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!

Swaziland, July 30, 2009

Dear Family and friends, July 30, 2009

This has been another week of contrasts for us. We went on a little road trip with Chris last week. On Wednesday we drove to the Mpumalanga Province of South Africa to see some of the natural sites in that area. The area we went to was west of Kruger National Park about 4 hours drive from Manzini (where we live). Nothing prepared us for the awesome beauty we found. Once again, we found ourselves saying over and over “This isn’t anything I would expect Africa to be like.” The area looked more like California, Utah, Colorado or Idaho than Africa. We marveled at the beauty and kept trying to remind ourselves that we were in Africa, not the U.S. We stayed at a small historic mining town in the mountains (about 4200’). It was a quaint little village with excellent accommodations in renovated houses from the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. They all have that English touch and the look from that time period. The food was great and very reasonably priced. We even had a huge claw foot bath tub in our bathrooms! The only thing that reminded us that we were in Africa was the people constantly wanting to wash Chris’ car or asking us to buy nuts and the row of stalls selling handicrafts every place we stopped. There was so much to see and it was such a wonderful respite that we ended up staying two nights instead of one.

On Friday morning we headed back to Swaziland planning a stopover in Nelspruit, S.A. to shop for some things we can’t get in Swaziland. We slowly meandered through the hills taking our time enjoying every last second of the beautiful country side. Our first stop in Nelspruit was at Builder’s Warehouse. It is a new store in the newer, modern part of Nelspruit. When we pulled into the parking lot, Chris reminded us that we were back in the real South Africa and therefore we had to take our cameras, phones, etc. with us when we went inside the store and we had to keep all of our valuables out of sight. Even though we did that, we still felt like we were back in the U.S. The store looked just like a Lowe’s’ or Home Depot. We even remarked that the only clue that we weren’t in the U.S. was the type and name of the heaters they were selling.

From Builder’s Warehouse we drove to the old downtown area to go to a fabric store Chris knew about which sells a lot of great African print material for very reasonable prices. As we drove into the downtown area, 2 or 3 guys started running towards Chris’ car waving us down. None of us could remember if they got in front of the car or if Chris stopped to hear what they were saying but they kept pointing to her car saying there was something wrong with the tire. She waved them off and kept going. But since tire issues have been such a problem for her lately, she pulled into an empty parking spot about a half a block up the street. The parking/”security” guy tried to tell her she was parked too far from the curb. Chris told him she was only going to be there a second. She pulled the keys out of the ignition when she turned off the car and opened her door. The next thing we all knew, the guys that originally tried to stop us were running towards the car. Chris told them there wasn’t anything wrong with the tire. Then they started pointing to what they thought was wrong with the car. Chris started to get back in the car and all of a sudden there were at least 4 or 5 guys surrounding the car. We did not know what was happening because it all happened so quickly. Jeri remembers one of the guys opening the back door and fumbling around with all of our stuff. She thought somehow he was trying to find something to fix whatever what wrong with the tire. Then we realized what they were doing and we were all screaming “Stop, get out, don’t do that, give it back to me, etc.” He grabbed at some coats and the next thing she knew, he found her purse, the door slammed and he was gone! Gary took off after them and then so did Jeri. Chris was screaming at the parking/”security” guard to do something and stop them, and he just stood there looking at her, shrugging his shoulders. Chris got out, locked the doors, and started to go after us. We decided to try and find them where Gary thought he had last seen them. Gary almost got hit by a speeding car as he ran across the street and Chris returned to the car, afraid they might come back and steal the car. We went back to the car when we realized how futile this was. We had no idea where the guys went and realized we shouldn’t be chasing after a bunch of thugs. It was such a helpless feeling—we were yelling and saying “they stole my purse”. Not one person stopped what they were doing to help. They looked at us like we were crazy. We were in a very crowded area with many street vendors around so someone must have seen it. We realized later that they are probably as scared of these men as we were. We were safe but Jeri’s purse contained both she and Gary’s passports, our camera, two cells phones and all of the misc. stuff that goes into a purse.

We got back in the car, stunned, and, drove into the next block where we saw a couple of policemen walking. We told the two policemen that we were robbed and asked where the Police Station was so we could report the crime and get an affidavit of the theft, so we could get back across the border. He told us how to get there, and said it was close and we could walk. He pointed to a security/parking guy who would watch my car. We then discovered that we were less than a block away from the Police Station! We weren’t too sure about walking to the Police Station or leaving the car but they kept insisting it was ok. The security/parking guy walked us to the Police Station and even took us inside and made sure we were in the right spot and that someone was going to take care of us quickly. Chris brought her laptop with her to be safe. Actually, the Police took our statements pretty quick. It only took us about an hour or so. When we finished we walked back to the car, distrusting everyone we saw on the streets. We were pretty shook up and in shock. Chris drove us immediately to a store similar to Target to get a new cell phone. We did stop and have some dinner before starting on the road. The rest of the trip back to Swaziland was uneventful – thank God.

As we have relived those few minutes several times, we keep reminding ourselves that things could have been much worse. We could have been hurt and they could have taken both of our purses, Chris’ laptop and even her car. And luckily Gary had most of the cash in his pocket. It gave us just a glimpse into what people who are victims of physical assaults and robberies much worse than ours must feel like. In church we heard about a family in Mbabane that were robbed at knife point outside their home and Chris heard about a pastor friend of hers that was driving to Johannesburg last week and was stopped by thugs and robbed of 13,000 rand (around $1700)

One of the thoughts we have all had to deal with, were the feelings of anger at being robbed. Each of us has had to put it all aside and realize that being angry at them does no one any good. It is just sad that life is so hard for these people that they have to resort to this kind of behavior. The event is certainly not ever going to take away the feeling we have in our hearts for the people of Swaziland.

Below are some pictures of the area we visited before this unfortunate happening. As we said in the beginning, this has been a week of contrast. Take in some of the beauty you see below and it will calm you as it did us.


The Blyde River flows through this whole area--most of the waterfalls are on the Blyde River


In the area of Bourkes Potholes


The Potholes--looks more like Utah!



The Blyde River-shows a perspective of how deep the gorge has been carved over time.

Royal Hotel in Pilgrims Rest, where we stayed ($30/ea incl. a huge buffet breakfast)

Sign in the bar--Church Bar--actually an old church that was hauled up the mountain piece by piece--took 6 weeks

The cabin where we stayed

Living room

Our bedroom

Wonderful clawfoot tub

Berlin Falls

Lisbon Falls

One of the hikes we took---notice the view?

At God's Window

Walking through the rainforest

The Pinnacle

Mac Mac Falls--named because so many of the miners were named Mac-something(MacNeil, MacFarland etc). They tried to divert the river and in the process made two falls--hence the name MacMac