Day Four (Swaziland)

Slept in again. Intentionally this time, though. Kept pressing snooze. Everyone tries to shower before breakfast, which leaves ZERO hot water. Instead, I've been going straight to breakfast at 7am, eating a good breakfast, and then heading back down to the room at 7:30am for a nice, HOT shower. I'm not telling anyone my secret.

We headed to the care point again today. And once again, we were greeted with the beautiful sounds of African children singing their hearts out. What fun!!!

After the initial serenade, we all headed outside to allow the preschool to continue its day. The work projects for today were: painting the playground, re-painting the care point bathroom, and tilling / amending a patch of ground (about 4' x 8' feet) for another vegetable garden. I helped with the garden. The soil here (at least during the dry season) is incredibly tough and concrete-like. About 3 or 4 of us guys would take turns with a pick ax. The girls came behind us with shovels and rakes to further break-down the large pieces of hardened soil we had broken loose. There was still a fair amount of fine dirt (pseudo sand) left over from the concrete mixing from the day before. We used most of it to help amend the soil for the garden. I hope it works and that things will grow.

I joined the children again today for their meal. The 11am meal (which is just for the pre-schoolers) is mielie (sp?) fortified with some protein and sweetened with a little brown sugar. It wasn't NEARLY as tasty as the rice and beans from yesterday. I could only handle a few mouthfuls before I began looking for a discreet way to dispose of it. I asked Diane (the resident children's cup missionary). She told me to give it to one of the pre-schoolers. Which I did. And he had it finished within about 2 minutes. I think he was nervous about being given a second bowl and thought if he didn't finish it quickly that it might be taken away.

The afternoon was a ton of fun. 7 or 8 of our total team (including the other group from Baton Rouge) left for the afternoon to go and meet their sponsored children. The rest of us stayed and played. But first, we sat down and had lunch together. Kentucky Fried Chicken. I know. CRAZY! KFC in Swaziland! It's the only American fastfood chain around. And apparently it is a hot commodity. It's funny as you drive through Moneni … because KFC billboards account for about 1 in every 10 or 15 billboards that you see. Weird.

I ate fast because I wanted to learn how to make balloon animals (which was going to be my station with the kids). I'm now an expert at making dogs, giraffes and turtles. I like the turtles the best. They're cute. And they also have the longest playground-lifespan. The dogs and giraffes didn't fair to well. It was fun. Sarah Ralston and Jennifer Halsey were face-painting. As they finished and as children made there way outside, they all formed a line to get a balloon animal. Amy (a girl from the other team) helped me out. The kids progressively got more and more assertive in their desire for balloon animals :) It got a little crazy. The teacher had to come and lay down the law. One thing I will say about the Swazi children – they LISTEN to the teacher. When she says anything, they listen immediately, and instructions never need to be given twice.

After the very last balloon was handed out, Don called me over to meet somebody. This is CRAZY. As you know, Swaziland is the last Kingdom of Africa (they still have a throne). Well, today one of the Princes (a son of the king) came to the Moneni Care Point! This has never happened before. Ever! Apparently one of the cooks at the care point (who are all lovely, fat, happy grandmas) was very moved by our presence and called a friend, who in turn called a city official, who in turn called the local chieftain, who in turn called the Prince … and told him that he must visit. I actually have video footage of me conversing and shaking hands with one of the princes of Swaziland. Crazy!!!!

The rest of the afternoon was mostly playing followed by more playing. I kicked many soccer balls. One of the older boys who comes later in the afternoon has developed a bit of a game with me. He sneaks up on me, and then smacks me in the leg or back in hopes of being chased, caught and tickled. Yesterday, the “smacking” was done with a plastic, nerf-style baseball bat. Today, he found one of the dead balloon animals and would 'snap' me with it. He's probably 11 years old … and he's super fast!!! Chasing him down is no easy task. But I always prevailed. I could be wrong, but despite his big contagious smile, he seems to be a bit of an outsider from the other kids. He has a noticeable skin condition on his face and arms … maybe that has something to do with it.

The end of the day at the care point was AWESOME. By this time, the 7 or 8 people who left earlier to meet their sponsored children were back. There had to have been 200+ kids on site. We took a few large group photos and then the teachers helped line them all up at the back entrance of the building. They came in one-by-one and received a pair of flip-flops, mittens, a knitted hat and a blanket. You should have seen their faces and reactions. It was beautiful. That was definitely the most joy-giving moment of the trip so far. I was so proud of our church … and so proud of all the flip-flops we had collected. Despite having an enormous hockey bag filled with them, we were short by about 30 or so. Melissa, Marissa and Jason were truly amazing with the kids. Brian took a picture of EVERY kid as they walked out of the Care Point all decked out in their presents.

The mitts, hats and blankets were all collected by one person. A woman named Patty from Wisconsin (who is also part of this trip). At first, she seems a bit different. A little over eager … perhaps too friendly too soon. Hair somewhat unkempt. But this woman has a heart like few I've seen. Seeing her wrap a blanket around the shoulders of every single child and then draw them in, hug them, give them a kiss on the cheek and say “I love you so much.” I'm getting emotional even typing. It was incredible. Patty lives for others … perhaps more than anyone I've ever met before. This is her third time here. Last year, she brought just over 200 blankets. This year, she collected over 2300 blankets, 500 pairs of mittens and 500 knitted caps. Other care points will, of course, be recipients of the surplus.

Handing out all of these items to the kids took at least an hour. But it felt like just minutes. Such beauty and joy and wonder and smiles. Afterwards, we took some pictures with just the teachers before heading off to our next event – the youth worship service at “The Healing Place Church” in Moneni.

The service was shockingly American. Countdown videos, hype music, kids acting silly. I was persuaded to join a little pre-service circle game of soccer-keep-away. The players forming the circle simply try to keep the ball from the one in the middle. These kids have crazy soccer moves!! I was WAY out of my league. The service started at 6pm with an ice-breaker game where everyone had to meet five NEW people and be able to point them out by name. After 5 minutes of greeting people, the youth pastor came up and called people up at random to see if they could name and point out 5 people. If they couldn't, they had to dance in front of everyone. Yep. Solo dance.

I was truly frightened! Remembering 5 names is INCREDIBLY difficult when you can't pronounce any of them properly. But I had a plan. If he called me, and if I couldn't remember the five names, when the music started and I was to begin dancing, I was going to grab the pastor's hand with one hand, and put my other hand on his hip, and start ball-room dancing.

Thanks be to God, I wasn't called :)

The message was about finances and budgeting – an interesting topic choice for a group of 13 to 21 year olds. But with little parental influence, if they don't hear practical advice about money from the church, they likely won't hear it at all.

The service ended promptly at 7:30. We headed back to the guest house for dinner – pizza and soda. I was SO hungry … and it was SO good!! We all sat around afterwards reliving moments of the day. It was beautiful. And now I'm back in my room :) transferring video footage onto my computer for editing. I can't wait for our church to see the images of our trip.

Much love.