Mark's Sister and Drama, wild and scripted

2 posts in 1 day - surely we're trying the patience of our public.  But we've lots to share.

    Mark's sister scheduled a tour with “Elder Treks” through southern Africa which included a stop at a really neat game reserve 45 minute drive (this is a small country) from our homestead. It was wonderful seeing her, getting news from home, and meeting her traveling companions. Also, she brought some marvelous and thoughtful supplies, including, as you can see below, batteries for my camera!

      We went up the the game reserve the day before and spent the night in a “rondeval” - a round hut, shaped like the traditional thatched-roof huts – very common. (In many aspects Swazis are most comfortable when they can anchor current architecture, religion, behavior, etc. in “traditional” practices.) I (Mark) had intended to nap because I was in the midst of a tummy problem and a head cold was coming on, but the fine birds all around us were too good to miss, although only a few were new to us,.

The next morning we did an early bird walk (we thought we glimpsed an eagle owl through the think scrub, but we're far too ethical to claim it only on that brief glimpse – but what else could it have been?)and then sat with our coffee watching the 2 acre pond 100 yards away, when Mark saw a really big croc – at least 12' – slide down a mud bank past the 3 hippos in the shallows and swim leisurely across the pond with a motionless impala in his jaws – you could see the graceful black curved horns! In a few moments one of the hippos turned and followed the croc across the pond, took the impala from the croc and reared up out of the water, holding the carcas high in his jaws. Now, hippos are strictly herbivores, so what gives? The Swazi guides were non-plussed, but Martha's South African guide said hippos don't like crocs (crocs will try to kill a baby hippo – can't deal with anything bigger) and was just messing with the croc. The croc eventually got a lot of the impala back and we saw him shaking it and thrashing in the water to try to fit in the legs and horns; we heard the crunch.

       Life Skills has some basic lesson plans, and one is a skit between 2 female friends who have become pregnant and lament their foregone possibilities, Katherine had been working on that with two 10^th grade girls, and we presented it Thursday afternoon to 200 high school freshman and sophomores. I did not want to interrupt the brief skit to take a picture because every senetance is important (If you loved me we'd have sex.” “You can't get preganant your first time.”), but here are the two actresses after the show, and the discussion that followed. Trying to do a discussion of why people who have condoms don't use them and how boys try to coerce girls into going ahead without protection, in a crowded stuffy hall with 200 thirteen to 22-year-olds jammed together, was a challenge, but it went really well. The taller girl holds the “baby” she bore in the skit. Curiously the taller unsmiling one was the animated one who really got into it; the shorter one with the big smile in the picture was nearly in tears from stage fright. The woman in the middle is their teacher, who was extremely helpful keeping the attention of the students during the discussion. I've taught some literature with her.

       We fill 20-liter (4 gallon) jugs at the barrels 50 meters across the courtyard and store them in our hut for washing and to boil and filter for drinking. Some are covered and have a small opening, and those get slimy when I don't scrub and then bleach out the crud from the water system that accumulates in them, so I sometimes leave them open to air and bake in the heat. As I filled them yesterday morning at dawn (a spectacularly beautiful time of day – fading planets and constellations, vast sky dappled with clouds) I found a small lizard in one. Turns out it's harder to shake a lizard out of a small opening than you'd think, but the trick is to get a liter or more of water and go SLOSH suddenly. Shhhh, Katherine doesn't know about this; but did you notice some” local flavor” in the tomato and beef jerky sauce on the rice last night? (JK - I don't come near dinner till it's ready to be devoured.)

       When we first set up at our homestead we consulted with some Swazis on the Peace Corps staff and with our local family and all agreed there is nothing to be done about lizards/salamanders/newts, or whatever they are, in your hut, and you wouldn't want to, because they eat bugs. Oh, OK. So that means that the little brown 1/8^th inch deposits with the white tag at the end (pee) are just a fact of life. The deposits are easy to pick up once they dry. No smell, even on your pillow, although a little bit of a surprise. Some volunteers name their lizards, but we are not on such a familiar basis.