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!
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