I often laugh when I pause to think about my current life, especially the last five weeks:
– We lived on a cattle farm. Literally. Waking up to a bull a few feet from your tent or to the mooing of cows being branded was normal.
– Zebras grazed in the pasture next to us and was as common as seeing horses in the U.S. And if you get adventurous, you could walk to see giraffes.
– We did laundry by hand. I have learned that I am terrible at it. I don’t think they actually get clean, but at least they smell better.
– We considered “sliced” bread a novelty.
– We dressed up to go to the local supermarket (comparable to Hutch’s maybe even Felpausch) because it’s like a day out.
– We considered a plug-in hot pot as the ultimate necessity.
– We nightly crammed into a 12″ x 12″ office to stay warm and watch DVDs.
– Cell phone service in rural Swazi is not high quality. We quickly found the two spots where we got decent service. Many mornings you would see people wondering around aimlessly with a cell phone held out in front of them in search for service.
– We used a bucket to flush the toilet.
– We used buckets to take showers. I did the math and in five weeks at home I would have taken 35 showers, but here, in the past five weeks, I have taken 10.
– We cooked dinner over a cauldron – I’d have to say our cooks did pretty darn good – baked potatoes and macaroni and cheese were my favorites.
– We had real games of “hot potato.”
– Kettle corn was often the excitement of the night and if we were lucky, apple fritters.
– Meat was a special treat, until the last week when our contact gave us two impala “carcasses.” We had so much meat we didn’t know what to do with it. I actually handed a random man a plastic grocery bag full of meat. It made his day!
– The smell of smoke was the new scent that everyone wore.
– Betting a pop on the time we were going to be picked up was a regular occurrence.
– Chickens were ALWAYS around. There were many baby chickens and we performed many chick rescues. Some, unfortunately, drowned in a bucket of water, two were revived back to life by Silas and Spano, and one was taken care of after having a broken toe nail.
– We could go for a walk or run and return with 15 African children.
– Children’s songs NEVER left your mind.
– We compared tick bites, dirty feet, scrapes, and scratches.
-Killing a couple spiders in your tent was part of your bedtime routine.
And there are a million other things I could write about. It is an interesting life for sure, but I wouldn’t trade this year for anything!
Check out http://courtneypearsall.theworldrace.org for the Top 10 Funniest Moments in Swaziland. I think she’s posting them tomorrow.
