Weird title for a blog, I know. Listen to the song at the bottom, & maybe you'll understand!
So today was our Sabbath & a few of us decided to take the day off, travel to town, find an internet cafe, shop for some new clothes, & grab some extra food for the team. We started off the day getting into the car with our contact's little brother, Carl. I immediately started talking to him & asked, how old are you Carl? 17. How old do you have to be to get a license in Swaziland? 18. Ha ha ok great, thats nice to know! We then spent a good 20 minutes attempting to get down the mountain. Keep in mind, the only "roads" up to El Shaddai are dirt paths, with random trenches that provides an incredibly bumpy, & unbearably slow ride down the mountain. If it weren't for the magnificent view, I probably would've been getting sick the whole way down!
We get to the bottom, where there is a choppa station (i.e. scooby doo vans people use as taxis in Africa) & meet a man who gives us a pretty good deal on the fare (26 rand each = about $3 for an hour drive to Izulwini). We decided it was a really good deal, so we hoped in! Immediately, the choppa started stalling out, & we realized we were in for a good ride. Instead of an hour ride, it turned into about an hour & a half. One thing choppa's tend to do is stop on the side of the road for what we'd call pedestrians. There are really no choppa station here, just random people that hop in, off the side of the road. Its always fun, because we usually meet some interesting people if they speak any English.
Over an hour passes by & we finally make it to our destination. We see KFC, Internet Cafe, Billabong, & various other shops– BAM! We are home! Ha ha joy filled our hearts as we jumped out of the choppa, anticipating a long, relaxing, shopping filled, internet seeking day. Des & I went shopping for some much needed clothes while the others checked out the internet cafe. As we came upon this interesting Thai/Asian boutique, I noticed that they carried crazy pants. YES. In other words, I bought my first pair of "World Race Pants." For those of you that do not know, world race pants are the craziest pair of pants you can find while on the world race. They usually consist of 80's tights, crazy printed gauchos, or the ones I had just bought, Thai balloon pants. I was stoked! It was my birthday coming up soon- so I decided I needed some birthday pants 🙂 The rest of the day consisted of window shopping, internet not really working for me (o well), meeting some other local missionaries (so cool! love you Wendy!), & making the incredibly long choppa ride back home.
Here comes the good stuff…
On the way home, we make it back to the bottom of our mountain when all the sudden….. it begins to downpour. We jump into the nearest choppa where the driver was blasting the best backstreet boy comeback band music ever! Haha Kelley, Andy & I began fist pumping in the back seat trying to learn the lyrics.
As we head up the mountain, we realize this van has some giddy ups. We were making it up the hills in no time! Then out of no where…. Bam, ba bam, SKEERRRPPP! You guessed it, we were stuck. Funny part was that in third world countries, you don't really have people that drive by that will help you out. We had three people drive by, without even a glimpse of good samaritan in them. What we had was two local people walk down the hill & bring us a shovel & a pic. Ha ha. Thank you Des for taking pics!
Surprisingly, it only took a good 20-30 minutes to get us out, & we were back on the road again, this time, with the music blaring even louder. By this time we had picked up the lyrics, & were beginning to sing at the top of our lungs. Amidst the singing, occasional knocking of our heads on the ceiling from the bumps, the peeling out of the back wheels on the van, almost dying & falling down the mountain, this day had become by far my favorite day in Swaziland. It was a roller coaster ride of a day, but whenever a day ends with singing, its been a darn good day! I hope that gives you a little insight to what our weekends look like in Swaziland!
O yeah, here's the best song ever..
