2 steps forward, 1 step back – an unauthorized blog posting

Last week we finally negotiated good schedules to teach at the 2 primary schools in our community.    It was important to us to minimize travel between the schools because of the distances, ½ a mile to one, 1 ½ to another.  Both classes we’ve shown up for this week at the “poorer” primary school had, however, been canceled, and we have gone back to square 1 on finding a time when we can meet with the students - this is the 4th week of school!.  The principal and teachers there are dedicated people with the best intentions, but they have bigger problems than our once-a-week Life skills classes: they are sending their students home at 1 each afternoon because the school lacks funds to provide school lunch.  That lunch is the only certain meal of the day for many students.  We hope to teach puberty next week.  There are 19-year-old boys in the 5th grade with 11-year-olds.

We’re moving ahead at the High School with a splendid small group of seniors to form either an after-school health club or a Girls Leading Our World (GLOW) group; GLOW is a PC initiative aimed at adolescent  girls to help them stay healthy and to build self-esteem.  We believe girls should be the principal focus of our work, not only because of the physical side – they are the ones who get pregnant and women get HIV much more readily than men – but also because they seem to have the most influence on their families, especially in future years.

When we got home on a hot afternoon earlier this week we found our bedroom infested with ants, concentrated on Mark’s cloth wardrobe.  A small package of peanut butter I’d brought from the US for traveling  had cracked, and the ants swarmed.  So we moved most of the furniture in the bedroom, swept, mopped, sprinkled the Doom insect-killing powder and sprayed insecticide.  When Katherine got home another hot afternoon this week she found ants swarming the kitchen table; same routine again.  Then yesterday morning she found them all over the backpack she carries everywhere.

Mark is in the capital, Mbabane, at PC headquarters for a few days this week putting out the monthly newsletter, which, with this blog, seems to provide an outlet for my need to express myself.  I’m proud that I have now mastered a lot of the technology of the different computers, scanner, copiers, Publisher software, etc., although as I write this I haven’t been able to bring up the internet in the PC headquarters Volunteer Lounge – something got unplugged or tripped in the thunderstorm last night - ah! Itss working now!.  I’ve had a touch of gurgley guts for a few days, so it’s nice to be in a place with flush toilets in easy range.  My tummy is nothing compared to the giardia Katherine had before, during and after our Kruger trip.  She’s fine now.   She is one tough hombre.

We have only one computer for the 2 of us, and we wanted to leave that with Katherine while I was in Mbabane this week, so I loaded a lot of articles and materials for this month’s newsletter onto that, but we had plugged it into the computer system at the local high school to print some papers there, and it got a virus – lots of new files labeled “sex” and “porn”, which I disclaim having anything to do with.  We cleaned it with our virus protection, but I think because of that most of the dox I need did not load.  So Katherine , upon getting home Tuesday from teaching 3 classes at the school farthest from us, got back on her (new birthday mountain) bike (!), rode over to the public library in the heat and emailed me the dox I needed.  Not what she wanted to do right then.

For those with an insatiable need for more writing about the PC in SZ, the newsletter can be found at Swaziland.peacecorps.gov/newsletters.  There's a really interesting article by a black PCV about being called umlungu, which translates as "white man" because he shares more of those characteristics than the black people here.  And an article about markers for when you know you are really in SZ.

Katherine is working with our classes this week to start them writing in journals.   She reads what they write and returns the journals to them.  She tells me one wrote: “I cannot live without Mark and you because you are so special to me.”

Mark’s sister passes through SZ on Monday on a tour of southern Africa, and we plan to meet her at a game reserve near us.  That will be fun, and then when her tour ends she will stay with us for a few days at our homestead in March.  Very brave!

Still no camera batteries, so this is all just talk.  Sorry.  We think my sister is bringing some.  Plus some Pepto Bismol – the PC medical office is out of that!

Katherine is due in an hour or so (it's pouring rain – hope she brought an umbrella), but there are a lot of PCVs here for meetings and intense demand for the 3 computers in the Lounge, so for only the first time I’m not giving her chance to read this, and just posting it.  So mistakes can be blamed only on Mark!

SWAZILAND BIRD LIST updated thru 2-15-14

Our trip to Kruger NP yielded many, many new birds. We saw many birds of prey in Kruger as well as some infrequently seen birds like the ground hornbill, Black-bellied and Kori Bustards,and various vultures. We may be spoiled after this guided trip with many experienced birders, but Mark and I have also seen many birds on our travels around Swaziland. I have not added to my list for a long time. Writing the names down helps me remember them.

Here are the birds we've seen and positively identified since the last update:

(sorry I had them listed in two columns, but the blog site won't let me keep the format.)

Arrow-marked Babbler

Bateleur
European Bee-Eater
Southern Carmine Bee-Eater
Yellow Bishop
Black -Bellied Bustar
Kori Bustard
Stepped Buzzard
Rattling Cisticola
Long-billed Crombec
African Cuckoo
Great Spotted Cuckoo
Jacobin Cuckoo
Comb Duck
African Fish Eagle
Black-chested Snake Eagle
Martial Eagle
Steppe Eagle
Tawny Eagle
Verreaux's Eagle
Wahlberg's Eagle
Amur Falcons
Spotted Flycatcher
Go-Away-Bird
Little Greb
Hamerkop
African Harrier Hawk

African Grey Hornbill

Southern Ground Hornbill
Red-billed Hornbill
Southern Yellow-Billed Hornbill
Hadeda Ibis
Village Indigobird
African Jacana
Malachite Kingfisher
Pied Kingfisher
Woodland Kingfisher
Flappet Lark
Sabota Lark
Square-tailed Nightjar
Ostrich
African Scops Owl
Pearl-spotted Owlet
Brown headed Parrot
Tawny-flanked Prinia
Common Quail
Harlequin Quail
European Roller
Liliac-breaster Roller
Purple Roller
Common Sandpiper
Double-Banded Sandgrouse
Magpie Shrike
Chestnut-backed Sparrowlark
Marabou Stork
Wooly-Necked Stork
White Stork
Blue Swallow
Wire-tailed Swallow
Little Swift
Hood Vulture
White-backed Vulture
White-Headed Vulture
Red-billed Buffalo Weaver
Thick-billed Weaver
Long-tailed Paradise Whydah
Long-tailed Widowbird
Red-collared Widowbird
White-winged Widowbird

3 days on Noah's Ark, and progress in our schools

      We went to Kruger National Park, South Africa's biggest park – bigger than all of Swaziland, – this past weekend with some birding enthusiasts, and it was fabulous: within minutes of crossing into the Park we were seeing giraffes, elephants, rhinos, hippos, wildebeests, impala, cape buffalo, water bucks, wart hogs, gnu, kudu, and all kinds of birds, sometimes spotted so fast we could not write them all down; we think the group is claiming to have identified around 140 different birds. Big impressive raptors, sometimes up close, or flying just above the trees, or soaring far above. Smaller gaudy birds: carmine bee-eaters in flocks catching the morning and setting sun, big fierce-looking southern yellow-billed and gray hornbills and the bigger and unusual ground hornbill, crested barbets with bright yellow bellies, black backs striped with white, and bright red dapples on their throats; woodland kingfishers with white tummies, turquoise backs and heads, red, red beaks, and black trimming on their wings, European Rollers - mostly turquoise, and lilac-breasted rollers adding their eponymous lilac breast to their turquoise back and head. Owls, waiting for nightfall.

At night we could hear the lions grunting and roaring just outside our fence. First thing in the early (4 a.m.!) morning game drive we came upon a pride of lions, and the expert guide explained to us the family dynamics: previous male lion had got too old and was driven off by 2 younger males who were now competing for the lioness. We saw her reject advances of one of the males and heard him roar his frustration. The other male was in the bushes, also roaring and grunting; we had a pretty good idea of his thoughts, too.

        Baby and mom hippos playing in the water with jaws gaping, kind of nuzzling Finally a leopard, at the end of the last drive: draped on a limb in the shade, tale swaying limp in the breeze and distended tummy sagging over the limb, sleeping off his gorging on a recent kill.

      Plus golden orb spiders as big as your palm which weave webs 15' across with strong outer strands, stronger than any I've encountered in the western hemisphere, and finer sticky inner strands. Vast open savannahs dotted with acacia trees and an occasional leadwood tree that takes 300 years to reach maturity, massive spreading fig trees along river banks supporting many different birds and mammals, and “sausage trees” with fruit pods heavy enough to break a car windshield, or give you a real headache.

     And alas no pictures. The battery on our camera won't hold a charge any more and we can't find a replacement in Swaziland. Mark's sister is coming to visit shortly and will bring us a new battery.

     Things are starting to happen in our schools. We now have a good schedule of 2 5^th grade and 1 6^th grade class disbursed through Tuesday morning and early afternoon at the wealthier school. Still waiting at the “poorer” primary school. Mark has started teaching the senior literature course on Shakespeare's sonnets to the High School honors literature class, which has been a challenge and fun. John from the Refugee Camp, for whom we are trying to open some wider vistas after he graduates in December, is in that class and, after only 5 years of English, is way ahead of the others; gets all the surface meaning and images of the sonnets and with help can then get to harder less obvious issues. When the siren sounded for the next period no one moved. I asked didn't they have to get to their next class. They said it was lunch, and could we finish? No one left. Actually, I was getting sort of hungry, but where do you find that kind of involvement?

       Our most fun was helping an ad hoc debating team prepare and present on Saturday a week ago an argument at the local seat of government on why stigmatizing people who are HIV+ is bad. It was competitive against another team (arguing the same side!) and the other team was judged better, which upset our kids and us too: I'm afraid it was because the other school was more fluent in English – that's going to be hard to cure. One of the girls thinks in English; the other 3 have to translate into and from siSwati. Takes years.

     But we got very close to our 4 students, and look forward to a lot more contact with these 4 in the future. Some of the brightest smiles I've seen on a child in a long time. Eager to learn, to receive the right kind of adult attention and approval. Makes us feel really really good. When we first met with them we brought some of the pamphlets and manuals with which PC plentifully supplies us, which we marked showing some pages to read for background on stigma. One of these determined young women came to Katherine the next day, having read the entire 120-page manual, and told Katherine she wanted to start a Health Club! Oh, yeah! We've since had some discussions with her about timing, topics, who would be involved.

Katherine has introduced Word of the Day at the high school during morning assembly in our efforts to increase the students' vocabulary. Last week we heard some students using “fantastic” in their conversation. Yesterday was “optimistic” and today was “pessimistic.”