On leaving

I want to write and there’s no time. NO TIME! I’m at a friend’s who has good Internet. I’m here to cook her dinner (pizza) as a thank you as part of the goodbyes that have started in earnest. Last night, I took my boss and her family out to dinner at the local hotel. And I’ve been saying versions of goodbyes to students and the teachers I work with all week.

So while I’m trying to book a hostel for me and Blythe’s post-Swaziland trip, upload photos to Google Drive for Kendra (she’s making a slideshow for the wedding) and hopefully attempt to update the school’s Facebook page, (because the school’s internet is so bad that loading email on some days is a challenge) I feel the need to write. To explain what’s going on with us. And maybe make sense of how I’m feeling.

I posted on Facebook yesterday that I didn’t know how to feel about my last week as a teacher and in Swaziland. I still don’t.

When I left Swaziland for the states in April, I was beyond excited. Not only would I get to eat Chipotle (seven times), Oklahoma Joe’s (three times plus Gates and maybe Jack Stack, though I’m not quite sure) and CHEESEBURGERS (too many to count), but I would be doing much of the planning for our wedding. I did pretty well with that: found a photographer, blocked rooms at three hotels (two of which I visited), bought a suit, toured Boulevard, found my ring with Blythe’s help and probably a handful of other things that currently escape me.

I also witnessed and sort of participated in the wedding (held one chuppah pole from blowing away in the wind during the ceremony on the beach) of two of my best friends, Jamie and Meghan. I visited my lifelong friend Libby in Chicago. I went to three Royals games and a Cardinals game. And I spent as much of the remaining time with friends and my family as I could.

It was way busier than I thought it would be and wedding planning, well, it sucks. We also registered for gifts, which Blythe wrote about HERE. We didn’t exactly love it.

None of that is to say that I’m not excited about this trip home. I AM! Very excited! A teacher at school the other day asked me how I felt about leaving. I said, “I’m ready to go.” I think my tone initially led her to believe that I was done with Swaziland and couldn’t wait to get the hell out of here. She made a joke to that effect. But I explained that it wasn’t that I was excited to leave as much as I was excited for everything coming up.

These next few months will be the most transformative of my life. At some point during that time, Blythe and I will find a new place to live, probably on the East Coast, and start new jobs (I think I know what I want to do! More on that in another post). Two things I’m very excited about. But we’re also GETTING MARRIED! I don’t think I’ve been more ready for anything in my entire life. That doesn’t sound super romantic, so let me try this: I haven’t been more sure of anything than knowing that I want to spend the rest of my life with Blythe. I mentioned this previously on Facebook, but it’s worth repeating. She is the strongest, smartest, most beautiful, most hilarious, most amazing woman I’ve known. And I want my life to start with her NOW! And I’m not talking about a life that includes just spending the weekends together, but I’ll take it here.

And before all of that happens, we’re taking the trip of the lifetime. We’ll spend 44 days traveling from Swaziland to Morocco starting Saturday. We’ll start by taking a 24-hour bus ride from Johannesburg to Livingstone, Zimbabwe, where we’ll spend a day taking in the incredible Victoria Falls. Then we board what can only be described as a tank-like bus (picture a mean-looking semi with a passenger compartment that has giant windows) for three weeks through Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania. Along the way, we’ll visit South Luangwa National Park, Lake Malawi, Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Crater and Zanzibar with a ton of other stuff in between. Then we’ll spend a week hiking Mt. Kilimanjaro, which at 19,341 feet is the highest in Africa, and about 6,000 feet higher than anything we’ve previously attempted. And then we’ll spend nine days in Morocco. The details there are fuzzy, but stops will likely include Tangier, Chefchaouen, Fes, Meknes, Rabat, Marrakech and Casablanca. All told, that’s eight African countries, if you include our layover in Kenya.

(Please don’t worry about Ebola. We’ll be at lest 1,500 miles by plane from where it is now and I know saying “NOW” is kind of the point here. Just think about it as close to the distance from Denver to New York.)

So yes, I’m ready to go. But I have a lot to look forward to.

However, none of this takes into account how I feel about leaving Swaziland. This place has been my home for the past 21 months (except the seven weeks I was stateside). I entered a new profession that was at times infuriating and exhausting while at others being rewarding and satisfying. I’ve done so many things that I feel will make me better at whatever I job I get next, just from the amount of things I accomplished at the very least. I can go into an interview and say that I created and managed a Facebook page for the school; worked to fine-tune existing communications materials for current and prospective parents, and potential donors; re-created the school’s widely circulated school newsletter; helped set up the computer lab; helped reorganize the library and created a monthly movie night for students. That doesn’t include teaching, planning, grading and the extra hours I spent working after school with students.

And Hlanganani, the school, is only a part of my experience. I’ve been welcomed into families, made lifelong friends, been immersed into different cultures and just generally had to figure shit out along the way. This sounds super cheesy, but I’ve learned so much about myself, about life and Blythe and I are so much closer because of it all.

I feel like I’m only beginning to try to explain this. Hopefully, someday, I will. But for now, I’m still unsure what to really make of everything. I know that part of me is excited and part of me is starting to get sad. And right now, I think that’s OK.

Swaziland burns

In Swaziland there are two distinct seasons, summer and winter.

Summer means rain and heat. You’re always wet, whether it’s from sweat or nightly storms that sometimes start in the afternoon. Temperatures in parts of Swaziland exceed 100 most days. It’s milder where I live with daytime temps in the 90s and rain almost every night. Blythe’s community is sort of in between.

But now it’s winter; the seasons are opposite from the U.S. I love winters here. They actually remind me of Steamboat summers with daytime temperatures in the 70s and 80s, which drop down to the 40s at night. But there’s no rain.

This winter has been warmer, with the exception of the past couple of weeks, which have been my coldest in Swaziland. I’d guess temperatures dipped into the 30s or even lower, which wouldn’t be so bad if I had heat or were at all used to the cold. But I have a fireplace, a space heater and like five blankets so I survived.

Winter is my favorite time of year here, except for one thing: the fires.

After the maize harvest in February or March, as winter begins, everything burns. Swazis burn the fields and grasslands around them to promote growth the next year, or so I’m told. Everything smells like burning all the time and you can see pillars of smoke in the sky from miles away. And on top of that, it’s ugly. The grasslands are charred black and only covered with roots that survived the blaze and beer bottles no longer hidden.

Burning occurs regularly in Swaziland. People burn garbage because there is no trash collection in the rural areas. Those fires sometimes get out of hand; a trash fire next door to the school spread to our fence earlier this year. But “controlled burns” tend to get out of hand more often during the rainless winter.

I’ve seen fires spread from grasses to trees and once from the grass to the wooden posts of guardrails along the side of the highway. The umphakatzi (oom-pa-gat-si), the area where a local chiefdom meets, burned down in both years in the community where our friend Matt lived.

And where I live the primary industry is logging, so the chance of a fire getting out of control is more likely, and scarier. My place is about three miles outside of town, surrounded by trees. I’ve heard stories of fires getting out of control and burning entire sections of the forest, which happened as recently as 2007. I was nearly evacuated about a month ago because a fire got out of hand and strong winds were blowing it near where I live. Fortunately, the winds shifted and it never got close.

Fire was always a threat in Steamboat, with the national forests that surround it. But I was much more confident in the ability of local firefighters. Here, no so luck. It took the local fire crew more than an hour to get to the school earlier this year to put out that trash fire. Such is life in the SWZ.

I know I haven’t been the best at keeping up the blog. Things have been hectic since Blythe and I got back from the states (which I’ll write about) and likely will continue as we prepare to leave for good (which I’ll also write about). Stay tuned.

Pre-anniversary

Blythe and I recognized the year before our wedding last November with a full-day at Mkhaya Game Reserve, Swaziland’s nicest park.

Our day included two game drives, a bush walk (game drive on foot with a guide who carries a gun), meals and overnight accommodation in an open-air hut. About a third of the hut had half walls and the door was sort of a half gate. We were told nothing big could get in, but beyond that, we weren’t quite sure what to expect. There were a lot of bugs, but we slept under a mosquito net. A monkey did get into our box of wine when we were at breakfast the next morning, though, but there were no other issues.

It was a great day. Can’t wait to celebrate the rest of the anniversaries!

View from my house. The sky is always crazy cool looking.

My landlord’s dog on my porch.

Blythe’s parents’ visit!

This is the first of several catch-up posts. Blythe’s parents visited last August and we put 2,000 km in the Jack Mamba (Blythe’s nickname for my car) going from the SWZ to Kruger, back to the SWZ, to St. Lucia and back to the SWZ again. We had a great time. See for yourself! (Some of the photos are out of order because the internet is the worst.)

First days of school

On the first day of school last year, I had a plan. I would be the “cool teacher” that all of the students loved and respected. I would teach and they would learn. That was about it.

After the bell rung and the commotion of the first few minutes of school died down, I sat on the corner of a desk in the front of the classroom and introduced myself. I told them they could call me Jack and said I had one rule: to treat each other and me with respect. That’s it.

It was so simple and brilliant, I thought. We would be a cohesive learning unit.

Not so much.

In the days and weeks that followed, I learned that “my plan” wouldn’t work. Didn’t work.

So I came up with another after doing some research. The students would suggest rules that we would choose together, which would create buy-in. There were something like 15 and the list continued to grow throughout the year. There were so many that it was impossible to remember, and enforce, all of them. And the students didn’t care that they helped draft the class rules.

This year, I took a different approach.

Again, I sat on a desk and introduced myself to a new group of fifth graders, out of necessity this time (I reorganized my classroom and had nowhere else to sit), but it was different. Not only do I now have a much more manageable list of four rules — listen and follow instructions, raise your hand to speak or leave your seat, keep your area neat and tidy and respect your classmates and teacher — but I’m different.

I now know that I’m not the “cool teacher.” And that’s OK.

But I am a teacher, which I didn’t really acknowledge until now. I’m confident. I know what I’m doing. And I’m better positioned to succeed, with last year behind me and a new plan for this year.

So far so good.

The first week went about as well as could be expected, even though I didn’t see any of my other classes besides the fifth graders.

Week two was much better, since the classes started rotating and I started seeing all of my students. My lessons have gone well and the plan, though disrupted by the first unorganized week, is working.

It’s totally different from last year when I was still figuring out most mornings what I would do that day. As it turns out, it’s a lot easier to plan when you have more than two days to schedule all the term’s lessons and activities with no experience.

And to top it off, I think this year’s fifth graders will be less of a challenge. It’s a smaller group, six instead of 11, and they seem to be more obedient. The sixth graders will again be drive me nuts at times, but the seventh graders seem to be following the lead of last year’s group, who never gave me a hard time. I’m hoping they’ll have a repeat academic performance as well.

I hope it keeps up.

A quick note before I close the door on last year…

We finished strong with our end-of-year concert the week before school dismissed — more on that in a moment. During the last week, we had a spelling bee, student parties, wrapped up the school’s Santa’s Shoebox Christmas gift donation effort and my fifth-grade class finished the last newsletter of the year.

The concert is a big to-do. It’s basically the graduation ceremony for our preschoolers and seventh graders, and academic achievement awards ceremony. And it’s called a concert because each class has a performance.

They were all pretty adorable. Each accompanied a song and included original dancing. I might try to put a video together at some point, but there’s so much that I’m not sure when I’ll get to it.

What I can show you (soon, hopefully) is the seventh-grade movie. Instead of creating a dance routine to song, one of the seventh graders wrote a screenplay. I filmed and put it together, but the students really did a great job casting themselves for the different parts and their acting was great. I’m very proud of the movie. It’s really good!

The movie was sort of the concert grand finale. Everyone loved it. I actually had a parent tell me the following day that she would not let me return to the U.S. until her daughter had finished seventh grade, which is in two more years. The parent said she would block all of the border posts, but would happily drive me to the airport after her daughter graduated.

I also put together a slideshow for the concert that turned out really well, but it’s really long and I’m not sure I’ll be able to post it.

So that’s that. One year is over and another has begun. More soon.

 

 

 

On teaching

(From last night)

I wrote this great blog post yesterday about how in my first year as a teacher, I had finally accepted that I might not see the impact I’ll have on my students. It was great.

It included how I learned to not take my work home with me. And a part about how my reflection helped me realize some of the things that I actually accomplished like helping the students create a school newsletter, starting the school’s Facebook page and helping reorganize the school library.

Then I find out that all of my seventh graders got A’s on the end-of-the-year government English exam that determines whether they advance to high school. Granted, the test wasn’t the MCAT, but my students still excelled when they had the chance. That’s pretty cool.

I’d like to believe that they were so well prepared that it was easy.

I saw the test after they took it. I don’t think the Swazi government exams are known for being especially rigorous. This one, by comparison, seemed really easy.

It was easier than the past government exams I had the students take to practice. And it was a lot easier than what we did in class from week to week all year.

With that said, I still didn’t expect all of them to get A’s. I had one great student in the group of six — more about her in a second. Four were good and one was not so good, but mostly because she didn’t work very hard. None had A’s in my class. I was elated they all did so well.

And in addition to that, the great student tied with four others for the highest cumulative score on all exams in Swaziland, which has more than 25,000 seventh graders. That’s really cool. And five of the six seventh graders passed all of their exams with the equivalent of honors.

I got a text from my dad today that said these scores validated my teaching skills. I don’t know if it’s that simple. I’m not convinced that I’m a good teacher, or ever will be. But I guess I can admit to doing something right.

I’ll close with a few paragraphs from that great blog post I wrote yesterday…

When I took this job, I was skeptical of whether anything I did at the school would broaden my skill set or do anything really to enhance my career. I now believe that, without a doubt, it has.

Not only has this been an incredible personal opportunity filled with daily challenges and learning experiences, but I have been able to accomplish many things that I think would make me better at just about anything I decide to do after this.

I don’t love this job and probably never will. But I appreciate it. And I appreciate so much more those who have taught and will continue to teach long after I’ve stopped.

As I pointed out on Facebook when the school year ended, I am so much better off because I’ve been a teacher.

Videos kakhulu!

Kakhulu (pronounced ga-koo-loo) means much or a lot. It’s probably my favorite siSwati word. And the way Blythe says it is hilarious. These are the videos I took when Blythe’s parents visited. I had to sacrifice a bit on the video quality to post them all, but they’re still pretty good. Enjoy!

This is the video I uploaded to Facebook a few weeks ago.

I just happened to be filming when this happened. This is St. Lucia, by the way, which is on the eastern coast of South Africa about four hours south of Swaziland. According to our guide, each herd has a dominant male. And he was being challenged by a younger male all day. We had seen hippos before, but not like this.

This was pretty cool. We probably sat and watched him nap for 20 minutes and he didn’t do anything besides open one eye, even as the safari vehicles parked around him. When our guide turned on the engine to leave, the lion didn’t even move.

Seeing this guy up close was incredible. He was terrifying. And he got close. But unfortunately, none of my still photos are very good. I’ll post some of those soon, hopefully.

We had hoped to see some babies on one of our trips to Kruger and we really got lucky with this one. We followed the mother and her baby for a while.

Elephants have now crossed the road in a herd on both of our trips to Kruger. Pretty cool. This happened on our way out of the park.

Before going to Kruger, we went to the Swazi Cultural Village and Jackie picked up a few dance moves. I have video of the Swazi dancers, but I have a lot of it and need to cut it down.

We’ve seen a couple of these beetles. They’re interesting.

It’s hard to tell, but the peacock almost vibrates. I assume it’s some sort of mating ritual. This guy, by the way, roams free at one of our favorite craft centers.

I think the wildebeest has become Blythe’s favorite animal. They are pretty sweet looking. The migration of Wildebeest across the Serengeti in Tanzania and Maasai Mara in Kenya is supposed to be incredible to see. We’re hoping to catch it before we leave.

The guys scavenged for food at our lodge in Kruger. As soon as people finished a meal, there they were after waiting out on the roof or in branches of nearby trees.

Baby warthogs are hilarious.

Zebras are sweet.

Not my favorite day on public transport

(Started this two weeks ago and finally finished it last night.)

A couple of Sundays ago, it took me five hours to get home from Blythe’s. I walked a couple of miles, got two rides from strangers and took three kombis. And it was raining.

I’ve had pretty good luck using public transportation. Kombis (minibuses) are unscheduled and subject to demand, but fairly efficient given the alternative. Buses run on schedules, but take much longer to get anywhere because they stop constantly. I haven’t waited very long for transportation until Sunday. Because it was the last weekend of the month, everyone was flocking back to where they live during the workweek after visiting their families in the rural areas.

An aside… In Swaziland, a majority of Swazi families  — about 70 percent, according to what I’ve read — live in the rural areas. Most families stay together on homesteads built on land they’re technically borrowing from the government. Men request the land from the local chiefdom, of which there are about 350 in the entire country (chiefs are the local leadership, but communities have representatives in parliament, though, ultimately, all power lies with the king). On this land, men build homes for their immediate families and any extended family members who live with them. If their sons and their families stay in Swaziland, many times they will also build homes on that land. Daughters move to their husbands’ homesteads.

Because jobs are so few and far between here — the unemployment rate is about 40 percent, according to what I’ve read — men and women go where the work is. Families typically stay behind on their permanent homesteads. Many of my students don’t live with their parents, but with an extended family member.

Anyway, as I waited at the stop near Blythe’s homestead, I kept getting passed by kombis, even buses. And in the rural areas, kombis and buses typically don’t comply with capacity limits. It’s not uncommon for a 14-person kombi to have 20 or more passengers. And 65-passenger buses can carry 100 or more people, with the extra numbers crammed in the aisle.

I had waited for two hours by the time a guy offered to give me a lift to a town more than halfway to Manzini. By the way, I could see Blythe’s hut from the stop, which was kind of annoying.

The guy who picked me up had been driving around looking for a place to get his tire patched. Fortunately, we weren’t going far. When he dropped me off at a town called Mafutseni, I was hoping to catch a kombi or bus the 20 or 30 km (12 to 18 miles) to Manzini.

Shortly after I arrived, a drunk guy started hassling me. Well, the guy was chatty and handsy; some Swazi men can occasionally let handshakes last uncomfortably long, especially when they’ve been drinking. So I started walking in the direction of Manzini. Surely, a kombi or bus would stop to pick me up along the side of the highway.

Wrong.

I walked, signaling for a ride as locals do by pointing toward the ground, for more than 20 minutes. No one stopped. I had given up and stopped trying to flag down cars. I resigned myself to the possibility that I might have to walk the whole way. It was still raining, not hard but steady.

Just a few minutes after I thought I’d made a huge mistake by walking away from the drunk guy, a Swaziland Electricity Company truck stopped. I ran to the truck as the driver backed up — in the middle of the highway —toward me. I squeezed into the bench seat next to another guy. It was a tight squeeze, but it was a ride and it was dry.

The guys were nice. We talked about our jobs and where we stay (live). One of the guys gave me his impression of the difference between the U.S. and Swaziland: “The only difference is that Swazis care about each other. They stay together.” I thought that was interesting. I assume the guy hadn’t been to the states, but who knows.

We made it to the Manzini bus rank (station) and I felt better. I got on a kombi that immediately left for Mbabane. After 40 short km, we arrived at the Mbabane bus rank. Because the late bus to Pigg’s Peak already had left, I decided to go across the street to the grocery store for boneless, skinless chicken breasts, a luxury I can’t get in Pigg’s Peak and the only reason I went the long way home.

I could have gone what we call “the back way” between Blythe’s and Pigg’s Peak. You basically travel straight north from Blythe’s until you get about 10 km from the South Africa border before heading south and west toward Pigg’s Peak, sort of an upside down “V” if you can picture it. The whole trip is only about 90 km and usually the preferred route, especially when I’m driving. Going through Manzini and Mbabane from my place to Blythe’s is about 170 km.

But I wanted some damn chicken so I went the long way.

After doing my shopping, I got the last seat on what looked like the last kombi to Pigg’s Peak. By this time it was nearly 5 p.m., an hour or so before dark — when public transportation shuts down.

When I got to the Pigg’s Peak bus rank before 6 p.m., it was still raining, but a kombi driver immediately asked me where I was going and decided the short distance from town wouldn’t deter him. Most kombi drivers won’t take me home because I don’t live very far and would cost them a more expensive fare; they usually abide by capacity rules when leaving the bus rank.

This kombi was a rickety piece of shit.

About half the kombis in Swaziland, I would guess, were manufactured in the 1980s. I’ve ridden in kombis with shattered windows held in place by tape, doors that don’t really shut and holes in the floor. That’s nothing. Blythe could really tell you stories. How they’re considered “road worthy,” I have no idea.

This kombi didn’t accelerate up hills, everything creaked like the whole thing was about to fall apart and the headlight beams shone about three feet. None of this is exaggerated. But I made it to the road to my place.

After the not-quite-mile walk along a dirt road, I was home. It was right at 6 p.m. I left Blythe’s at 1. I traveled more than 100 miles. And the whole trip cost me 47 rand, less than $5 with the current exchange rate.

As I mentioned earlier, most of my experiences aren’t like that. The weekend before last, Blythe and I wanted to go to the pool at the nice hotel about 5 km (3 miles) from my place. We walked on the dirt road to the highway and immediately got a lift from a guy who took us right to the hotel’s front door. On our way home we couldn’t get a ride and walked.

This past weekend, I left school at 2 p.m. and made it to Blythe’s in two hours. That time includes the mile walk from school to the Pigg’s Peak bus rank. It took me 2 ½ hours to get home from Blythe’s that weekend. In both cases, I didn’t wait more than five minutes for a kombi.

Such is life in the SWZ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Health update

I’m sorry for not posting this sooner: I don’t have schistosomiasis. That means Blythe probably doesn’t have it either; she was tested last week and still doesn’t have her results. While it wasn’t the end of the world, not having schisto is a huge relief.

I should note that, to this point and with the exception of a weekend stomach bug, I haven’t been sick (furiously knocking on wood). I was worried about the digestive issues I had before coming to Swaziland being a problem here. I think being here, and being exposed to other bacteria, has made my stomach stronger. At least that’s my personal theory. I have absolutely nothing to back that up.

After my last post, I realized that I probably should have mentioned something about the medical care I received. It was great and almost no different from any healthcare experience I’ve had.

I also forgot to mention in my last post about another project my students are doing. They’ve become pen pals with a fifth-grade class at Oak Hill, my elementary school in OP. The Oak Hill class has 25 students and I have 24 so it worked out well. We sent our first letters this week, along with a small Swazi flag and a postcard with the king’s picture.

The students laughed hysterically from hearing some of the American names, which I found surprising because most of the television, movies and music they consume is from the U.S. Kids being kids, I guess.

My fifth graders are going to exchange letters with a class in Steamboat, too, but they don’t know it yet.

I’m really excited for the questions American kids will have for mine. My students mostly want to know what music and sports their pen pals like, which surprised me. They always ask me which celebrities I know, always a hilarious exercise.

There were, however, a lot of questions about family life, school and church, which is a big deal here. It’s not uncommon for church services to go all day on Sundays, literally.

I’m just glad they’re not just asking, “How is it in America?” It’s a question I still get frequently and still don’t know how to answer.

I had a great birthday. It started with Blythe and I visiting one of our favorite restaurants, Swazi Candle, for lunch Friday (there wasn’t school because of “elections”).

We were staying at a B&B that night with a restaurant. Blythe ordered chicken and dumplings, easily among the best things we’ve eaten in Swaziland. My stuffed Italian chicken was pretty good, too. Afterward, I was lucky to catch more than half of last Thursday’s Chiefs game; the bar closed before the game ended. Apparently, one of the South African channels is carrying NFL football regularly this season, which could be huge for us.

We caught a movie, Pacific Rim (Blythe liked it, I did not), and had Chinese before heading back to Blythe’s Saturday.

Blythe came to Pigg’s Peak yesterday. We tried a new restaurant, which was pretty good. Blythe brought red velvet cake for dessert. It looked delicious, but was mostly tasteless and dense, which was good for holding candles. Luckily, Blythe had gotten chocolate cupcakes earlier at this great bakery in Manzini where she tried to get red velvet, but couldn’t because they didn’t make it that day. That’s kind of how things sometimes go in Swaziland.

I can’t thank everyone enough for all of the birthday Facebook posts, emails and videos. Love and miss you all.

I’m thinking about taking the blog private. More on that if I do.

My introduction to local healthcare

(I wrote this last night.)

I was nervous, but my first experience with Swazi healthcare went well. Getting to the clinic in Mbabane today was a bit of an adventure, but everything actually was pretty easy.

The clinic is private; there are government-run hospitals and clinics in the cities and some bigger towns (I’ve been told not to go to the one in Pigg’s Peak, even for a cold). I was shocked to see how nice it was. It was more like a fancy, and very clean, office. It had a black tile floor. The reception desk was gray stone and black marble. There was a cafeteria that looked more like a restaurant dining room. I texted Blythe as I walked the two or three miles from the bus rank to the clinic to tell her I was worried about being stuck with a needle in Swaziland. I immediately felt better after walking through the door.

I had a blood test for schistosomiasis or bilharzia, which is what they call it here. It’s a parasite in contaminated water caused by snails. Schisto, as the Peace Corps calls it, sounds worse than it is. It’s fairly common and very easy to treat with antibiotics.

While I’ve been symptom free, unless my daily exhaustion is the result of schisto, I decided to get tested because my landlord has it and suspects it came from the drinking water where we live. I thought it was borehole water, but my landlord said something about it coming from a dam. Anyway, I filter my drinking water, but don’t boil it, which kills the snails.

Bathing in it shouldn’t be a problem. Schisto is the primary reason why the Peace Corps recommends (requires?) that volunteers boil, filter and bleach their drinking water. They also suggest that volunteers wait three days before using water from a standing water source to bathe.

I’m sure it will be fine. I’ll get the results as early as Thursday.

At the clinic today, I also got the second shot in my Hepatitis A vaccine series, which I could have gotten anytime in the past six months. But now, according to Wikipedia, I should be immune from Hepatitis A for up to 25 years!

The only unusual thing about my visit to the clinic was having to get my vaccine (and needle) from the pharmacy to take to the nurse for my injection. It doesn’t seem like the most efficient and error-proof system, but what do I know?

And the best part about today was everything cost less than the equivalent of $50!

A few quick notes…

• I’m going to post photos soon from the Terrell’s recent visit, but I’m not sure when I’ll have a chance. Thanks to Blythe, who gave me a kickass camera (with a removable lens that you can focus manually and everything!) for my birthday, I have some pretty sweet pics. Though, Blythe did get the best leopard and lion photos, again.

I’m hoping to have access to good Internet this weekend, but we’ll see. To see a few pictures that Blythe posted, go HERE.

• The third school term started last week. My first school year will be over in less than three months. Crazy to think it’s been almost a year and I have, so far, survived! I remember the first day, just trying to be the play it cool without letting the students know how terrified I was. How things have changed.

I’m really excited about a couple of things this term. One is a project with my fifth grade practical arts, or life skills, class. Each week a student will teach a recipe to the rest of the class that we’ll make and eat together. I’m going to compile all the recipes and create a cookbook that each student can take home at the end of the year. I’ll post it when we’re finished.

I have agreed to teach through the second term this year, which coincides nicely with the time that Blythe can close her Peace Corps service. I had thought about trying to do some freelancing in my last few months here, but decided that it wouldn’t be a sure thing and I still could try to do that in my free time.

• As you may have guessed, I’m still without a car. I haven’t sold my car yet, but it’s being fixed by a mechanic in Manzini. This guy worked at VW in South Africa for nearly two decades so I’m optimistic he’ll get the job done. I should have my car tomorrow and hopefully sold in the next two or three weeks.