out my whole family was planning on going too so I got a ride. For some reason we first had to go to this other community the Queen Mother was at before she came to ours. We were there for about 2 minutes before we got swept up in the Queen Mother`s motorcade and got a police escort back to our community. Over the last couple of weeks I had been to a few planning meetings for this event, but I still had no idea how big it would be. Easily over a thousand people; trucks and trucks full of food and blankets to be given out; a few MPs (Members of Parliament), the Prime Minister, a few of the King`s wives, and, of course, the Queen Mother. Lots of speeches, dancing, and singing (including my Babe – check out the YouTube link →). Luckily, my sisi was there to explain what was going on because I was pretty confused when they gave an old man a bicycle. Overall, one of the more exciting things I`ve done in Swaziland.
Monday was our one night away from site for the month. One of the other volunteers had a birthday this week so it seemed as good a time as any. Definitely a relaxing experience, but not without some excitement. The hostel we stayed at this time had a barbecue so we attempted to make shish-kabobs. The problem was that it was so windy the charcoal wouldn`t stay lit, but, eventually, we were able to get the meat cooked by using a whole lot of bug spray and rum as lighter fluid. The highlight of the day was definitely the pool. AMAZING! Although the water was freezing and it was partly drizzling most of the afternoon, not going in was never an option.
I put the pictures I took from the Queen Mother`s visit up on my Picasa page under “Philani Maswati Charity Event” (link on the left →). I`ve started putting captions with some of the pictures, so hopefully they`ll make more sense. (I`m planning on adding captions to some of the old pictures as well.) I also put up a link to my YouTube page (on the left, below the “Picasa” link →). The only thing up there right now is a 40 second clip of my Babe singing for the Queen Mother, but I`ll put more up eventually. Enjoy.
Monday, October 5, 2009
A Little Better Than Last Week
Pretty much just another slow week. I still can`t go to the schools, I still haven`t started making my bed, and my cookies aren`t getting much better.
I`m going to start doing a survey of the households in my community pretty soon. This is just a way of finding out basic information about the families (how many people live on the homestead, sources of income, water, food, etc.) that we will use when coming up with our own programs, but it`s also a good way for the people of the community to get to know us. My Counterpart has to do something similar as part of his job so I can just tag along when he does his thing. We`ve done a few so far, but there`s over 1,000 households in my chiefdom so we`ll see how far we get.
On Thursday there was supposed to be a program to provide the elderly with food in the next community over. The community leaders had been planning this for some time because the Queen Mother (the King`s mother) was supposed to come, but something came up at the last minute and she had to cancel. It`s supposed to be rescheduled for some time next week and I`ll be sure to take my camera when it does happen.
Swine flu...what a pain. First of all, I`M FINE! But apparently someone had it the other week when we were all at the office for the party. So far there are only a couple of confirmed cases, but a bunch of people have flu-like symptoms. Because of all this we`re supposed to be limiting our travel and staying away from crowded places for a week or two. For better or worse, this doesn`t really affect me right now because my group isn`t allowed to move around much anyways, but it`s still annoying. One more time, I`M FINE!
Right now my Babe is in the U.S. He was in Uganda and/or Zambia last week on business for a charity group he`s involved with and this week he`ll be in Atlanta and San Diego for more meetings. (I asked him to stop by my house to grab some stuff I forgot so be nice to Mathokoza if you see him). I still have yet to figure out what, if anything, he does full time (he might be “retired”), but this has something to do with a U.S. church group that is working with his charity to put on some program here in Swaziland. I`ll be sure to find out more when he gets back.
Last week I found out I`ve been chosen to go to an HIV/AIDS conference put on by the CDC with two other volunteers sometime in December. I don`t know too many details right now, but it`ll be somewhere in southern Africa (anywhere but Swaziland, hopefully).
Hopefully I`ll have more to write about next week. Wish me luck.
I`m going to start doing a survey of the households in my community pretty soon. This is just a way of finding out basic information about the families (how many people live on the homestead, sources of income, water, food, etc.) that we will use when coming up with our own programs, but it`s also a good way for the people of the community to get to know us. My Counterpart has to do something similar as part of his job so I can just tag along when he does his thing. We`ve done a few so far, but there`s over 1,000 households in my chiefdom so we`ll see how far we get.
On Thursday there was supposed to be a program to provide the elderly with food in the next community over. The community leaders had been planning this for some time because the Queen Mother (the King`s mother) was supposed to come, but something came up at the last minute and she had to cancel. It`s supposed to be rescheduled for some time next week and I`ll be sure to take my camera when it does happen.
Swine flu...what a pain. First of all, I`M FINE! But apparently someone had it the other week when we were all at the office for the party. So far there are only a couple of confirmed cases, but a bunch of people have flu-like symptoms. Because of all this we`re supposed to be limiting our travel and staying away from crowded places for a week or two. For better or worse, this doesn`t really affect me right now because my group isn`t allowed to move around much anyways, but it`s still annoying. One more time, I`M FINE!
Right now my Babe is in the U.S. He was in Uganda and/or Zambia last week on business for a charity group he`s involved with and this week he`ll be in Atlanta and San Diego for more meetings. (I asked him to stop by my house to grab some stuff I forgot so be nice to Mathokoza if you see him). I still have yet to figure out what, if anything, he does full time (he might be “retired”), but this has something to do with a U.S. church group that is working with his charity to put on some program here in Swaziland. I`ll be sure to find out more when he gets back.
Last week I found out I`ve been chosen to go to an HIV/AIDS conference put on by the CDC with two other volunteers sometime in December. I don`t know too many details right now, but it`ll be somewhere in southern Africa (anywhere but Swaziland, hopefully).
Hopefully I`ll have more to write about next week. Wish me luck.
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