Blogs from Manzini, Swaziland, Africa

By now I’m sure a few of you are thinking “Wait a minute.. I thought I gave this kid money to help him further his education working in developing regions and it seems like all he’s done is fart around Tanzania climbing mountains and eating goat.” Fear not, I’ve been getting your money’s worth in Cheshire. I have been working in the clinic since April aside from a brief excursion to Mozambique. I’ve just been quite busy working, learning, and having the time of my life and haven’t found enough time to blog (perhaps I’m not looking hard enough) and I still wanted the blogs to be in somewhat chronological order. As promised, here is a short blog describing Swaziland’s best and brightest disability rehabilitation clinic, Cheshire Homes. It is an incredible place and I have ... read more

A brief insight into my travel partner for the second half of my travels in Tanzania: During my week in Mwanza I met a man named Gudlak (pronounced “Good Luck”) who was assisting with the acute care clinic. Gudlak is the man. He is 32 years old and was born and raised in Arusha, Tanzania. He supports his daughter, parents, and various nieces and nephews by doing seasonal survey work in the bush for Rutgers University. He traveled to Mwanza with a friend of his who had studied anthropology at said university and was associated with Lighthouse Medical Missions. Seeking to improve my Swahili and learn more about this intriguing guy I started chatting him up whenever I got the chance and soon found that he used to lead climbs up Kilimanjaro as well. I shared ... read more

Our journey continued south to the border with Swaziland. Leaving South Africa, for one day and night, involved passing through border control, walking through 200m of no-mans land, and then having our passports stamped with no great formality, at the Matsamo border control, allowing us to enter the Kingdom of Swaziland. A cultural dance show was performed for visitors followed by a traditional lunch. We drove south through farmland growing sugar cane, wheat & vegetables together with numerous cattle farms. The flat-lying farmland was set off by a backdrop of high mountains - leading some to use the term 'little Switzerland'. Cattle are held in high regard in Swazi culture, and can still be bartered and a gift of enough cattle can result in obtaining a wife or even secure an audience with the King!! Overnight ... read more

Now this was fun...... read more

Day 53 - Durban - 20/9/09 Up early to get packed and sorted to get the shuttle at midday. Actually wasn’t up that early; about 1000. Aaron and Rachel went to ride a horse for a couple of hours whilst I baked in the sun, still pissed off at the 600 rand being taken out of my wallet. Finished my breakfast and went over to reception to see how much damaged the tab was going to do to my wallet, by itself it came to 800 which would have been about $600, that in itself was pretty good but when you add the $50 stolen, it was pretty expensive.. We jumped into the shuttle and started to drive back to the petrol station where we were being picked up, the journey seemed to go on for ... read more