When our van full of teammates dropped Jackie and I (Nosepo and Nomsa, our Swazi names) off at our home for the next week and pulled away… we settled in for our first night still unsure what our week would hold… turns out it held one of my favorite weeks of the race so far. We were submerged in community… the only white people in our town. However, this town quickly became home and we developed great friendships our family, the neighbors and church members.
Our homestead had an amazing family who welcomed us and helped us set up our tents. As is typical here… Grandparents, Children, and Grandchildren all resided in different structures on the same property. Edith and Joseph (Grandparents) live there with 3 of their children and their children’s families. They also take care of 6 of their Grandchildren while their parents are in other towns working. To top it off they have taken in 4 orphans from the community. Talk about a big family! They are filled with faith, active in their community and highly value the education of each child in their care. They adopted us as children and we developed great friendships with neighbors and church members.
This is a little peek into our daily escapades:
Every morning we awoke to the sounds of children playing peekaboo at our tent, the puppy pouncing on the door, or the sounds of goats running amok around our homestead. After some oats it was time to head off to our care point. If we were on our own we could make the walk in 10 minutes… if we were accompanied by our 4 year old friends who lived at the homestead… our record pace was just over 30 minutes.
I think that 4 times every day I would marvel at how beautiful Swaziland is. The scenery was breathtaking…
Upon arriving at our care point we were greeted by some friendly little faces and the equally friendly but slightly older faces of the women assigned to cooking at the care point for the day. The first task of the day was sweeping goat poop out of the building and laying down floor mats. Then, the women would get breakfast and lunch started while Jackie and I attempted to teach preschool. We covered a lot of “head and shoulders knees and toes,” reacquainted ourselves with how many days there are in a week and discovered what the weather was like outside today… before Lungile (the teacher) would take over the teaching. Around 10 they would serve breakfast (corn soy blend with sugar… exactly what you eat at a World Vision broken bread meal by the way). Then at noon rice and vegetable protein courtesy of “Feed My Starving Children” were dished up.
I was in my element. We were never without a child in our lap, some tears to wipe after a fall, and were filled up daily with the sound of children’s laughter.
After the care point we would walk home and settle into our afternoon routine of reading and chatting with whoever passed our way from the family or community. Our afternoon adventures included a stroll around the damn eating sugar cane and chasing after a pack of piglets that would occasionally come trotting through attempting to capture their cuteness on film (Ok, the last one was more of a solo activity… but I just loved those little piggles).
In the evening the hospitality of the family came into full display. It started simple enough… dinner and tea. Then, we were offered our nightly bath… our every nightly bath. Occasionally we would try to protest but the tubs were carried to the bath house, the water boiled and off we went, washcloths in hand. On the several nights we attended prayer services at the church, the baths became mandatory and we received recommendations about which clothes we should wear. By night 2 Edith was calling herself our swazi Mom and would demand that she be allowed all rights as such… cooking us mealie and melon and washing our clothes/shoes/whatever until she was satisfied. We were floored by the loving hospitality and are proud to report that we have continued daily bathing here in Manzini. After we were suitably clean we woudl get to chat with the family and then snuggle down in our tents for a restful nights sleep.
I really can not express how quickly I fell in love with this endearing Swazi community. We are heading back to Mbhutu this weekend for a big Easter revival they are having right down the street from where we were staying. We are already counting the minutes and practicing our dance moves until we see our family and friends and get to worship our Savior with them again this weekend!
