March Madness

How often does February 29th come around? Yeah, only every 4yrs. So although this was about March (2010) I wanted to do something on the day that's 75% rarer than all the other days in February.

 

Mad Weather

I will never forget hearing Yoliber, from Venezuela, say about DC, “The weather here is crazy.” It’s really nothing compared to Swaziland. Imagine a hot, sunny summer day in August. Now imagine a cold, gray, drizzly day in November. Got it? Ok, now imagine it’s Saturday. You wake up and it’s sunny and hot, feeling like a nice, steamy August summer day. Then Sunday morning you wake up and it’s cold, rainy and miserable. And did I mention cold? Just like November. That’s exactly what happened here on March 20-21. It happens often.

Mad Dogs

I was riding my bike around an unfamiliar neighborhood in Mbabane looking for a Montessori school so I could talk to the staff. It’s in a residential area. The name of the road on the sign was Featherstone, before all the roads were renamed in the Swazi language. I rode down the hill looking for Featherstone. Didn’t find it. The road I was on ended but another road met up with it, so I turned and carried on, until I hit the end on that road.

I turned around and headed back. By this time the neighborhood dog alert had gone out and all the dogs were at the fence ready to bark as I went by, except for two. These two were on my side of the fence. As I approached I knew something, or someone, was about to go down. I started pedaling harder. As I passed them the ferocious dog and I made eye contact. He started chasing, barking, and snarling to really show his teeth. The other was running ahead of me. I weaved back and forth, pedaling faster and faster. Eventually, I figured, these dogs will reach the end of their territory and leave me alone. Thankfully, the ferocious dog fell back first. The sidekick, who appeared to be chasing me because he thought it was the “in” thing to do, then eased off as well.

Whew! That was quite an adrenaline rush! X-Games of the Developing World. Actually I think the Onion already did an article on that a few years ago.

Mad Drivers

I don’t know what’s gotten into people the last week of March. Maybe it’s the confluence of a full moon, payday, and the Easter Holiday (a 4-day weekend here), but I have seen, and nearly felt, some of the worst driving ever lately. On Sunday, the 28^th, Michele and I were a breath away from being in a big accident. We were heading home from a great afternoon concert. It was drizzling and the sun had set, so it was dark, around 6:30PM. She was driving down a two-lane road. A little white car went zooming past us and carried on ahead. Maybe a minute later, out of nowhere, an oncoming car clipped the right bumper of the white car. It spun and stopped sideways in front of us. Michele reacted instantly and we felt the car sliding on the wet road toward his car. Thank goodness we stopped just 5ft away. Meanwhile the car responsible disappeared into the night.

When we got out of our cars we saw several other cars pulled over on both sides of the road. Wondering why they were all there we spoke to the couple in the car behind us. They had been hit too, but it was only minor. They said a kombi went veering around us across our lane and hit them on the passenger side before going into a field. Hence, the white kombi up the hill resting in the field perpendicular to the road.

It was mass confusion for a while until we all managed to reconstruct what happened. It turned out not to be a 4-car accident that included a hit-and-run after all. The kombi in the field had hit the car in front of us, passed us, then crossed into our lane behind our car and grazed the car behind us before stopping 100yds away in the field. Miraculously none of us were hurt. At least one passenger in the kombi was injured though, I don’t know how severely, and was taken away in an ambulance. Had the kombi hit us it would’ve been much worse. Michele would’ve been injured and lost control of the car. Then she would’ve hit the car in front of us broadside and injured them as well. So we were very, very lucky!

Mad Cows

Ok, no mad cows, or mad buffalo for that matter. But I did go to Kruger National Park in SA at the beginning of the month with a couple of friends. We had the best Big 5 sightings ever. First of all, we actually saw all 5 for the first time—rhinos, elephants, water buffalo, lions and leopards. The highlights were: we were bluff charged by a baby elephant (and I got a video of it), we saw a group of juvenile lions playing together out in the open, and we had 4 leopard sightings in a row in one hour! Three of these were crossing the road so they were fully out in the open. Absolutely spectacular! We were speechless. So that was a pretty phenomenal trip.

School Daze

Originally distributed March 2010

These days, instead of roaming the bush with wildlife I’m roaming the suburbs with wild children. We’re halfway through the 1^st of three terms already and I’ve gotten to know who to keep an eye on and who excels. They make themselves known very quickly. It is pretty hectic trying to remember names and who’s in what grade or what class when you’ve got 158 students spread among 8 classes and two schools. Luckily I remember faces well, so at least I recognize them even if I can’t remember what grade they’re in or what school they go to.

They seem to be having fun with the activities so far, and learning along the way. And I’m enjoying myself in the process. When they get to go outside, I get to go outside. When they get to play in the stream, I get to play in the stream. So it’s cool. Plus, the principal at one of the schools told me this week I’ve converted one of the teachers who was against the idea in the beginning. I don’t know which teacher it is, but that doesn’t matter. Just knowing I’ve converted someone is exciting! The teachers have told me they’re learning as well and some of them are incorporating my vocab words into their spelling tests. Yay! Poor kids though. Who can spell “non-point source pollution” or “riparian area”? Have you heard of these terms before? Ask my students and see if they can tell you.

Michele, my roommate, is a doctor at the Baylor Clinic in Mbabane, which specializes in pediatric HIV/AIDS. She’s also very social and good at organizing activities. A few doctors from the US hosted a moustache party when they were here a few years ago. Now back in the US, they were hosting a party/ fundraiser to raise money for kids in need of special surgeries and things. So last weekend she hosted a concurrent moustache/big hair party/fundraiser at our place. Guys were requested to start growing their moustaches several weeks in advance so they could successfully compete for “best moustache” prizes. And since women can’t generally grow moustaches, they were encouraged to go for big hair and 80’s garb, or whatever they could pull together. The results were amusing.

Promoting your website through the Times of Swaziland

This article takes the cake, "St Michael's Pupil On Porn Site." This was published about 2 weeks ago and it's difficult to see it as anything other than the Times saying,"Let us know about your website. We'll write an article about it and before long you'll have more content and more visitors to your site!" I scanned the article from the paper so you can read the whole thing for yourself. But especially note the last two paragraphs. You will certainly find it "fascinating."

And yes, I realize the irony of me putting this out there as well. I don't do it to promote the website but to illustrate, yet again, that the Onion can't hold a candle to the real news we read over here.

My trapeze act

Originally distributed February 2010

Since December 21st I’ve subsisted in 3 different places none of which, thankfully, included the street. It was awfully close at times though. I house-sat for my current employer during the holidays. Then I house-sat for a friend for a few days while she was in Mozambique. Luckily, she was going out of town the day that the employer was returning. Then while she was away I went on a hike with my new favorite club in Swaziland, the Natural History Society, and met Michele. She offered me a spare bedroom in her place for the weekend even though she pretty much didn’t know me. Her kindness and generosity since then cannot be overstated, as I’m still at her place and we’re now talking about me being her roommate for the next few months. In a word, Michele is awesome.

Life is so different from last year already. In 9 out of 10 ways, that’s a good thing. I’m no longer at a lodge, sharing a room with a revolving door of strangers. I got a car recently so I’m much more mobile and have accomplished 10 times more each day as a result. But I am still riding my bike for transport when possible. I’ve started teaching elementary school students, something I never thought I’d do but so far I’m enjoying. I’ve gone on birding excursions with other birders and learned a lot as a result. Maybe I’m biased, but I think the birding crowd is a lot of fun, whether they’re in North America or Southern Africa.

I finally made a solar cooker and got to use it last weekend (something I’ve wanted to do for 10 years). It works! It’s like crock pot cooking but without electricity. I just cooked some veggies so far to try it out and photographed the process so you can see for yourself. Apparently, you can cook meat, veggies, rice, eggs (in the shell), bake bread, etc. Next I’ll try rice and see how that goes. 

Before

After

My slightly amusing story to wrap up: The mountain I live on is rather breezy and the townhouse has large sliding doors. It’s nice to have them open sometimes and feel the fresh air. One sunny day I took the opportunity to do laundry and hung my clothes on the line outside the kitchen to dry. When I went out later to collect my dry clothes I left the kitchen door open, since I would only be outside for a few minutes. While out there, the wind blew the kitchen door shut.

The problem is these houses are like fortresses. They have double locks and double latches. So even though the door was technically unlocked, there were two latches and only one outside handle to turn the top latch. The bottom latch could only be turned with a key, which was in the door on the inside. My cell phone and keys were inside, and my roommate wasn’t home. What to do?

Human ingenuity is such a blessing. I found a tall, empty kitchen trash can under the back stairs. It was just tall enough for me to stand on to climb onto the lip of the basement window. From there I had just enough length, and upper body strength, to reach the bars of the patio railing above. Then it was up and over the patio railing. Sore arms and a couple of bruised knees later, I was onto the patio. Luckily (it’s all luck!), I had opened the patio door earlier. So I was able to get back inside. Whew, that was close!

The Three L’s of Swaziland

Originally distributed January 2010

Happy new year everyone! Thank you for your periodic emails and replies. It’s always good to hear your news.

During this year in Swaziland I’ve learned something very important. All Swazi events are Late, Loud, and Long. So eat before go, but don’t drink too many liquids. Bring earplugs. And use the bathroom right before the event starts, which will probably be 1-4hrs late. Then you just might make it through the whole thing without too many pains—eardrum pains, stomach pains, bladder pains. The rear end pains are inevitable though. Why is a preschool graduation ceremony over 3hrs long? And why is there a full drum set, keyboard, and gigantic speakers? And people are singing at full volume into a microphone…which is also on full volume. Awesome.

So recapping recent events, I attended a preschool graduation. But my friends and I ducked out after 3 hours. People followed us to the car to ask why we were leaving. Sorry, we have to go! They were probably surreptitiously checking to see if there’d be any space for them so they could leave too.

I also attended the long awaited, much anticipated traditional dance competition between the Big Game Parks staff, which was also long and started late. It was extra fun for me because I know the staff from Hlane, where I’ve lived and worked most of this year. They’re like family. Unfortunately, they didn’t do so well against their biggest competitor Mlilwane. The staff from Mlilwane had been practicing for months and they won every single category. Hlane walked away with nothing but a 2^nd place rankings across the board. The poor folks at Mkhaya got 3^rd place, out of 3, in everything…again. 

 

During my leave time in December I went on a birding extravaganza around Mpumalanga in South Africa, which borders Swaziland in the North and West. Birdwatching in fog. How productive do you imagine that is? Luckily I only had one day of that out of 8, so I’m not complaining. But it really seemed like the clouds had it out for me that day. The natural areas I visited were always near the towns where I stayed. So that morning I went to the park and couldn’t see 10ft in front of me. Still I managed to see a few birds and mammals. Then I went back to town for several hours, hoping the clouds would lift and clear out. It rained off and on. I spent a lot of money on a few things. (I was in a fly fishing town where the average tourists must be rich. Why is an old, secondhand book $25?!) Anyway, the clouds lifted and I returned to the park. As I was entering the park the clouds came rushing in. I did my best to outpace the fog. When it was obvious I would lose, I took a video of the fog coming in to prove I’m not making this up.

Altogether, the birding trip was fabulous. Male Long-tailed Widows doing display flights over grassland with their exorbitantly long tails, as their name states, was mesmerizing. These birds reminded me of Japanese fighting fish with their long, flowing tails. Swee Waxbills, which are tiny finch-like birds, were also fun to watch. There was a pair sitting together on a branch preening each other. The female would periodically raise her head facing away from the male so he could preen her head. He’d oblige, but after he’d stop she’d still sit there as if entranced. So adorable! For the counters, I saw 148 species on the trip and 48 species were new for my Africa list. The list surely would’ve been longer if I had an experienced local birder with me. Maybe next time.

Blyde River Canyon was the landscape highlight of the trip. It’s stunning. When my parents finally come visit, I’ll take them there :)

Christmas was different, as you might expect. It was a warm, sunny day and one of my coworkers hosted a barbeque at her house. It was like a typical summer party attended by mostly young adults who like to enjoy their drink. The menu was much like that of a summer barbeque in the US: salad, potato salad, burgers, cookies, cake. All of us from up North had to keep reminding ourselves it was Christmas.

On a totally different note, for those of you who have seen the film “Little Miss Sunshine” please take a moment to remember all their adventures with the car. It had to be kick started. It would honk randomly…. That film came on tv here a few weeks ago and as I was watching I realized, “that’s been my life with cars in Swaziland for all of 2009! Wow, there it is on screen.” So if you want to get an idea of the misery and misadventures I’ve experienced with cars, just remember that movie.

What’s in store for 2010? First of all, I’ve managed to convince a couple of schools that they should have me teach environmental education to their 4^th-7^th graders and help them create outdoor classrooms with native landscaping. One school that couldn’t take me on would like me to hold workshops for their teachers instead, so I’ll work on putting those together. Also, a recurring theme people keep bringing up is organizing “summer” camps for kids when they’re on school holidays. In Swaziland the kids go to school Jan-Dec with a couple of month-long breaks in between 3 terms, plus a few week-long midterm breaks. The owners of an ecolodge where I stayed in SA said they’d love for me to have camps there. The beauty of that option is I could still live in Swaziland and just go to SA periodically. So we’ll see.

And one last thing, I’m going to one of the World Cup games in June. Even better, one of my friends in the US got a ticket to the same game so we’ll be able to attend together. Can’t wait!

2010 kutawuba umnyaka lomuhle (2010 is going to be a great year)!

My head-on collision

…with a cockroach

Originally distributed November 2009

When the weather started really warming up here in Swaziland the bugs started coming out. During my time in Hawaii I remember someone mentioning that following a full moon cockroaches tend to be in the mood for love, and so they also fly around more. Well the first full moon of spring seems to get them really excited, so excited that they don’t even hide from the light.

Hence one night I found my room at the lodge with more than a few of those small brown flying types. Thank goodness they weren’t the huge maroon ones! That would’ve been really disgusting. They were running around on the walls and ceiling and periodically flying from here to there. They’re pretty easy to kill though with a nice flat shoe and a confident “whack!” as long as you get to them before they take flight again.

Throughout the evening I only saw 2-3 at any given time. But as soon as I’d killed the ones I saw, more would appear. Where were these things coming from?! Probably from the space between the door and the floor, or through the unscreened windows before I closed them, or through electric wiring lines in the walls or ceiling. But nevermind about that. For some reason they seemed to like being on or near the beds too. This made smashing them a little tricky because if they were on the bed you couldn’t really squash them, and that’s gross anyway. If they were over the bed then you’d run the risk of their dead bodies falling onto the bed. So finesse was an order.

Now picture this, a twin bed in the middle of the room with the head-end against one wall, as beds usually are in a hotel room setting. There was a cockroach over the bed on the wall but too far for me to reach from where I was standing. I sprinted around the bed to get to it before it flew somewhere out of reach. After all, cockroaches are smart enough to know when someone’s trying to kill them. As I was rounding the foot-end of the bed the cockroach took off. It was headed across the bed, long-ways toward the curtains. I stopped in mid-sprint, sliding in my flip-flops, and leaned back as it flew by my head. Whew, that was close! I took a moment to laugh about our near head-on collision and admire its cunning strategy of flying to the curtains, a place where it was both hard to find, because of the pattern on the curtains, and hard to kill because it wasn’t on a hard surface.

I don’t know if I went to bed that night with that one still alive or not because I killed several more before I went to bed, but I know I hadn’t gotten them all. Who knows where they went while I was sleeping. I try not to think about it. But I’m not gonna lie. During those weeks of high cockroach densities I never slept very well because I just knew they were probably flying over my head and crawling on me. Yuck!!

“I Have to Poo and My Ice Cream Is Melting”

Originally distributed November 2009

That was a quote from one of the volunteers as we returned to Swaziland from a trip to Mozambique. All you really need to know is, clearly, she gives too much information about her gastrointestinal status and it was a very long road trip. But those of us who have gotten to know her in the past month found it hilarious. We had just been joking about how she tells us all the time when she has to poo, as if we want to know, while she was off buying her ice cream. Then while we were waiting for one last person to return to the car, sure enough she announced that she had to poo. We were dying.

She was one of our Kruger to Coast volunteers in October. For the last of their 4 weeks with us they go to Tofo, Mozambique for a week at the beach that includes snorkeling with whale sharks and kayaking to nearby islands. Tofo is about a 10hr drive from Swaziland, so it makes for a long day in the car.

I was only in Tofo for a couple days. I went up with the company director and the seasonal turtle researcher. I got to go on an ocean safari and snorkel with two whale sharks though. Amazing! And I wore a wetsuit for the first time in my life. Sadly I forgot to document it on film. I guess I’ll just have to go back! Actually, I hardly took any pictures while in Tofo. The 2^nd of my two full days there it was raining.

The people there are nice and laid back. Nobody pays attention to the time. The sand on the beach is soft like Florida sand. And you can get loads of fresh seafood, which doesn’t exist in landlocked Swaziland. Since Mozambique was colonized by the Portuguese I was able to communicate with them using Spanish. Many people there also speak English though, so you don’t really have to know Portuguese or Spanish. The funny thing about languages is, now that I’ve been greeting Swazis in siSwati all the time I had to make an effort not to greet the Mozambicans in siSwati.

The day that we went to Tofo was also the day they were electing their president. I’m happy to report that there were no riots, protests, or demonstrations of any kind. Men and women peacefully lined up at their local polling places and voted using their inked thumb prints.

Another experience I had that one would never expect to have in Africa was attending the Simunye “fun fair” in Swaziland. It’s just like your local county fair complete with fair rides. Just like in the US you buy little raffle tickets to ride the rides. But unlike in the US the kids don’t follow the concept of waiting in line. They form a line of sorts but then cut as much as possible. I went with a couple of friends and after long periods of waiting and never riding we decided we had no qualms about elbowing little kids out of the way to get our turn. For a video clip of my friend clothes-lining a 10 yr old go to Youtube. Just kidding. But we did have to puff ourselves up a bit and throw our weight around to keep kids from cutting. It was pretty funny.

One rather strange experience that day was when my two friends and I got on the ride that goes around in a circle really fast and lifts off the ground slightly so you get severe centripetal forces going on. My friends rode together so I was riding alone. But some local teenage girl decided to ride with me so she hopped in. When the guy came around to collect our tickets she pointed at me as if I had her tickets. I said, “I don’t have her tickets.” (kind of like in that song, “I ain’t tryina pay that girl”) Then I said to my friends sitting in front of us, “This girl thought I was going to pay for her. Can you believe it?” Yes, there are poor kids in Swaziland. Swazi kids, and some adults as well, have no issues with coming up to you and asking for money or asking you to buy them chips or soda (usually in the grocery store). But come on. We had to pay $10 to get into the fair in the 1^st place. She had nicer clothes on than mine! Then she wants to be my charity case? I don’t think so. I joked afterward that maybe she came to the fair with her boyfriend and then they broke up, so she was stuck with no cash. Oh well!

Airing My Dirty Laundry

I have to admit that I have fun inventing these titles. It doesn’t take long since they’re based on my life, but you must know by now that I’m not going to “air my dirty laundry” in a public space. And yet, I did literally air my dirty laundry in a public space!

The washing machine issues continue and now I’m resigned to hand-washing my clothes, except for when I house-sit for friends. I just tried using the washing machine at the park for the last time. It runs, but it malfunctions. It doesn’t fill with water, ever, and it doesn’t drain all the dirty water either. So I consider it a machine-assisted hand-washing job. You have to fill the machine with water yourself and then babysit it throughout the cycle so that your clothes actually get somewhat clean. And since it doesn’t drain all the water from the wash cycle anymore, they really don’t get all that clean. So after my last attempt at using that machine I was…well, as the title states, airing my dirty laundry.

Now here’s where the “I’m in Africa” part comes in. I went to Reception to report the malfunctioning machine. They know about it. They’ve had repairmen come to fix it. The repairmen have reported that it doesn’t fill with water and they don’t know how to fix it. Ok, not getting fixed then. So the receptionists know that users are stuck filling it themselves and babysitting the machine. But, they still charge the same amount to use it. No, it’s not coin operated. It’s token operated, so the value can instantly be changed. But has it been? No.

Who knew a broken washing machine could be so interesting!

Ok, maybe not. So here is something more interesting. In my December photos (and featured below), I included a very well camouflaged, and well named, bark spider blending in on a twig. I didn’t just happen to see it there. I saw it one morning, neatly collecting its web from the night before. Once it was all wadded up I’m not sure if it ate it, dropped it, or tucked it underneath itself. But then the spider proceeded to hunker down on the branch. It stayed there motionless for 3 days! It must’ve had a good meal the night before I found it. I took its picture on the 3^rd day and only then did it later disappear. Maybe because I was “giving it away” or maybe it was sheer coincidence.

I was really taken with this spider. How considerate to gather up its web so unsuspecting bipeds, like myself, don’t crash through it and then try to extricate it from their face and hair while wearing a shocked and grossed-out expression. Plus, it had very hairy legs, almost furry looking, which automatically makes it look kinda cute. Yes, furry = cute, even for spiders.

Royal Treatment

Originally distributed October 2009

August (2009) was chock full of activities and special events. It started with Bush Fire, the 3 day music extravaganza in Swaziland that anyone with taste and a bit of pocket money looks forward to all year. The Conservation Program (i.e., me) had a booth there to promote the program and educate people about threatened animals in Swaziland. We had a kids’ animal find activity that was quite popular and lots of adults stopped by and asked questions. And the performers were awesome, a mix of local and globally acclaimed artists such as Vusi Mahlasela and Habib Koite. It was cool to hear an artist like Vusi, who’s from South Africa and speaks Zulu, perform in a place where people understand the lyrics, because SiSwati is similar to Zulu.

Then there were a couple of great hikes with friends. The first was Sheba’s Breast, the mountain behind the lodge where I stay when out of the field. I had hiked it by myself in March before there was an actual trail, so I ended up at the top but far from the beacon (see photos). This time, now that there’s a trail, we made it to the very top. And what a spectacular view! We later did a hike to Sibebe, the 2^nd largest granite outcrop in the world. Beautiful views there as well. And at the end I had a huge and pleasant surprise. I ran into Jana, a friend and former coworker from 2000. We last saw each other in 2003 when she visited HI. She is back working in DC and was on a two-week business trip in Swaziland. How random!

Back at the park some of the Marabou chicks were attacked by eagles. Some survived the attacks but died later while others are now ok. We are all cheering for one particular chick who’s the 3^rd of the clutch and 3^rd chicks have not historically survived. This one is now over 2 months old and holding its own. So hopefully it will make it to fledging.

I was in the presence of the king and queen mother twice in August, once for the official opening of the solar powered restaurant at the park and once for the annual Reed Dance, Umhlanga. The queen mother has interesting taste in shoes. The dance performances for the royal family at the restaurant opening were phenomenal! It was some of the best dancing I’ve seen in Swaziland. The dancing for the Reed Dance on the other hand, wasn’t so exciting. Half the time I didn’t really understand what was going on either. The 82,000 maidens in attendance were grouped by chiefdom and they all paraded into the stadium grounds. Later on, groups would periodically mill about in the center, in some sort of dancing fashion, but it all looked really unstructured at those times. But maybe Swazis understood the point of it all.

And lastly two random events in August were we ran out of gas on the way to the field one morning, documented on film by our volunteer, and I sat in gum in my rainpants at Bush Fire, because that Sunday it was raining. The silver lining was that it made an imprint in the shape of Africa. Uh cool, I guess…. Do you think I can sell it on eBay?