Have you ever felt incredibly blessed? Like you’ve been given something you never deserved? I came on the World Race expecting to sacrifice a lot, comfort being at the top of the list, and so far the race has lived up to my expectations. I’ve slept on floors, been covered in bed bug bites, been terrorized by moneky’s as I lay in my tent, sweat for 5 hours straight before I finally found sleep, and had to walk up 5 flights of stairs before I finally reached my room. It wasn’t always easy, and then came Swaziland.
To be fair we didn’t live in a mansion, just in the humble little house of our contact, but I would have gladly slept outside in the dirt every night if it meant I could have spent the month in that location.
God gave us a gift last month that few racers have gotten to experience, a gift that in my life I never thought I would experience. So what was the gift?
We lived at a country club, that’s right, and this country clubt not only had all the typical country club amenities (not that I would know what those are), this country club had it’s own game park, and we could walk through it any time we wanted. Whoa.
So, life at the club turned into a daily safari. The warthogs were the easiest to spot, especially one mama and her little piglets, followed closely by the monkey’s. Impala were by far the most plentiful in the park and I saw the zebras almost daily. The giraffes were more shy and I only saw one a couple times. The wildebeest scared the heck out of me at first until I learned they were far more scared of me than I was of them, their menacing huffing noise being the only thing that can ward off typical predators. But the cudu were the most elusive. The only time I cought a glimpse of a cudu the entire month was on our second to last night. I was walking alone through the game park, thinking about how I would kill a leopard if one had snuck in the park and decided to come after me ( I would attempt to strangle it, although I don’t know how good I would do) when I must have spooked a cudu. The creature let out a huge wail, which snapped me out of my daydream and caused me to jump three feet in the air, I then turned to see a huge white butt running into the brush, which I assume was a cud.
Actually, I may have seen dung beetles more than I saw the warthogs, although it’s a close one.
Photography mama warthog from our front porch. She likes to hang out at the water purification plant next door.
“Monkey TV” was an almost daily occurrence.
If we ever needed a quick animal fix our pet zebra Hobbs (who was abandoned by his herd at birth) as always around.
On our last week I discovered an orchard where all the animals like to hang out. Here are some of the Impalas.
Our most friendly herd of zebras.
The giraffe and wildebeests took off when they saw me.
Outside of the game park, we experienced luxuries that we didn’t take for granted.
The club was home to two swimming pools, which on the hot, hot Swazi days we took advantage of as much as possible, although we often played “pool cleaner” before we could play in the water. My favorites finds? Giant orange spiders, dung beetles, a scorpion and a dead mouse. I shudder at the thought.
The club house also had two tennis courts so we worked on improving our skills when time allowed.
Some of our other favorite items the clubhouse offered were the restaurant where we got a criminally cheap steak dinner to celebrate Lauren’s birthday and the satellite TV that allowed us to catch up on our TLC shows and American idol.
The clubs primary feature was it’s golf course (which the surrounding clubs didn’t have), which we never actually took advantage of… except for photo school. Man that grass is soft!
It’s so cool how God can provide so much when you never expected it or thought you deserved it, and after two months of roughing it in our tents, through rain storms and bug infestations, boy did he provide for us.
