Noah's Adventure in Swaziland

More About My Community & School

School started finally, about a week late. The schools have not received all the money they are due from the government, and so there are still more protests planned. If the money is not received soon, the schools may close again, but at least for now I have a place to go and start to work. The school day starts at 7:50am with a morning assembly, where the kids line up in classes and sing the national anthem (I think), recite the Lord’s Prayer and then hear announcements from a teacher. Then I go to the library, where there is a desk that is mine, and is where my first major project is (two picture of it below). They have a lot of books in the library, but they are scattered around in boxes, on the floor, etc. There is not enough shelving, so my job will entail organizing the books they have, probably getting more, and getting some shelves to make it into a real library. They have been using the library as a classroom, but just had a new building finished, so they have enough classrooms without using the library. There will still be a few classes in there because they are storing a bunch of bags of cement in one of the classrooms, which I hope they put to use soon. I had spread out books all over the room to start organizing them when a class came in on the first day of school, and so I wasted a good morning of work since I had to just pile all the books to get them out of the way. At least now I know that it’s still being used as a classroom and can work around the few classes that need the space. Now that school is up and running, I hope to shadow some teachers and observe their classes. I’m still in the integration phase, so my job is more to get to know the community and school than to really get to work on projects. Working in the library at least gives me something to do when I’m not observing or doing something else. I hope to start some sort of reading club in the new school year in January, when the library is more organized and I know what books are there. The first step is to get the library in order; the second is to make sure it gets used, because it’s pointless to have a library if none of the students use it.

Swazi schools are very different from American schools in a similar way to how Swazi homes are very different from American homes. In America (at least all the areas I’ve lived), homes and schools have an outer wall, and everything is within those walls. The yard or playground/sports fields are the only thing outside. In Swaziland, many rooms are in separate buildings. In the home, there is typically one building that is the kitchen, one building that is the main house and has common rooms, and some bedrooms, and then other buildings that are solely bedrooms. People spend most of the time during the day outside, it’s like the yard is more of a living room, and even the kitchen has an outdoor area where more time is spent than in the inside kitchen. In schools, the classrooms open to the outside and a building will have several classrooms, but they are not connected to the other buildings. The offices and staffroom are in a separate building (pictured below). And in both settings, the bathrooms or latrines are off to the side and somewhat removed, but obviously outside. So there are always people outside at the school, in the central courtyards. There are kids at school before any teachers, although many come in late as well. Teachers arrive right at the time of morning assembly. Classes start after the assembly, and while there are specific class times, there may or may not be a bell, and classes cannot leave until dismissed by the teacher, so classes tend to run over quite often. At the end of the day, most teachers leave immediately, while students hang around to clean up the school. It's an interesting experience, and I'm still getting accumstomed to it.

The Last Few Weeks (written about Sept 20)

So it feels like I just updated the blog, which says more about how much I’ve been updating it than how long it’s really been, since it has been two weeks. Not a whole lot has happened with me since then, although a lot has gone on in the country. The Swazi school schedule is broken into three terms, the first term if from sometime in late January/early February through late March/early April, the second term is from late April/early May through early August, and the third term is mid September through late November/early December, so their summer break is over the Christmas/New Year’s holidays, which is nice. I arrived at my site on the last day of the second term, and went into school right away to meet the faculty and students. I got a quick tour of the school, office, garden, and the library where I’ll have my office. Working on the library will be my first project to start on. The third term was supposed to start September 13, but there has been a delay because of some financial issues. There is currently an economic crisis going on in Swaziland, one the makes the issues going on in the US seem minor. The government is running out of money and working hard to get loans from neighbors or the IMF, but so far nothing has come through. A great deal of the workforce is in the civil service, so this has been a major issue. The schools are supposed to open when they receive the money from the government, but no one really knows when that will be. So I’m in a little bit of a holding pattern until the schools re-open.

One thing that has kept me busy is joining a local soccer team. There is a local league in Khuphuka, with 15 teams that play every weekend. I went to a couple games before I started playing at all, and was impressed with the talent. A guy I met asked me to come and play with them some afternoon, and I played really well that first day, even scoring a goal. They asked me to play on their team, which happens to be in first place. To be clear, it has nothing to do with my talent, I am not nearly as good as most of these guys, but they think it would be cool to have an American on their team. Needless to say, I’m the only white person in the league. They are on a break in the season (they play each team once, then break, and play them all again), which is good because I’ve been able to get a good number of practices in before playing in a game. They play Tues-Thurs, and Fridays if there is a game that weekend. I think the games restart this weekend. I’ll only come on in some games in the second half when my team is way up, most likely, but I’m having fun playing with the guys. It’s a good way to meet more people, get some exercise, and I’m actually getting a bit better. I’m glad I played so much ultimate Frisbee over the last year; it’s got me in good shape for all this running. Often there is not enough for a full game, so they play with two rocks close together for a goal about half way down the pitch (field) and a goalie at the other end. It’s much more fun to play full field, of course, and I tend to do better as well. I do have to brag a little bit, because last week I scored two goals in a game, one on a header. I’m not as good as many of these players, but I tend to be good at getting into the right place at the right time. That’s four goals I’ve scored in about 12 times playing, which I ‘m extremely happy with. We’ll see what happens in a real game!

More pictures

These are pictures of my community, the first one is just a road above the dam, then my homestead, my hut, the view out my front door, the dam and then just a typical path I take to get around.