For month 10 in Swaziland, my squad is partnered with the AIM base here. Half of my squad is in Nsoko and half is in Manzini, an hour and a half away. I’m in Nsoko at an AIM carepoint compound which means that 25 people are living under one roof, using one kitchen, three toilets (that can only handle #1 so we have to walk across the compound to an outhouse for #2), sleeping in bunk beds and tents, and eating on the floor if the two folding tables are being used for card games.
We’re finding a groove, seeing as how we’ve done this before during all squad month in Nepal. Its so weird to think of ourselves as “seasoned Racers” which is what we thought of the Month 10 Racers back at the Awakening in Cambodia while we were still in Month 4.
The day we arrived in Nsoko was the same day a World Race Gap Year squad on their first month left the compound we were to stay in. My team is spending our time at a care point called Joyela, working on a tire fence/obstacle course that one of the Gap Year teams started. Its pretty cool to pick up right where they left off and hopefully finish during our time here. It feels good to see on the World Race the small differences short term mission teams can make.
While we’re not “making it rain” pickaxing rock and soil, we’re playing with the kids, reading them story books and letting the school-aged kids read to us after they come home from school. A lot of the carepoints have a choir for the kids and my teammate Malia and I got to hear them practice for their competition that’s later this month. I hope we get to go to the competition! Adventures in Missions also has a sports ministry. There is currently an all-boys soccer team for this care point and they need 6 more girls to make an all-girls team!
Yesterday I spent some time with one girl doing Home Economics homework. She had pages and pages of different recipes in her notebook and she had to sort out the ingredients into different categories. She told me her favorite class is Agriculture. They get to take care of chickens and other farm animals. She also likes to knit. I could tell she’s a very hands-on kind of person. I love that they get to have a lot of hands-on and practical activities in school. I guess it shows how much they need to learn this stuff to survive in the places they live. Of course a lot of it is passed down from parent to child and is just part of their culture. America really needs to reintroduce home economics and other life skills classes back into high schools as graduation requirements.
Today is our off day, so fourteen of us got a ride into the city to hang out with the other half of our squad and to get some wifi since we don’t have any at our site! I wanted to send out an update to let all my family, friends, and supporters know what’s been going on!
I’ll leave you with a picture of me using a pickaxe for the first time; in a skirt, no less.
