So I decided to walk around the compound where we are staying 4 times. Each time I focused on a different sense minus the taste one. Hope you get pulled right into Swaziland by reading this! Enjoy!
Sight
As a walk onto the dirt path red swazi dust blows up all around me. The tree in the prayer garden catches my attention. Birds fly over its fanned out leafy head and an empty hammock blows here and there in the wind. It’s very African looking tree and it provides a good amount of shade from the sun. I move past the tree and go off the dirt road into the “African bush.” Thorny bushes grab at my clothes and pull me back entangling me even further when I pull against them. Carefully I entangle myself and step carefully to avoid getting thorns in my shoes. Brown grass sprouts up from dry cracked dirt and goat poop is scattered everywhere from the free range goats that wander our property. Suddenly I come upon a bright blue lizard with a yellow tail about the size of my forearm. But as I come nearer I realize it’s dead and invested with ants. It’s ant season and tiny tiny ants crawl everywhere.(including our beds) As I wander further my attention is caught by a bunch of colorful bushes and trees. Their colors are vivid yellow, pinkish-purple, lilac purple, and orange. (Swaziland has the most colorful plants) I climb onto of a dirt mound and look into the distance onto the beige expanse of farm land. Beyond that is African bush and beyond that is mountain ranges that go on for as long as the eye can see. The sunsets on those mountain ranges are the beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. Some evening the clouds shine of bright orange and yellow with rays of light peeking out, and some evenings the sky is lit with light pink and deep salmon and purple. After day dreaming a bit I jump off the mound and step over a centipede the length of my hand and make my way toward a cactus that towers several feet above my head. It has round, flat projections coming off its arms and thorns cover it from head to foot. Being carful not to snag my shirt again I step around it and walk towards the care point, passing a toppled over outhouse on the way. A large lime green building stands in front of a run-down play ground that is enclosed with red, green, and blue tires sticking half way out of the ground. Across from that is a field of crops with some swazi women, their babies tied securely to their backs, bent down harvesting. Their homes lay behind the field and are round and constructed of mud, sticks, and stones. Tall, green water towers stand beside the homestead supplying water for the land and the people in the heat of the summer. As I make my way back to the compound I pass by goats and chickens that are finding scrap pieces of food in the trash hole and scattered all over the ground are pieces of trash and chewed up pieces of sugar cane sticks which are a very common “snack” for the swazis. You tear off pieces of the stick and chew out the juices and spit it out so naturally the dried up pieces can be found everywhere you go in Swaziland. As I get closer to the fence I notice a herd of large brown cows chewing on the shirts of my fellow teammates that were hung up to dry on the fences. Ugh those cows are the death of many cute shirts.
Smell
On my second lap I close my eyes and breath in deeply. The air smells hot and heavy. Blast of cool freshness from the strong wind interrupt the smell of heat deceiving my mind for a split second that I am back home in the fridged winter of Maine. But then I’m hit with the dry smell of dust as the wind carries off the ground and into my face. I open my eyes and wander off into the African bush. (The African bush is basically wild uncut parts of land filled with greenery cactus thorns and the like… not as cool as I’d like it to sound) Immediately the smell of sweet dry grass meets my nose and even a hint of sandy salty beach weirdly enough. I must say that many of the smells around my compound smell the same so let’s travel 3 miles to my care point that lays beyond the farm fields. Walking onto the property the smell of fresh sugar cane is evident and surrounding the trash pile are a bunch of preschoolers munching on the sweet treat. We walk up to hug the Gogo’s (old cooks) and their cloths smell strongly of smoke from making the fire under the cauldrons for the rice and beans. We walk into the little building where the kids are taught and a completely different smell hits you. I’ve always described it as a corny(probably the sugar cane), dusty, sweaty human kind of smell. Kind of weird and really didn’t like it for a month and a half but.. you get used to stuff like that.
Touch
My third lap around I get in a real tangle with the thorns and their sharp pain stings my arms even after I’m out of them. I wade through the longer grass this time staying alert for snakes. Don’t worry I’m not going to tell you how a snake bite feels haha. I thankfully haven’t seen any black mambas.. yet. I love the feeling of dirt under my feet and I relish in the feeling before climbing onto the stony road. Soft leaves brush against my head in the cool shade of the tree I’m taking shelter under. The sun is relentless and terribly hot. On the worst of days even the shade is 90 degrees.
Sound
On my fourth lap I go straight down to the play ground where the noise of life is! Kids are yelling a screaming as they run all over and the sound of a ball being kicked comes from the soccer field as a bunch of teenage guys run back and forth across the.. well its not a field… It’s a plato of dirt. Goats are bleeding to their babies as they munch on grass and drink from the well. I round a corner of a building and a very large rooster (somehow everything in Africa is way larger than things in America) squawks at me abruptly. Little birds chirp overhead and a big Zazu bird (not the scientific name but it’s the bird they used in the lion king) caws and flaps out of a near my bush. I rippling sound can be heard from the hammock area where six hammocks are being thrown about by the wind underneath a low hanging shelter. I turn the water tower on and the slow movement of water moving through the pipes in the ground can be heard as I walk back to the compound.
Taste
For taste I did not walk around the compound. Instead I wanted to give you a taste of a swazi dinner cooked by our swazi cooks Faith and Dolly. Ready your taste buds cause your about to be hit with a full course meal! Tonight we are having swazi boiled bread (everyones absolute favorite!!), delicious coleslaw, Swazi beef, and beets and beans. Your plate is full to the brim and your piece of boiled bread, which is the size of the plate itself, lays overtop of all your other food. You race to your seat and dig right into the coleslaw which is the best coleslaw you’ve ever had. The first spoonful goes in your mouth and an explosion of soft sweetness fills your mouth. Is the coleslaw or dessert? (Swazis.. or maybe this is just Faith, like to put sugar in EVERYTHING) But it is the perfect balance of sweet but not too sweet and crunchy but not too crunchy. You finish that in about 0.2 seconds. And then you go for the beets and beans. This is a very swazi dish and most of you I’m sure have never had it. A vegetable kind of sweetness fills your mouth from the sweet beet juice and the texture of the kidney beans is in perfect harmony with the thin beet slices. A match made in heaven! Now we get to the really good stuff. You’ve scooped some swazi beef on your plate and your really hoping you got more than fat and bone this time and to your delight you got a good meaty piece covered in swazi Faith style sauce. It is freakin delicious. Your taste buds are tingling with the warm, homemade, sweet but savory, spice filled saucy meat. It is glorious. Your face is now a mess and your hands are covered in sauce but thats okay cause you saved the best for last and nothing is stopping you from getting to that boiled bread right now! The bread is a little spongy like. Not crumbly at all but kinda floppy. It’s the color of butter and smells sweet and warm. AKA ready to be in my stomach immediately. You tear off a piece and plop it in your mouth. It is chewer than most bread but not gross chewy. It is warm and delicious in every way possible. It is most flavorful when dipped in the swazi beef sauce. It is.. perfection. You can hardly stuff the last piece in your mouth but you do manage to cause it boiled bread we’re talking about and every last crumb is eaten. With a full stomach and a full heart you lean back in your chair, having gained closed to 10 pounds!
I hope you now feel like you’ve really been to Swaziland. I know a lot of my posts haven’t been a lot about the actual place and I wanted to give you all a very (very) descriptive summary of it. I hope you can relate a little more with me now and feel full from the delicious swazi dinner!
