Swaziland, September 1, 2009

We are just now publishing (Sept 12, 2009) this blog because we have been on a two week trip through South Africa and have not had internet. We fly home on the 15th! Will write about this trip in a future blog.

Dear friends and family,

Well, our last week in Swaziland is over and what an emotional roller coaster it has been. This was the week for painting the clinic at the church—what fun that was! The ‘youth’ (in Swaziland that can mean anyone up to the age of 30) took this on as their mission project to do during the holiday when school was out. The clinic has not been used as a clinic for over two years and was really in disrepair. There were holes in the walls from termites, and water damage, dirty floors, and filthy walls. On Monday the 24th, the youth came and cleaned it up to start the painting and then moved everything out, all out in a flash! They worked so hard and fast we were done before lunch. Wednesday was paint day—they had so much fun singing and being with each other—it was a great joy to watch. They seem so much more “innocent” than our youth, and filled with enthusiasm and joy. They painted for most of the day and did a good job but much of it landed on the floor! So, the next day Chris, Gary and I spent the whole day scraping the paint off of where it was not supposed to be! They did have a good time and were all so sweet that we couldn’t help saying “oh well, they have good hearts!”

The rest of the week was spent preparing and then actually moving the 4 children we have talked about in past blogs (see June 7 blog for background). This is the young boy, Mthokozisi and his three sisters who have virtually been abandoned by their mother and father. They had been living alone in a small mud hut way out in the rural area. The Manyano Women of the Methodist Church had chosen Mthokozisi as their recipient of a grant to pay for his education for the next 5 years so there was a lot of concern about his living situation and how to remedy it. For over a year now they have been trying to figure out where the children could go and live where they would be safe. Their grandparents homestead was quite a ways from where they were living but it was decided to go ask them if the children could come live with them. The two chiefs had to be consulted—the one from where they were currently living and the one where the grandparents lived. Lots of talking, negotiating and lots of praying went on between the Manyano Women and the various community members who were involved. There was even a meeting with the father and he said it was OK for the children to live with the grandparents. The mother is very afraid of the father of the children (he threatens her with violence) so she had moved to a safe place but was happy that the children were being looked after. Neither of the parents really has taken responsibility for these sweet children. The father would periodically come back to the homestead and take from them much of the food that was donated by the church and also required the children to care for his animals which affected their school work greatly. They did not have time to study.

Finally this week was the time for the move. A very emotional time for the Manyanos involved and for Chris. All of their work was finally coming to fruition. On Tuesday 8/25, we (4 of us) went to the grandparents homestead to help get the new home ready for the children to move into. It is a two room cinder block building that was full of termites and very dirty. By the time we got there, the children were already finished cleaning and were waxing the floor (it is cement, but that is what they do here). We decided that the outside was our next task—it was full of trash, but in no time, with all of the children helping, we had it cleaned up. The grandparents were there—the Gogo helped us and the Mkhulu (grandfather) who is blind, sat on his small wooden bench. Eventually the grandpa (Mkhulu) decided to take Mthokozisi and his sisters to the land where he and the District Manyano will be building a new home for them. We all walked into the field and the Mkhulu and the GoGo both spoke at length—all in SiSwati. They kept pointing all around the fields and talking—we think they were talking about the land and its history. Then they squatted down and the Mkhulu took a bunch of grass in his hands and tied it into a knot. Then he asked Mthokozisi to go get a cinder block which he placed on top of the knot (so that the knot came up through the hole in the cinder block). This is the traditional way that land is passed down in a Swazi family. It was all very touching and I felt it was honor to be present and to be an observer. We could all tell that Mthokozisi and his sisters knew this was a special time in their lives.

The next day we actually moved the children from their old homestead onto the new one. We were able to get all their belongings in the back of Chris’ car and then with all 10 of us and their stuff squeezed into two cars we headed out. We only dropped off the children and their stuff as the dedication would be the next day. The Gogo and the Mkhulu were so grateful and kept thanking us. On Saturday (the 29th) the District pastor and some of the Manyano Women came for the dedication. We were all moved and felt great happiness in our hearts as we took part in this ceremony. There was lots of praying, singing and praising. Chris gave Mthokozisi a new Bible (in English) and also gave his sisters a book of Bible stories (also in Eng) that she said was for the girls to read out loud to the youngest sister so they could all learn English. We blessed the new home they are living in now and then went out to the land and the pastor took a branch and dipped it into water and shook the water all around to bless the land. There were many tears of joy. What a sweet blessing it was to be a part of all of this during our last week and to have all their hard work be finished.

Sunday, we attended St Paul’s Methodist for the last time. It also happened to be a special day and many of the members came in their tradition clothing. See the pictures below for an example of the beautiful clothing. The singing in the church was magnificent and so full of heart. We loved listening to the songs and singing along when we could. We will truly miss these people. They have all been so kind and loving to us. We will just have to find a way to come back someday.

Well, that’s it for now. Many of you have asked about the little baby (Tiphelele), that almost died so we will cover her story in our next blog.

Much love to all of you,

Gary & Jeri



Some of the youth posing


Gary and Chris scraping off the paint where it didn't belong



She was very inventive and found an old stick to make the extension




The youth group paint crew

This is the collapsed home they had been living in......

The whole family-

Waxing the cement floors

After the Grandpa gave the land to Mthokozisi

Thinni was able to saw the door; Gary is used to electric saws!

Hanging the new curtains

Fitting the new door in place

The biggest smile we have ever seen on Mthokozisi's face!

Chris giving them their Bibles

The blessing of the land for Mthokozisi and his sisters

Our two favorite "traditionally built" Swazi women, Thoko and Thinni

A newly married couple in their Khosa traditional wear

Aren't they cute?

A Lesotho woman

A traditional Swazi woman and a woman in her traditional Zulu clothing

Swaziland, August 28, 2009

Hi everyone,

Gosh, we realized it has been a couple of weeks since we updated our blog. Two weeks ago we went on a week long vacation with Chris and Richard (South Africa Methodist Volunteers in Mission coordinator). Chris and Richard both were much in need of some vacation time as neither one of them take time off to just relax. We were glad we could give them a reason to kick back and enjoy the beauty of Africa. We headed over to the coast on the Indian Ocean and it was just beautiful. White sand beaches, three great game parks, a log cabin to stay in at two different places and a luxurious tent to stay in at one of the parks. We had a great time, walking, talking, reading, sleeping and just relaxing.

The first day of the trip we met up with some of Richards’ friends who work with an organization called Zululand Mission Air Transport, an organization that flies doctors and medical supplies into the bush (rural areas) of this part of South Africa and Mozambique. They had so many intriguing stories of going into the bush to bring out critically ill patients and taking them to the hospital. Several involved pregnant women and one actually gave birth on the seat next to the pilot! Another one was about a man who was very ill with malaria. Earlier in his life he had lost both legs so had 2 wooden legs. The plane that went to pick him up was very small and didn’t really have room for him, along with the other patient and nurse. So, they remedied that situation by just removing his wooden legs and he fit!

ZUMAT is not doing as many flights now that more roads have been tarred (paved) and the governments have put so many regulations in place. They now cannot just fly into another country to pick up a critically ill patient. They have to land at the closest major airport in the country and get customs clearance before they can fly on to the remote area to pick up the patient, then fly to the closest airport to the city where the hospital is for customs clearance in that country, and then on to the hospital. We suppose this is the result of so much contraband of drugs and guns being flown about in small planes. As a consequence they have started to do tourist trips flying over the South African landscape. We wish that we would have had time for a short flying trip.

We stayed in 3 different parks for two nights each. This was just enough time to explore the area a bit and then relax and enjoy the quiet. The first park was a game park so we spent one whole day driving around and looking for the animals. We loved it again and have included some pictures of it here on the blog. We never seem to tire of seeing these beautiful animals in their natural habitat. The second and third places we stayed were on the beach in an area called St Lucia which is on the Indian Ocean but also has a large estuary which has crocs (not the shoes!) and hippos and a huge array of bird life. We loved the variety of the places and thoroughly enjoyed our stay. On the last day after we had parted from Richard, we and Chris had made reservations for an afternoon drive in Tembe Elephant Park, which is known to have the largest and oldest elephants in Africa. The elephants are the original ones from that area on the border of Mozambique, not having been transported there like in so many of the parks. In fact the Tembe tribe was moved to adjacent land so the elephants could live there without harming the people. We loved this place! It was just beautiful, with a sand forest, large savanna, and many watering holes. We actually were the only ones on the sunset drive so it was a great opportunity to ask many questions. We drove for quite a while and only saw one huge elephant, so were feeling somewhat disappointed but the guide was fantastic and very knowledgeable and full of facts about the area and the animals. We found out in talking with him that he was born and raised in the area and had such a love for the land and the animals. Near dusk as we were making our way back to camp the guide saw a pride of lions eating their dinner way off in the distance. We could only see them through binoculars but they were so much fun to watch—like huge kittens. The male lion had already had his fill of the meat so he was sacked out on the ground, huge paws in the air—snoozing. The momma lion was doing the same. The cubs ,about 7 in all kept coming over and batting them and trying to get them to get up and play. Just like a family scene and we just loved watching them be the wild animals they are without knowing we were there. We soon had to head back because it was getting dark. As we came over a small hill there was a herd of elephants about 17 in all at a watering hole! Same thing—huge family doing their “thing”—slurping, throwing water, and then dirt on themselves, splashing in the water—having a grand ol' time. We watched until it was completely dark. I have included one picture of them—it is very grainy but you can see how many there are. What an incredible way to end our restful time away.

When we got back to camp we decided that we should have some coffee before we started the long drive home (2 hours to border crossing, then another 2 hours home). We were standing around the campfire talking with some of the staff when they asked us where we were from and if we were staying the night. We told them that we were driving back to Swaziland. They couldn’t believe that we were going to drive the horrible road with all the potholes and goats and cattle at night (especially in a VW Golf-Chris’ bigger car was in the shop). They were afraid that we wouldn’t make it back to the border before it closed at 2200 hrs.(10:00pm) One of the women went to get the manager who asked us if we would like to stay the night. We told him that we were ‘poor missionaries’ and didn’t think we could afford their rates. He said we could have a “tent” for R500 each (around $70 each including breakfast). He then asked if we would like dinner and assuming that we could not afford it and we would be eating snack bars and water for dinner, we asked him how much that would be and he said it would be included. Wow, what a dinner we had-out under the stars with candle light. Our “tent” had a beautiful front porch with wicker furniture, a queen and a twin bed, beautiful bath and shower with a view out into the bush, and coffee and tea service. We slept like babies with the sounds of the bush outside our “tent” and woke up refreshed the next morning for the horrible drive dodging potholes. We couldn’t imagine what it would have been like in the dark! If we had even made it to the border we would have been sleeping in our little car waiting for them to open in the morning.

This is our last week in Swaziland. We are painting the clinic at St.Paul’s Methodist Church with some of the youth of the church. It brings up feelings of both sadness and anticipation to be going home. We are very, very sad to be leaving all of the people we have fallen in love with here in this beautiful country. We are also really missing our loved ones back home. We are anxious to see friends and family and hope to be able to share in some way with all of you what this four months is Swaziland has meant to us. We thank all of you for your prayers and good thoughts, your emails, cards, and for some of you, your conversations on Skype. Even though we have been busy over here doing work, meeting people, having life changing experiences, we have never lost touch with the love and support of all of you at home in the good old USA. We have had essentially no television over here and the only news we get is occasionally on Yahoo so we will be coming home somewhat oblivious to what changes have or have not taken place at home.

We leave Swaziland on September first to begin our travel to Cape Town, SA to turn in our car. We will be spending time on the coast again, then up into the mountains and into Lesotho to check on where our friend JP will be heading his work team next year, then along the “Garden Route” to Cape Town, fly back to JoBurg to have dinner with Chris and Richard and pick up our luggage that Chris will be storing for us and then off to SFO with a stop in Paris arriving in San Francisco on the 16th. We will try and publish another one while we are on our trip to Cape Town.

Much love,

Gary & Jeri



The medical mission air plane


This is a close up of their name on the plane



These were so cute--don't they make a nice couple--I wonder what their children will look like?

What a huge animal this white rhino is!

On the shore of the Indian Ocean on the Elephant Coast

For those of you have seen our cabin at Bear--doesn't this look like it? We stayed here 2 nights
just over the dunes from the Indian Ocean.

The Samango monkey--they are so different looking than the Vervet monkey that we have seen so many of in other parks. They came around and tried to get into the trashcan. We had to keep our doors and windows closed or they would come in and steal our food. They got into Richards' truck and he had to chase them out!

A hot game of dominoes!

The view from the top of a huge sand dune we climbed--that is the Indian Ocean

WHAT??!!! The dung beetles eat the elephant dung and are important to the ecological balance of the parks (I just made that up)

Isn't he/she magnificant?

Sunset in Africa.....

The beautiful herd of elephants at dusk at the watering hole

The inside of the 'tent' at Tembe Elephant Park

The front porch of the the beautiful tent

Swaziland, August 7, 2009

Gary and Jeri at the Mahamba Gorge


Richard, on his famous portable gas wok, making delicious breakfast burritos



Zebras in the tall grass

Beautiful, majestic giraffe

Croc under a bridge--it was HUGE!

It took the giraffe about 20 minutes to get into this position to take a short drink. This is the watering hole where the famous YouTube video was filmed.

Ostrich walking in front of huge pile of traps put out by poachers in park

Gary and Chris in front our little cabin having breakfast

White Rhinos- Part of the Big 5-They can be mean and run fast!

Gary, Jeri and Chris in front of our safari vehicle

Baby elephant in burned area

Lonely lion? (part of the Big 5)

Elephant family (part of the Big 5)

Lion in the burned out area of Hlane

Dear Family and Friends, August 7, 2009

This has been a slow week as far as working goes—no big projects for us right now. Chris of course is very involved with her work and she continues to go out to Lomngeletjane and out to several other schools to work with the Orphaned and Vulnerable Children. We tag along when appropriate and at other times just stay at home and get caught up on errands or do some short travel out to the countryside.

We realized that we had never written about Kruger National Park. I am including it here in this blog as well as a Swaziland game park, called Hlane (pronounced SHlane), where we went with Chris for an overnight a few days ago.

Kruger National Park – South Africa

Rhinos, and warthogs and elephants—Oh My! Kruger was such a beautiful place to be. We spent two different times there helping with the transportation of the two work teams. Richard Bosart, the Methodist Volunteers in Mission Coordinator who was our guide on these trips has been to Kruger over 100 times in the 20 years he has lived here and was an excellent guide. We drove for miles, on dirt roads and on tar (their word for paved) looking for animals. Each vehicle had a walkie talkie—“elephant on the right!” “Warthogs on the left!” “Zebras!” “ Monkeys!” So fun to be the one to spot a different animal. So incredible to be in their home—not them on our foreign land. NOW, THIS IS AFRICA—we all said. The grasses were the color of straw (or lions—which we never did spot), the sky was a brilliant blue and all eyes were peeled to the right or left. We were ecstatic if we spotted something moving in the tall grass. I have included a few pictures of the different animals. I loved the elephants the best and then the giraffes. Both so majestic—the giraffe standing so tall to eat the succulent leaves on the tops of the trees. But, oh, the elephant—we saw several groups of them--always with the largest male in a protective stance. Once they were all crossing the road—us with cameras all snapping pictures like crazy. The head male waited till all of the females and babies had crossed the road then he raised his trunk in a triumphant way and waved at all of us as if to say “I am king!” He looked so much like a crossing guard in front of a school—protecting the crowd. I must say I was disappointed that we didn’t see lions but on the last day we were told there was a cheetah down the road hiding behind a tree. We were able to spot the place by all the vehicles and people hanging out of their windows! There actually was a cheetah in the brush—eating a kill. We knew that because of the vultures on a tree branch ready to swoop in when the cheetah was finished. Then, amazingly, a hyena crossed the road in front of us—hoping to get a morsel also. Even though we only saw the cheetah raise its head once (eyeing all of us suspiciously) we felt we were really in the presence of a ‘wild happening” Cheetahs are very rare in this area and only 230 are known to exist in this huge park. We also drove down to the watering hole where the famous YouTube video was shot of the a baby wildebeest being taken down by the lions and in which a crocodile tried to take it away and the wildebeest herd came back and this enabled the mother wildebeest to escape with the baby. Both of our trips there were exciting and also filled us with awe at the number of animals we saw and how we felt so humbled to be in their land.

Hlane Royal National Park - Swaziland

Last weekend (July 31st) the 3 of us took a short drive to one of Swaziland’s animal parks for Gary’s 65th birthday. It was a lovely park, more primitive and much smaller than Kruger, which is quite large. We stayed overnight in a small cabin right on the edge of a watering hole where we could bring our chairs and sit behind the fence and watch the White Rhinos (huge!) and the Hippos. So very relaxing to just watch them do their stuff. We took a sunset drive out into the various areas to look for lions and elephants and any other animals in the wild. We finally saw a lion, all alone and of course, Jeri thought he was lonely! There had been a terrible fire in this park in the last week so much of the area in it burned. We learned from our guide that the entire staff of the park, including kitchen staff was out on the fire lines. I asked him how they fought the fire and he said they had rubber mats (maybe like tub mats) attached to a wooden stick and they beat the fire down. There is very little water in the park so this was the only way to get it out. They fought if for several days like this—can you imagine? So, yes the lion probably was lonely—most of the land in the lion’s area was burned so their usual smells and grasses are all gone. They still are not sure how many animals in the park died as a result of the fire—it is still smoldering in parts so it is hard to tell yet. One theory is that the fire was started by poachers to divert attention away from them as they were trying to get in to kill some of the Rhinos. (they want their horns because they can get 1000’s of dollars for them in China to be used as an aphrodisiac). We did see, as we were leaving this area, off in the distance, a female lion so maybe they were just in hiding when we went through.

We also saw several families of elephants. They are so protective of their young-guarding them with all the adult elephants gathering around the babies. One baby was so little it was able to walk under its moms belly and it was nursing while we were watching. To see them in their natural habitat is a thrill and we feel so blessed to be able to witness them.

We also got up at 5:30 am on Saturday to go on the sunrise ride. Not as many animals to see this day but we learned a lot from our guide which I will share now—we thought these tidbits were very interesting. There is a bird in the park called the Red Tailed Hornbill bird. When the female is ready to lay her eggs, the male pokes a hole in the bark of a tree and she gets inside the tree—the male bird then seals her in (yes—seals!) the trees interior. She then, pulls off all of her feathers and makes a bed for the eggs. She lays the eggs and the male has to continually bring her food-unsealing the tree and then sealing it back up again. When the babies hatch, the male bird still brings food but now for all the birds and then seals them back in the tree. This young Swazi guide told us he was studying one of these pair of Hornbilled birds before the fire and when he went back after the fire the tree had burned down so he is afraid both birds were lost to the fire.

Did you know the lion is very lazy? Our guide told us many times lions will just sleep (they can sleep up to 16 hours a day) near a watering hole and wait for prey to come for a drink. They can have up to 6 females as their ‘wives’ (hmmm—sounds like the King of Swaziland!—but he has many more). Their roar can be heard up to 8 km away-about 5 miles. We heard them in the night in our cabin. When they walk they make a low rumbling sound, which we also heard, to stake out their territory and also to call in any females who want to join him. Only the females hunt; and if a male lion is alone, he can starve to death if he doesn’t figure out how to hunt. One last bit of info—they can flip their ears around 360 degrees to be able to hear all around them—this is called onmidirectional hearing.

So there you have our game park adventures so far. We are heading off for 6 days with Richard and Chris over to the coast on the Indian Ocean, just below Mozambique and staying in 3 different game parks in South Africa. We won’t have internet for those 7 days so don’t worry if you don’t hear from us.

With lots of love,

Nokulunga and Sipho (Jeri and Gary)

The crossing guard protects the young and females

A chameleon (AKU??)

Suspicious monkey?

Cape Buffalo (one of the Big 5) also very mean!

A beautiful bush in the wild

Gary standing on a mountain top overlooking Swaziland

Warthogs (Pumba in the Lion King)

Hippo mom and baby

Croc's in a pond--the one in the middle was about 18 inches wide!