Christmas Greetings, and More !!

Hi from Gail, 27 DECEMBER 2010

Merry Christmas to all of you from beautiful, green, warm Swaziland !

We did have a blessed Christmas here, even though we certainly missed the traditions of home, and especially spending time with family and friends. One of the things I looked forward to as a Peace Corps Volunteer was the slower pace of life. Yes, the daily tasks are much more labor intensive here, but the rhythm of life beats at a different pace. We’d heard that everything pretty much “shuts down” for at least 2 to 3 weeks over the Christmas/New Years holiday. That’s true for most of Swaziland, but not here at the orphanage/farm. I’ll give you a recap of the highlights of the past 2 weeks & you can see for yourself.

A fellow volunteer in a nearby community had been approached to help start up a preschool, using an existing church building. She, of course, contacted me, since I’m actively teaching in an existing preschool. Once they found a local woman who was willing to train as a preschool teacher, and realized that their school should begin in January when the new school year begins, suddenly, I was preparing a preschool training curriculum! That is lightening speed for anything like this to get done, so I was a bit skeptical that it would come about, esp. since transport to our farm is not direct. To make a long story short, all the parties showed up and we had 3 days of preschool observation & training from Dec. 13 – 15. In the middle of that, we had an extensive meeting with our Peace Corps supervisor regarding our lives as volunteers, how we’ve integrated into our community, future projects, etc
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Then, on Dec. 16, our childrens home was visited by a local group who wished to present a donation.. Of course, that required a frenzy of cleaning & preparing food for our visitors. A heavy downpour didn’t help our efforts, but it all went smoothly. That afternoon we all baked Christmas cookies together – the kind you cut out and ice. It was great fun, and very messy.

All during this time, we’d also had rehearsals for the annual Christmas play. Michelle adapted it from a Christmas story which was told through the eyes of the innkeeper who keeps getting woken up by all the visitors: Mary & Joseph; a bright star & angels; shepherds, three kings. We had our first performance on Sat. Dec. 18. However, during the day, we were cooking food for the next day’s church luncheon for the 75-100 church members. (The orphanage had received a donation to provide the meal, we just needed to provide the manpower). The kids helped with the cooking. The play was lots of fun & all the kids performed well, sang loud and remembered their lines, thanks to the capable direction/leadership of Michelle. Of course, we had treats/food afterwards.

Then, on Sunday, it was pack up the food and load everyone in the van for church. We had a shortened service (only 1 ½ hrs.) so that the kids could perform their play for the congregation & sing some songs. We haven’t heard any African Christmas songs, but sing all the traditional songs we sing: Away in a Manger, Silent Night, Joy to the World. Luckily, I haven’t heard Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, but do hear Jingle Bells, White Christmas, etc. that seem so out of place, but that’s the way it is. It is summer here, and the church likes to focus on the kids at Christmas, so they rented a giant inflatable water slide for them to enjoy while we heated up the food. You’ve never seen kids change clothes so fast and jump on. Since we had at least 50 kids – it became a human slide, with kids from top to bottom all sliding together, grinning from ear to ear and having a ball. Luckily we had an hour or so before the skies opened up with rain, thunder & lightening, so we had to shut it down a bit earlier than planned. Then we all enjoyed the feast – chicken stew, fried sausage, beef stew, rice, cornmeal porridge, cole slaw, beet salad, tossed salad, rolls, cake, pudding & fruit for dessert. What a day.

On Monday 20 Dec, another volunteer and I went into down to purchase food to put in gift buckets (much more practical here than baskets) for the staff, and for outreach to orphans and vulnerable children in the community, compliments of another generous donation. That was a bit frenzied, because everyone was doing their Christmas food shopping that day & the stores were packed. The heavy shopping generally happens in this last week before Christmas, because that’s when everyone receives their Christmas bonus. In general, there’s limited gift shopping, but lots of eating & drinking associated with Christmas and New Year’s. The next day we assembled 90 buckets, and Peter took some of the older kids to help distribute to the community.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Ambassador, his wife and the Swaziland Peace Corps Director came for a tour of the childrens home – hence, more cleaning of children & rooms. Then the 7 of us were treated to a lovely luncheon at a nearby hotel/casino. It was nice to sit and relax and enjoy adult conversation. When we returned to the orphanage that afernoon, Peter & Michelle then had the farm staff Christmas supper – complete with gift buckets, pay day, etc.

On Thursday, I braved the public transport to travel north to the main city of Manzini to finish shopping for the kids. I was looking for items to fill sewing baskets for the girls, which was the main gift from Peter and Michelle. In addition, I was looking for something small to give from Mike & me. Even in the main town, choices are limited, and in hindsight, it was a bit crazy to go there 2 days before Christmas, but we got it all done, and even made it to a craft center to shop for ourselves. Unfortunately, that delayed our departure a bit, and we got home a bit later than planned.

Christmas Eve was spent wrapping presents – just like at home, except it was sunny & hot. We only have 1 Christmas CD, so Johnny Mathis got played a lot that day. At noon, we were invited up to Peter & Michelle’s, along with all the kids, for a Christmas braii (barbecue). It felt like 4th of July – sitting in the bright sun & eating brats. The kids performed the play again for the visiting family members, and opened some of their gifts.
Churches don’t have services on Christmas Eve, but rather on Christmas morning. So – we met the kids early (8 am) for more gift opening, Christmas Day, and then went to church. After church was over, we thanked the pastor for the water slide fun the previous week & he had not returned it, since the rental company was closed for the holidays! Then he asked if we could take it back to the orphanage to use for a few days. Of course we said yes, and crammed it into an already packed full van, and had great fun Christmas afternoon with the kids, and all the family visiting, slipping & sliding down the water slide. The day ended with the volunteers getting together for appetizers and a fun game of hearts.

(annotation from Mike on 28 Dec)

Finally, on Mon Dec 27 we traveled back up to north of Piggs Peak to visit with the family that hosted us June 28 to Aug 26. You might remember that we are working in SW Swaziland, and our training/host family is in NW Swaziland, about 100 miles away. The journey went like this….left our house at 5AM and walked 45 minutes to town to the “bus rank”—bus station. Thankfully it was dry, overcast, and a nice pleasant early morning walk. We caught the first bus North, thought it might leave as early as 6:00Am, but it left at 6:25AM. About 20 miles North the road was washed out and we were detoured—not bad, took an extra 20=30 minutes. Gail said it had been washed out last Thursday when she went shopping …this means the MAIN north –south highway in the country has been washed out for a least a few days….by 7:50AM we had arrived at “the T junction”……..just a crossroads where we left the bus, and got on a small mini-bus for the 40 minute ride into capital city of Mbabane. Arrived at Mbabane bus rank at 8:30AM after traveling a total of about 60 miles in 3 and half hours…….caught another mini-bus North to Piggs Peak, arriving Piggs at 9:30AM. Then hopped on more mini—bus for the last 10-12 miles north of Piggs Peak to our homestead…….this was on mainly dirt road, and due to recent weather, rains, lots of stops, etc…took about 90 minutes…arriving about 11AM. So simple as that we traveled about 100 miles in 6 hours !! And on five different modes of transport, including feet ! And of course carrying lots of stuff as gifts. We stayed only until 2PM, as we needed to get back to the Childrens Home by 7PM—dark—and were fortunate to catch an express bus from Mbabane south, and so it “only” took us four and half hours to get home. A long day, but a good day. This is just a taste of what our travel will be, back to the USA in a couple weeks……we are looking forward to the journey, but after yesterday we do need to “rest up”.…

Just a “typical” few days for us, but definitely not the typical Peace Corps experience. Hope you all had a peaceful and meaningful Christmas. We can not wait to see the grandkids ( and many of the rest of you too !!) in less than three weeks !!

Love, Gail & Mike