Building a Library, No More Welcome Video and No More Swim Lessons

Hey everyone. Things have slowed down quite a bit in the last month, and by “slowed down” I mean I’ve spent much more time in my community, and that’s a good thing. I still can’t say I’m busy, but just being around here more feels like something good.

The big thing to happen this is month is our schools finally getting the books from the library project we’ve been working on for what seems like forever. Both of my schools were able to pick up their books last week and now it’s a matter of getting everything set up. One of the schools, Ludzeludze Primary, already has a pretty decent library so there’s not a lot for me to do. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll be working with the school to find the best way to organize the new books with those that they already had to make sure the students are able to actually use them, but other than that it’s kind of all up to them. On the other hand, Zombodze Primary School has an empty room…that’s about it. Interesting fact: Zombodze Primary is one of the oldest schools in Swaziland and will be celebrating it’s 100th anniversary with a visit from King Mswati III next month. The room that will be the library is one of the original buildings and was actually a classroom used by King Sobhuza II, King Mswati’s father, when he was a child. So unlike Ludzeludze, the Zombodze school has some work to do to build a viable library for its students. The first step is to build shelves so I’ll be working with the school to try to get some funding to start work on that. The Head Teacher is really hoping to have everything set up by the time the King comes next month, but we’ll see how that goes.

After kind of disappearing for the last couple of months, I was pretty excited when the Principal of Zombodze High School said he still wanted to work together. Today was the last day of the first term so the students and teachers will be on break for the next couple of weeks, but when they come back I’ll be talking to the teacher in charge of the Health Club about me helping out. The high school also has a vegetable garden where they (somewhat successfully) grow food for student lunches and I might try putting to use what I learned at that gardening training last month. Since I don’t really have any space on my homestead this is probably my best option, but as long as I don’t mess up what they already have growing I don’t think they’ll mind me playing around a bit. There’s also a teacher here who stays on a homestead near mine who I was told would make a good siSwati tutor so I’m supposed to talk to her after the break about getting started with that. Right now it seems like the schools will be my main focus of work in my community, even if I don’t have a ton of face-to-face time with the students.

Swim lessons are also going on hiatus with the end of the term. There’s not a lot we can do as it starts to get colder here so we’d probably end up spending more time playing games indoors instead of swimming, but maybe next Spring. There’s also supposed to be a school nearby in Manzini that has a pool so I want to try talking to them about doing lessons since it would be a lot much easier for me to get there.

Baylor University is really active in working with children living with HIV/AIDS in Swaziland and there are several PCVs involved with them in one way or another. Last December they put on two one weeklong camps for these kids with a few PCVs working as camp counselors. They also do a children’s support group once a month and I’ve started helping out with that. The kids range from about 5 to 20 years old so everyone is split into groups based on age. Every month there’s a general topic (last week’s was “peer pressure”) with the kid’s doing a fun activity related to the topic and then the staff leading a discussion based on the activity. A lot of time is just spent playing with these kids who otherwise have pretty tough lives. It’s pretty clear this is something they look forward to every month, but I can’t say they’re the only ones enjoying themselves.

I’m sure everyone has seen the previous post about the Welcome Video being up on YouTube, but I just want to say it again because it feels good: I’M DONE!

One of the other volunteers, Kate, started teaching a yoga class at the gym in Manzini so a few of us have joined and started doing that. Two things I’ve learned so far: 1) I’m not nearly as flexible as I used to be, and 2) I have HORRIBLE balance (I blame my busted ears and gimp ankle). Still, it feels good to be able to exercise in a pretty decent gym again. Even though membership costs about the same in U.S. dollars as it does back home, it takes up a considerably bigger chunk of my paycheck here. But they have showers with WARM water, and what I’ve come to realize here is that you can’t put a price on warm water.

Well it’s getting pretty late here and I’m still undecided on whether or not I feel like making real food for dinner so I should get going. The good Internet café in town closed a couple of weeks ago and I’m not able to get online as much as I used to, which may be a good thing, so it’s not quite as easy for me to post to the blog or answer email. For the most part, I can do just about everything with the iPhone, it just takes a bit longer so some patience will be required. Talk to you soon.

P.S. Go Lakers.


-- Post From My Hut