During the last month in Swaziland, the weekends have turned out to be full of adventures; some planned, but most completely out of my control. The first week I stayed on the mountaintop and went hiking. A small group of us hiked to a small waterfall. It turns out that the mountains in Swaziland are a lot steeper than they look, and they are also home to some large marijuana fields. After hiking through the marijuana we made it to the waterfall and started jumping off the rocks into the pond below. It was great! What was even better was free climbing the rock wall, up the waterfall and then jumping in! Talk about an exciting PLANNED adventure.
Fast forward to the next weekend. I went into town on Friday with 4 other squadmates to do some logistics work. After a long and productive day we start our travel back up the mountain and a huge storm settles in. Turns out comby (swazi taxi) drivers don’t drive in the rain, so our driver dropped us off at a lodge before reaching our final destination. Yes, we were stranded. in a massive storm. in Swaziland. After a lot of work to get us back up the mountain we ended up having to stay overnight at the lodge before making our way up the mountain the next day.
Did I mention that we had to hike back on Saturday? Oh yes! We spent our Saturday morning hiking 3 and half hours UPHILL!
Good thing I had worn the appropriate footwear…not! note to self: don’t hike in Toms.
This adventure was one for the record books. It was almost 4 hours of sharing stories, meeting kids on the road, eating suckers, and enjoying the beauty of Swaziland. A day in the life of a world racer is taking what seems like a horrible situation and turning into a day of fun and blessing.
The story doesn’t end there.
Fast forward to the next weekend. I went into town with 11 other squadmates to enjoy wifi and connecting with home. I spent most of the day working on logistics and then enjoyed Facetiming with my grandparents. Towards the end of the day it started to rain…and then it started to hail..alot.
And you guessed it, we got stuck at the bottom of the mountain AGAIN!
Note to future world racers in Swaziland: the mountains are steep and dirt roads don’t mix with rain, so be prepared to hike! The good news is that this time we were able to get a taxi back up the mountain the next morning!
Sooooo we made it back up the mountain on our last Sunday in Swaziland, just in time for church; which featured a sermon by ME!
Yes, I preached and I cried like a baby before the service.
needless to say, my weekends in Swaziland were anything but boring. I am definitely adding to my memory bank lots of unexpected, but totally awesome adventures.
To read about my first experience preaching read the next blog!!
