Year in Review by Photos

My home away from home for 9 weeks in Swaziland

Christmas morning in Swaziland

The beach front in Durban South Africa, which is on the Indian Ocean about 4 hours south of the Swaziland border into South Africa.  Spent 5 days over New Years in Durban with other Volunteers from South Africa, Botswana, and Swaziland.  Toured the city , hung out on the beach and got some 1^st world amenities for a little bit.

I lived with a family during my 9-weeks of training in a community near Matsapha, which was where we have classes and trainings most days.  The other days we staying in the community and had hands on trainings.  My family was made up of a Bhuti “Brother”, Skoni “Sister-in-law”, my brother’s wife, and Make “Mother”.  Most days during school there was a younger Sisi “sister” who was on the homestead, she was 12 years old.  I lived in a small rondaval hut, which was one room with a small veranda and electricity!

My host family during family appreciation day at the end of our PST.

The current G12 group after swearing in, we are now officially PCVs in Swaziland.  All of us with the Prime Minister of Swaziland, our Country Director for PC Swaziland and the current US Ambassador of Swaziland.  We learned about HIV/AIDS in Swaziland, how to create and sustain projects we will start, experienced traditional cultural dances and dress, went to a game reserve, and learned the local SiSwati language.

Traditional Men Dancing

I currently live with a family on a homestead made up of a Make “Mother”, Babe “Father”, Bhuti “Brother, and Sisi “Sister” where I will work for the next 2 years in my community.  It is a house with 2 rooms which I made one room into a bedroom with a bed, camping shower and my clothes.  The other room has my kitchen area, a desk and my hammock.  It’s the PCV life.

This was the first Briee “BBQ” on the homestead where men from the community came and we butchered a pig that was raised and cooked it up for the day.  We hung out and BBQ, talked and shared food with other members of the community and a near by volunteer came to share the day with us.

This was one of the first gatherings we had a PCV in Swaziland after swearing in and it was around Halloween time.  Great time with great people.  Jeremy Loops is a local South African musician who came to Swaziland, check him out, great music and does all his own tracks, hence “Loops”.

This was the end of Term 3 in December and it was a farewell function celebrating all the Form 3 and Form 5 graduating from school, the accomplishments made and was celebrated with food, dance and skits from all the students.

Traditional Dance from some of the students

We spent Thanksgiving in Mbabane at our Country Directors house where a feast was prepared for us by the staff and G11 volunteers.  Our turn this year to prepare and cook.

Spent the day with by bhuti taking the cattle to the dip tank where all the cattle from the community must go every 2 weeks or once a month depending on the season to be washed of all bugs and dirt.  This is mainly the role of the younger boys in the community to watch the cattle and make sure they don’t get into other peoples homesteads and fields and keep track of their cattle.

Mantenga Falls and swimming in Swaziland to wrap up the New Years Vacation

The Pre-School I am currently working on before we started the renovation of the building in January 2015.

Currently we have 35 students attending the school with 1 teacher.  We are working on building a new latrine, a new roof and putting a fence up around the premises.  This has been one of my main projects and has been very rewarding seeing the progress and growth in the community and with the children.

This is the annual marula festival in Swaziland, which celebrates the traditional drink and fruit of Swaziland.  Swazis from all over collect the fruit and make their own homebrewed marula drink from this fruit and all come together each year to present it to the King of Swaziland and this festival.  It is wrapped up with dancing from the mother’s of Swaziland and presenting the drink to the King.  It is pretty much a large party in Swaziland.

The dance at the marula festival

Spent the night at the Hlalne Royal National Park in Swaziland with some fellow PCVs.  We went on a sunrise game drive and saw lions, rhinos, elephants, giraffes, water buffalo, impala, hippos, and a turtle.

This was our first ever BRO (Boys Reaching Out) Camp that we put on for boys to attend from all over Swaziland.  We had 28 boys attend from 10 different schools all over Swaziland.  We discussed male identity, gender equality, self-expression, SRH (Sexual Reproductive Health), Fatherhood, and HIV/AIDS education and prevention.  We also played soccer, had a talent show, roasted smores, and played lots of other games with the boys.  Check out the video on YouTube soon.  It will be on our Peace Corps Swaziland YouTube Channel.

The group who recently participated in a Grassroots soccer training, which we hope to implement into our schools and community. It is a way to use soccer to reach the youth and educate them about HIV/AIDS.

Me hiking Sibebe Rock near Mbabne, which is one of the largest granite rocks in the world.  It was about an hour and a half to the top and I was able to hike all around the rock and view Swaziland from afar.  The local beer is named after Sibebe so I enjoyed a cold one at the top.

This is one of the most recent projects I have undertaken and we are developing a library at the high school for the students to get excited about reading and the English language.  We have over 1000 books to sort and organize and then implement into the school and English department.

And finally my current PC beard I am working on growing for my last year of service.  Who am I trying to impress, really? Taken at a local reserve near my community I went to stay one night to relax.  Got to sit outside and watch the thunderstorm roll in while it was raining and listen to Phil Collins’ Tarzen theme song.  This is Africa!

       So since I failed at keeping posts up and running each month I though I would do a double header and make this post all about photos.  I tried to choose the best photos I could about some of my Peace Corps Swaziland experience with short captions explaining them all briefly.  Mindful though that photos can never truly capture this experience or Swaziland 100 percent.  Enjoy!  (Also, I am not the best photographer sometimes, it has only been a year and I have almost 5000 pictures already on my computer.)