What a week it has been! The sounds of the congregation singing, children’s laughter, a soft spoken preacher giving us a lesson in humbleness, the words from the women thanking us in their own language for all we are doing—(Siyabonga!) We have been touched by the people of Swaziland and will never be the same. They live in poverty and yet have a joy of life and a gratefulness to God that we rarely see. They do not like confrontation so their lives seem calm and sweet. They sing whenever they are together, laugh at each other and at our trying to pronounce their words; the children sit quietly in a group of adults—never demanding or crying.
The work team arrived from Louisiana a week ago last Friday (5-22) and were all ready to work the next day. They are from a small town on the outskirts of New Orleans and almost all of them had significant damage from Katrina and some are still not back in their homes but they are here in Africa practicing their faith. So much was accomplished in just the first day—painting of doors and windows, beginning to dig the foundation of the teacher’s housing, finding the trees that had been planted around the perimeter behind the fences for windbreaks and clearing out the grass and giving them each a good drink. We learned to shuck maize and it felt like a quilting bee with the woman sitting around, some with children on their backs, talking quietly and sharing with each other. Church the next day was held at the school, Lomngeletjane, with a congregation of about 20, all dressed in the native dress. This is a much smaller church than St. Paul’s, where we attended the first Sunday, but it is filled with people who are so grateful and full of joy. A delicious traditional lunch was served—a stew over rice, sweet potatoes, a dish made with maize and beans, salad and some delicious cornmeal that tasted much like polenta(Jeri especially loved it).
We enjoyed an afternoon at the local cultural center, seeing some of the dancing and singing as well as a village set up the way they used to live (and many still do in the outer regions). Then on to a wonderful waterfall way back in the woods.
The work continued the next day at the school, but of course with school in session, there were lots of opportunities for pictures. Several of the team members are teachers so they set up activities with the children. We also went up to the top of a hill nearby where their old sanctuary is and where the Carepoint feeds the OVC (Orphaned and Vulnerable Children). It is so hard to see these very small children of preschool age and realizing that so many of them do not have parents or their parents are away or are sick. They come to the Carepoint each day for a bit of learning and love and most important of all, their only meal of the day—a stiff paste of maize with a gravy and bean sauce that is put over the maize. Many of these children are HIV positive and some of the have active AIDS. There were several that looked very sick.
Jeri became the unofficial person in charge of lunches—what a crack-up—someone who does not like to cook or prepare food being in charge of food. She was able to delegate and keep it all organized and make sure everyone had a job and got what they needed. There were 60 or so sandwiches made each day—peanut butter and jelly or meat and cheese. Gary in the meantime became the window washer extraordinaire—after the team scraped all the paint off, he washed every window—probably over a 100 of them with small panes.
The Louisiana team has taken us in and said we are like a part of their group. Today, Chris was gone so we were “in charge”. I think it went quite well and we enjoy them so much—great fun and caring people. They all want us to come and visit the next time we are in Louisiana working with Habitat for Humanity.
Wednesday was the last day for the team to be up at the school. It was a day of tears for them as they said good-bye to the children and the teachers. They had taken pictures of each of the children and put them into frames and today they gave them to the children. It was so sweet to see these children look at the pictures of themselves and for some it was obvious they had never seen in a picture or looked into a mirror before. They also gave them Mardi Gras beads and a little bag of goodies—the children were thrilled and the smiles on their faces was something to see. As we handed them out we said “God bless you” and each of the children did a little curtsy and looked into our eyes. We were very touched. We learned so much from this first team. They come from an area that has been so ravaged by hurricanes and yet they gave so much of their hearts to this project.
Here is our address over here if any of you want to send us a card or letter. It takes about 3-4 weeks for a letter to get here!
Gary and Jeri Carson-Hull,
C/o St Paul’s Methodist Church,
Box 42,
Manzini, M200,
Swaziland
This is it for now. We just came back from Kruger National Park with the Louisiana work team, where we spent 3 days. We will try and send off another blog about that adventure in the next week or so.
Love, Gary and Jeri
The pictures are below, in reverse order (I promise I will get it right by the time we leave here!
Finished latrines!
Foundation for teachers housing
Giving out their treats and beads
The preschool showing us their pictures
One of the OVC (orphaned and vulnerable children)
Feeding the children at the Carepoint
The Mantenga Falls
Swaziland Cultural Center
The women shucking the maize
A couple of the women in the Lomgeletjane Church
Our wonderful lunch at the Lomgeletjane Church
