Africa is beautiful. Hands down a gorgeous place. I was not prepared for the rolling hills, amazing sunsets and captivating people.
So many have asked me to write about every day, common experiences and tell you about our daily life so I am going to indulge you today.
First things first, clothes are worn at LEAST three times before they are considered dirty. And even then they still might find themselves in the ‘sorta ok” column. We have been able to do laundry by walking into town and dropping it off at the Laundromat. One day and $3 later we have clean clothes! I definitely over-packed, but am not yet ready to part with anything yet. Check back in about 60 days later!
We are currently blessed to be staying at an AIM base and have access to fairly regular showers. It is not uncommon to go a few days without washing your hair though. They promise me it will make my hair shiny soon! The showers are undoubtly mostly cold, but a blessing nonetheless.
My hair is forever curly and people here have a hard time believing it was ever straight. One of the guys saw a picture and couldn’t believe it was me! Make-up is a treat and we get so excited to have clean hair and make-up on the same day. Truly it is the small things that make us smile!
Food has been a challenge for me. I am so used to being able to eat whenever, where ever I want and that is not the case here. For $$ sake, we eat cheaply and in bulk. We have had a lot of rice, beans, oatmeal, toast and mystery meat. We won a mini-race here in Manzini and received peanut butter as a prize and you would have thought we had won the lottery. A huge blessing is the availability of ice cream! We were quickly led to an amazing ice cream place where you get soft serve vanilla dipped in sprinkles, nuts and with a kitkat stuck in the side for about 50 cents! Talk about excitement! Good thing it is about a 3.5 mile walk roundtrip to town, we need to be walking off the ice cream.
Exercise has been a surprise to me. Besides the constant walking (we walk EVERYWHERE), there are quite a few runners around here and I have run probably 4 or 5 times. We are staying near a golf course (I use the term loosely) and we have taken to running around the course a few times. It is funny to watch the locals stare at a bunch of white people running around the golf course. I am sure we provide them hours of entertainment.
Water is purified for us here at the AIM base so we have not had that challenge yet. I did go out to eat tonight and mistakenly drank a coke with ice in it. We quickly prayed against anything nasty in the ice cubes.
I have been surprised by the amount of English that is everywhere. Many signs are written in English and most people we run into can at least understand us. We can also pretty easily find things in the grocery store that are familiar and a comfort, especially chocolate!!
The people are amazingly friendly and always willing to strike up a conversation. It helps that we are an outgoing bunch of people and more than willing to stop and try to pronounce their names.
I am thrilled to be here and am enjoying my experiences. We will be here in Swaziland through the 21st of June and then will move on to Refilwe, South Africa. We will be running some VBS camps there and hopefully working on a construction project or two. A few of the teams are going to stay here in Swazi and work in some orphanages through July. We will rendezvous with them in South Africa at the end of July and then move on to the next big event. Stay tuned for more info.
I appreciate all the prayers, comments, emails and smiles. It is so much fun to open my email and see so much encouragement. The family of God is growing each day because of your prayers and support.
Much love to everyone!
ps…please note that all fun side dinners, trips, etc…are paid for out of our personal funds. Kingdom cash is being used to further the Kingdom. AMEN!
