"Its the Holiday Season...At least It Is By the Calendar"

Greetings again to all……….I write this on 15 December, well into the the twelve days of Christmas, and also what must certainly be the heart of the Christmas holiday season. At least it is as I glance at the calendar. And here too we have the steady stream of Christmas carols on the radio, and being sung in practiced Christmas plays, and by children, parents, and families. And there are some traditional Christmas foods like cakes, and sweets—and we are told that milk sales will be down as people buy more soft drinks, and alcohol…and there are plenty of Christmas decorations up in the local retailers---Christmas trees, trimmed, and garlands, and “Merry Christmas” signs—still “Merry Christmas” here…….and lots of holiday promotions. We even sent out Christmas cards, to the USA to friends/ family. And children do look forward to receiving gifts, and adults look forward to seeing loved ones, and spending time together. So I guess it really is the Christmas season……just is hard for Gail and I to wrap our head into it, as we are starting into African summer, the sun is up at 4:30AM, and our days are either hot/ sunny, or a little wet, misty, cooler…….and people are definitely doing lots of outdoors stuff instead of dealing with snow, weather, car troubles, etc. Perhaps this will finally give us a chance to really experience the meaning of Christmas, since the seasonal clime and happenings are gonna be upside down, from our usual expectations. And yes it is incredibly busy time here at the childrens home.

The last day of school was Friday December 3. This is a bit of a misnomer, as we are starting to learn about the public school academic calendars here. Officially last day was to be Friday Dec 10………then about November 15 there was a notice in the newspaper, that the date had been changed to Dec 3…..no explanation, and from all my sources this is quite normal…….an entire week had been knocked off the calendar, at the last minute. For all the schools across the country. But wait, theres more. Friday Dec 3 was the day the children went to collect report cards for the third term. They had NO SCHOOL that week. Also for the two weeks prior, they were writing exams, so there was no teaching being done…….so truly last day of school was Friday Nov 12……even though announced public academic term was to end Dec 10. Interesting to me how we so quickly chopped a MONTH off the academic term. And the next term in January is announced officially to start 18 January—but everyone says that will get pushed back at least a week, to say 25 January…so all of a sudden we have school break from about 12 November to 25 January…..and remember we have three academic terms in a calendar year so we have three school breaks. I am told this is the longest break of the year, but seems to me the kids here spend a lot less time in school learning than in USA, and a lot less than publicly announced.

So I went with the 14 children on Dec 3 to get the school reports. A nice walk to school early in the am…then a morning assembly outdoor at the school, led by the head teacher, with songs, prayers, and announcements. Then all the children from the school were dismissed to individual classrooms. We stood on line outside the class rooms, and waited for our one-on –one conference with each teacher. The teacher sat at a desk just inside the classroom door……and when our turn we met with teacher, got the report card, had a few words, and moved on. In addition to getting A’s, B’s, C’s etc in each subject, each is ranked where they place in their classroom…..for example if Mike is in a second grade classroom, with 45 children, at the bottom of the report card it is stated “Mike has placed in position 7 out of 45 children “……..this position is pretty important, and all kids know how they stand, and how the other kids are positioned. Seemed to me pretty interesting that from Grade One, this ranking takes place, every term, every grade. The children from our site did very well for third term, all except one being promoted to next grade, and all except two passing for the third term. We walked home.

Dec 4. Saurday. Warm, clear, sunny. We went SWIMMING ! In a pool ! This was a spur of the moment decision, and as we had been granted access to a private pool, at a private home……and the weather was good……about 2PM we dropped everything, grabbed the 23 kids, and off we went for a couple hours. A great time was had by all, but only 3-4 of the children able to swim, so we spent much of the time teaching some swimming, and simply having fun in the cool clean water. Kids are kids are kids when it comes to swimming on a warm day !

Monday 6 Dec—Georges 50th Birthday !!—Happy Birthday George, I actually have bought you a gift I will bring to Columbus in Jan. I traveled to Manzini for an organizational meeting for Junior Achievement. This seems like a good time to comment on police roadblocks. In the first 30 kilometers we traveled, we were stopped FOUR times by police roadblocks, and TWICE at speed traps. Seems the Royal Swazi Police have quotas to meet, just like the highway patrol in the USA. And end of the year fast approaching. But the police roadblocks are actually a GOOD idea, although not one every 5 miles !!! What happens is that the police do set up a road block, and you are required to pull over. The police check the papers—auto registration, driver license. Then they check that the vehicle is working properly….lights, horn, directional signals, emergency brake, etc. Then they count passengers to make sure the vehicle is not over loaded…..if any of the above is bad, you are issued a citation, with a fine. Actually seems to me like this would not be a terrible idea in the USA. Random roadblocks, infrequently, to try to keep “unroadworthy vehicles” off the road. The whole process only took 5 minutes, albeit a little irritating with four stops in 18 miles.

Finally, I conclude today with the story of the cat that ate the canary. As we are on a farm there are plenty of “farm cats” hanging about…doing the cat thing of drinking saucers of milk, mousing, and generally being cats…..a couple days ago in the afternoon I was walking back from the childrens home, and was arriving at our house –which we have affectionally come to call the “Green Cottage”….just as I arrived I noticed a very small, very oddly colored—brown on the bottom half, and bright, bright pumpkin orange on the top half—bird hopping/ flittering about in front of the house. This is all quite normal as we are in Africa, and we see plenty of wild and crazy flora, fauna daily. Anyhow, I paused a moment to admire the pretty little bird in the “Cleveland Browns “ uniform, when out of the corner of my eye comes a cat, and just like that, half the bird had disappeared into the cat mouth, and the other half was wriggling around outside. In another couple seconds the bird was gone. I had no time to lament the passing of this pretty little bird, that I wished was still alive….because I quickly realized that we are now living in a much more blended environment—nature, animals, plants—than we had ever before. Sure we have all seen cats eating birds—in cartoons—and we know intellectually that it has to happen. And I suppose had I grown up on a farm in the USA, I would have seen, felt this natural blending…..but now, on a farm in Africa we see lots of stuff daily, like the cat eating the canary..and cows giving birth to calves, etc.….and while sometimes what we see, experience is a little disconcerting, and makes us a little sad……most of it is just life.

I suppose we will get to this blog a least once before Christmas, but Seasons Greetings, Happy Holidays, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all. It goes without saying that the hardest part –really only the hard part—of being here is being away from our families, and friends, and we do miss everyone, and think about YOU ALL, every day. And as we bear down on Christmas Day in Africa…it is getting a little harder. Take care.

Oh and yes---Troy thanks for the call the other nite. GREAT to hear you, and talk with you. !!

Sala Gahle ! ( Stay Well !)