A beautiful get-away weekend

     The temperatures in the "low-veldt" (lower, flat areas) have been regularly in the mid to high 90s  with no shade on our homestead, except, sadly, over by the latrine, where the flies will drive you mad.  To get away we booked Friday and Saturday nights at an "eco-lodge" in the mountains (highest is around 5,000 feet) in the northwest part of Swaziland.  We stayed in a safari tent,

with a fine hot water shower and adjacent toilet, large cotton towels and cotton sheets, and a good restaurant.

    The place is by a river with fine falls

and tall beautiful trees.     There is supposed to be good birding, but the heavy foliage at the end of summer made spotting a challenge.  We saw two new birds and some fine old friends, but did not see the crimson-tummied green-backed Narina Trogon, for which the place is noted.

      The total cost was about 1 1/2 times a Peace Corps volunteer's $220 (US) monthly stipend for basic necessities, but well worth it for us. (At the end of the 3rd week of each month there are increasingly desperate inquiries on the volunteer WhatsApp string asking if someone has checked an ATM and whether we've been paid, and much jubilation when the happy news spreads; there is said to be a "money dance" thought by some to hasten the electronic funds transfer - could these kids have over-imbibed local culture?  They pay $12 (US) a night for a dorm room in a backpacker's hostel.  Having a little reserve of plastic to fall back on for this kind of get-away or in case of emergency makes living here a little easier; these young volunteers are sometimes in very close circumstances.)

     Getting back to our site was a challenge.  We got a ride 2 1/2 miles up the steep little-traveled dirt road  to the main road with a young French couple who had stayed at the lodge for whom I had translated a little in a French, English and siSwati polyglot, then we were passed by a dozen or more cars and trucks - that never happens!  Few here can usually drive by the elderly white couple with backpacks hitch-hiking by the side of the road; sometimes I think they stop just because they are curious.  And it was starting to drizzle!  Finally a police pickup stopped for us; I have ridden in the back of a lot of pickups in this country, but this was a first.

Those benches are padded - nice!   A few more khumbi rides and some shopping in the main town and we were back to our homestead by mid-afternoon.

    We knew Monday would be a particularly heavy teaching day: two 1-hour classes for the 5th and 6th grade sections at one school on hand washing, which we had taught to 4 other primary school sections last week and 7 sections a year ago, so we know that pretty well.  Then a 50-minute class with 50 high school juniors in English language, and another 50 minutes with a special group of high school students from the refugee camp for supplementary help in English.  We have no background in teaching English-as-a-Foreign-Language, but we got some manuals and I think we're catching on.  Then Tuesday we start the primary school students on puberty, as an introduction to the reproductive system and then HIV, our core topic, towards the end of the first term.

    So our conversation over the weekend was dominated by TEFL  (e.g.,do we go next to pronouns or conjugating verbs?), and how we would present stages of puberty in mixed English and some siSwati - part of our goal is to try to get the kids used to using the names for things, because that helps in negotiating condom use.

       In covering puberty I plan to say in each of our classes that, in a class of 60, there are probably 2 to 5 students who are gay, and that I have many gay friends in the US whom I like a lot, who live happy, productive lives, with strong lasting relationships.  But, I will say, in Africa people who are gay need to look very carefully for support, and they need to be careful of the hostility they will find in a rural community such as this.  I was less clear last year on the acceptability of homosexuality.  The community knows us now, and if they don't like what I say . . . too bad.  The two classes I taught this morning were horrified by what I said; all the more reason to say it.

Heart Breaking

     I wanted to cry this morning.  Sitting under a shade tree with two of our favorite students during lunch break at one of our primary schools, I noticed one of them was eating her beans and samp with spoon.  This was unusual, because almost everyone here in rural Swaziland eats with fingers.  Just making conversation,  I mentioned that she was eating with a spoon.  Then she showed me her finger tips.  They were raw and bloody.  She said the rats at the camp had bitten her while she was sleeping. 

       

     These girls were our best students in grade 6 last year ... smart, eager, motivated, and just fun, cute girls.  Their families fled Burundi.  One of their mother's is the pre-school teacher at the camp.  Education is a value in her family. Life is hard at the camp:  cramped living spaces, no privacy, limited water and bathroom facilities, very little income, and yet these girls and many others like them make the very best out of so little available to them. The unfairness of life for these young refugees breaks my heart. We will keep trying to give them as much attention and knowledge as we can before August, but I fear it will not be enough.  Some of the refugees like these two young women will find a way to succeed, but many will not.  It just breaks my heart.

                The photo shows refugee girls from several central African countries after performing a dance. 

A letter from a young friend

     Walking to the tougher primary school near us where we teach twice a week, Katherine was stopped by one of our students who pointed out that her backpack was covered with ants.  This was after a rough morning with some tummy trouble - a challenge magnified because the latrine is 68 steps away (but the baking heat we've been having has made us grateful sometimes for that distance),  It turned out a bag of peanuts in Katherine's ubiquitous backpack had opened.  (A lady standing nearby in the school courtyard, sheltering from the broiling sun under a tree, urged us not to discard the bag of nuts, saying the ants would make the children enjoy them more!  We threw them away.)

     As she cleaned her pack Katherine was handed the following handwritten letter from a girl (14) whom we had taught in 5th grade last year; the outside of the letter was smudged at the folds, where it had been carried in a pocket, or backpack.  The girl is a refugee in the nearby United Nations refugee camp.  The spelling is hers.

                                                                                                                04 February 2015

Dear Catherine and Mark,

I write this letter to tell you that we will miss you when you go to United States of America.

You have been so kind to us.  You were my bests friends and teachers that mayed me to like you guys.  I would wish to see you again as my teachers.

You have been so kind to us refugees.  You helped us in the examinations.  In the examinations you helped us to study.  That mayed us refugees to love you guys.

I will never forget you Catherine and Mark.  You will be always in my heart.  I wish to see you again.

Your best friend

      Here is a picture of the writer:

When this picture was taken last week she had been at Friday afternoon "church practice," attended solely by the children of the refugee camp, all from central Africa, typically twice a week.  They sing hymns, distinctly different from the Swazi gospel music.  Lead by an insistent drum beat and sometimes a guitar and, this time, line dancing with arms gracefully swaying, the appeal for these teenagers could be similar to American bandstand, from the 50s.  This time a girl was drummer, lower right, but that is an eagerly sought role.  The drums in Africa I've seen are a section of oil barrel with fabric tightly stretched across both ends.  The sticks are . . . sticks.  Their church, to the left in the picture below, was originally and still is sometimes, a warehouse.