Swaziland

Smaller than New Jersey

We made it to Swaziland! (Two months ago.) 

At first we stayed with Lewis and Ruby, getting a feel of what Peace Corps Swaziland is like. It’s fairly similar to Peace Corps Paraguay: rural site down a long dirt road, in a poor, land-locked country no one’s heard of, doing development work with locals who are generally indifferent about working on projects, but very friendly. The food here is just as bland and unhealthy as in Paraguay (mealie meal/pap instead of mandioca), unless of course you’re eating at Ruby’s, where it’s the opposite of bland and unhealthy. There’s one aspect of Swazi life that I think makes “community integration” much more difficult: Swazis don’t drink! How would we have bonded with our neighbors in Paraguay if we didn’t get sloshed together at Sunday asados?

Walking through Lewis & Ruby's site. I guess I'm going for the 12-year-old Mormon look.

We helped Lewis and Ruby work on their school library, ate a bunch of good meals, and at night we bundled up to watch movies or play games. I had no idea Swaziland would be so cold! 

We got one siSwati lesson from their tutor, a sweet 20 year old girl who also gave us Swazi names. She named TK Musa, which means mercy/compassion, and me Thandeka, meaning loved/lovely.  Lewis’ name here is Mandla, meaning strength, and Ruby is Ngobile, meaning winner.

They have an awesome garden

After a couple of weeks of chilling with them, we ventured out to do something touristy and visited Mlilwane Game Reserve. We saw our first zebras, wildebeest, and warthogs!

When we went to visit the farm/NGO where we would be working and living for six months, the house they were building for volunteers still looked like this:

They needed another week to put together some temporary accommodation for us, so we rented a car and headed to Kruger National Park in South Africa. We saw tons of animals there, which means I took tons of photos, so I’ll do a separate post on that!