With Mbabane offering nothing in the way of information or things to do, I decamp to the nearby Ezulwini Valley. The valley is home to the Swazi royal family and features a mountain that apparently inspired the "Sheba's Breasts" in Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines". A further nod to Rider Haggard is in the fact that one of the nearby restaurants is called Quatermain's. My days in Ezulwini see a climate shift from cold and cloudy to sunny and absolutely roasting - the latter is apparently more seasonal. Having heard about a hostel with a swimming pool in Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary, [View Full Entry]

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On line at the grocery store... "Hey mama, how are you?" ::Gentleman in line behind me at the grocery store:: "Fabulous," ::taking out my license and credit card to pay for groceries:: "Oh, you are from the U.S.?" ::Gentleman grabs my license to look at.:: "Yep." ::silence, as I pay for groceries:: "What does this mean?" ::points to the organ donor symbol:: "If I die a horrible death, they get to use my internal organs for other people who need them more. Or they just put less effort into saving me from the horrible death, so that they can use my [View Full Entry]

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Time for a bit of an adventure out of South Africa again - the kingdom of Swaziland. =) Dean and Jill was heading that direction too so we decided to go all four of us. Stupidly enough we decided to walk to the minibus station with our backpacks... It's not insanely far away but it was heavy!! Got there anyway and found the bus we wanted. They don't have any departure times for the minibuses, they depart when they are full. But we ''only'' had to wait for about one hour before the bus was full, so that was not so [View Full Entry]

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It's been 2 weeks since the last entry so i've got quite alot to catch up on. I'm actually in Malawi now, arrived today, but more of that later. Following the sports day i splashed out on a night of luxury at a chalet not far from lidwala. Had been feeling rough and wanted the luxury of a bath. The place was gorgeous, a 2 bedroom wood cabin with kitchen, living room and bathroom set amongst woods and horse paddocks. I cooked my dinner over a braai and it turned out much better than my usual efforts at bbqs back home. [View Full Entry]

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Leaving Lidwala lodge for a few days. I’m at the end of my pre-booked time here, but I am likely to be back on weekends. Was going to head for Ngwempisi gorge to do some hiking but had to delay as I’m feeling rotten - upset stomach troubles. Thought I’d be ok so went to the inter-ncp sports day organised by john, the sports centre volunteer, to chop veg for the kids’ lunch. Left early to get to Mbabane to extend my visa but felt rotten by the time I got to the lodge so decided to delay everything. Can go [View Full Entry]

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I have a little time to write about Sunday’s quad-biking as we had to come back from the project early today. We were picked-up at 8 by a guy called Richard, an outspoken English expat who runs tours by car, bike and hike into the swazi countryside so that visitors can experience the ‘real’ Swaziland. We drove for about 45mins over to the other side of the Ezulwini valley to the mountain range where members of the swazi royal family are buried, also the site of a famous swazi military victory over the rampaging Zulus in the 19th century. That was [View Full Entry]

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Awake early, I decided to get up to watch the sunrise over the mountains opposite. I settled myself on one of the huge boulders that lay strewn around the garden. The shadow on the slopes behind descends quickly. You feel a cold breeze on your back and warm air on your front as the yellow light in the sky intensifies over the peak. I watched a bird of prey soaring over the valley and storcks land in a nearby tree. The sun broke over the peak, the trees and plants in the garden below me were thrown into shadow and light, [View Full Entry]

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So, maybe a little more detail about the project I’m working on. We’re in a village called Mlandazwe which takes about 30 mins to get to on a good day, hours on a bad one; it all depends on the khombis, the private minibuses all the locals use. The last couple of days, there have been very few khombis so its taken hours. We’re making bricks by pressing earth in a contraption consisting of a steel box with a lid and a lever attached. We have to dig the earth out, make it the right consistency, load it into the press, [View Full Entry]

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Sorry about brief entries, been a bit of trouble with the internet connection, plus there are about 20 other people using the lodge's laptop. I went to the nearby (25min walk) shopping centre, the gables, to use the internet cafe this afternoon but the connection was worse there than here at lidwala. The gables has a couple of upmarket clothes shops, cafes, restaurants, a supermarket, banks. It's where all the whites and middle class black swazis go in their air-conditioned 4x4s and mercs,to get away from their gated communities. You see v few whites anywhere else. My daily routine is settli [View Full Entry]

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Things have improved a bit since last entry! Settled in ok, been working on site. It's about a 30min drive over the other side of the valley from the lodge i'm staying in with beautiful views of the mountains. The clouds roll in between 2 peeks above us. But the poverty is striking, particularly set against the obvious money that is here. Coping with the all-girl volunteer group is the biggest challenge. Makes me feel a bit old! Lack of privacy is a challenge too. Haven't been able to get this old laptop to recognise the camera so no pics for [View Full Entry]

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