Swaziland-May 31, 2009 blog

Sanibonani!

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

Swaziland, 21 May 2009

Jeri hanging the laundry

Gary in our cute little car

Jeri and Adelaide

Lomngeletjane School

Some of the OVC (orphaned and vulnerable children)

at St Pauls Methodist Church

Thobilie and her daughters (where we first lived)

Albert St School-Jo'burg

21 May 2009
Sanibonani (hello), from Swaziland! Our heads are crammed with new information and are hearts are filled with love and appreciation for the warm welcome we have received here in Swaziland. This is a truly beautiful country with mountains all around and terraced farms up the hills. The lights of the city we live in, Manzini, twinkle all over the hills at night. It is a city of about 65,000, with many modern amenities. We have been to the grocery store and it looks much like ours does at home, but with lots of different kinds of food. We had a blast the first time looking for familiar foods. One thing we saw in a restaurant was something called Monkey Gland sauce—no one tried it but we were curious about it. When we got to the grocery store, we found it and looked at the ingredients—it is more of a tomato sauce with no monkey glands listed anywhere!
We only stayed one night in Jo’burg and Richard Bosart, the SAMVIM (South Africa Methodist Volunteers in Mission) Coordinator, drove us around to several Methodist sites in Johannesburg. We saw a beautiful Methodist conference center called The Road to Emmaus; a school, the Albert Street Methodist School, (see pix above) which has mostly orphaned children from Zimbabwe and then to a café on the grounds of the Methodist Church, with a beautiful sanctuary. The Central Methodist Church in Johannesburg is filled to overflowing with refugees living there, from Zimbabwe—we did not visit there but Richard said we should come back and help feed the people on Wednesday nights to see the good work that church is doing.
Our first few nights in Swaziland were spent with a lovely woman and her two beautiful daughters. (see pix above) We were treated to a typical meal several of the nights—chicken in a sauce, rice, and several side dishes of vegetables. This was a modest home in a neighborhood much like those in Sunnyvale, but with gates all around and bars on the windows. We have had a hard time getting used to the amount of security in effect here. It was much more so in South Africa—crime is very high there and we breathed a sigh of relief when we crossed over the border into Swaziland. The car we bought in South Africa, through a guaranteed buyback program, has a security lock for both the transmission and the steering wheel. Our insurance only covers us if both of those are in place if the car is stolen!
Taking a bath (rather than a shower), has become part of our routine—that was a sight—us trying to figure out how to wash our hair under the faucet at the first home we stayed at. It was a very nice home, very comfortable and we really enjoyed getting to know these Swazi women. The daughters are typical teenagers—shy at first and texting (they call it SMS here) whenever they weren’t sleeping or eating.
We moved into the home where we are now on Tuesday of this week. We are living with a GoGo (grandmother) in her part of a large home. Her son and daughter-in-law live in the main house and we share the small cottage-like home next door. One of the pictures above is of Jeri and Adelaide. We have a large bedroom and share the kitchen and living room with Adelaide who is about 71 years of age. She is a loving, kind woman and in the short time we have been here, she has become a part of our heart. One thing this home has is a shower attachment so we can wash our hair in the bathtub without the struggling! I will be doing our laundry “by hand”—see the picture below. There is a tub that agitates, then I rinse by hand two times, put it in a spinner, and then hang on the laundry line. Today was fun, but not sure how long that will last—there is a laundry in town—might have to use that when time gets tight.
Chris, the missionary we will be working with for the next 3 ½ months, has been just great in taking us along on her many errands into town, out to the school, Lomngeletjane, (see pix above)where we will spending a lot of our time, and introducing us to the many people who are involved in the church and school. We have been to the local hardware store which really does look like a miniature Home Depot. This will be a place we visit often because of all the projects we will be helping out with.
We did attend church this past Sunday, an incredible experience even though it was in the native language, SiSwati. The service lasted well over 3 hours! The women are required to wear something on their head so they all had on beautiful hats or scarves. Everyone was much more dressed up than we are at our home church. The music touched our hearts with the voices of the people joining in song. They had us come up front and introduced us to the congregation. This church, St Paul’s Methodist Church is the largest in Manzini. After the service, there is a group of OVC (orphaned and vulnerable children) who come to be fed. I have one picture above of them. They live around the church in the neighborhood. Gary and I felt sad to see them but are grateful to the church for feeding these sweet children.
Gary is very challenged by driving on the left hand side of the road. There is always the question—which way do we look??? Gary thinks his brain has atrophied finding his way around because we have relied so much on our GPS in the States. This afternoon we are heading out on our own to run some errands in town and to a town close by called, Ezulwini. If you receive this Blog on Thursday, you know we made it back!
Two things we thought you might like to know also: 1. The water is safe for us to drink where we are living. 2. They have real coffee here!
On Friday, May 22 there is a group arriving from the Louisiana Conference of the United Methodist Church. This first work team will be staying here until the middle of next week and then will be travelling to Kruger National Game Park. We are going to travel along with them. Gary and I will stay over one extra night to be able to go on the morning walk—there is not enough room for us on the days when the work team is there.
To all of you who made donations to the work over here, we thank you again and be rest assured that your money will be well spent—there is much to be done, especially for the OVC’s.
We think of you all often and hope life is good wherever you are and that you will continue to remember us in your thoughts and prayers.