South Africa to Eswatini

This blog was written about two weeks ago but I was just able to upload it today. Hope you enjoy!

A lot has happened since I was able to blog last. During our last week in Jefferys Bay my team helped at a camp for kids with Cerebral Palsy through Timion. This was an amazing and very difficult experience. My team and some other volunteers worked with 5 kids that had pretty sever CP. While we work with the kids the moms or grammies who take care of these kids go to classes and learn more about this condition and how to better help care for their kids or grandkids. This is such an amazing thing because the culture here sees the moms as having something wrong with them when they have a child with a disability and they normally get rejected from the family, so when Timion is able to hold these camps it brings these moms together and gives them a community to lean on with other moms that are going through very similar things. Working with these kids was such a beautiful experience. Most of them were completely immobile and nonverbal which made things tricky but their smiles meant so much. 

We unfortunately had to say so many hard goodbyes this last week as we left Jefferys Bay, South Africa. We took a flight up to Johannesburg and stayed over there for a night in a hostel which was something I had never done before but was a cool experience. Then we made the long drive to Manzini, Eswatini where we are currently living. We are having a mini debrief for a few days here to process everything we learned and saw in Jeffrey’s bay. We were able to do a safari at a game preserve which was lots of fun and we got to see lots of animals like zebras, crocodiles, wildebeasts, warthogs and lots of different types of gazelle. 

Unfortunately my body is not getting along well with the food here and I have gotten some sort of stomach sickness which has not been the greatest. Lots of people in my group have not been feeling the best. The food here is not what our bodies are used to so adjusting can be difficult. 

We are staying outside of Manzini in a cute little house. There are lots of animals around like dogs, cows, chickens and goats. There also are lots of large spiders and bugs everywhere. The worst of them all is the black and green mambas they have around. Earlier this year they had a black mamba come in the house we are staying at which has made all of us very hypersensitive. We have to make sure all windows are sealed very tightly and doors so no snakes and critters come in, especially at night. Thankfully we haven’t seen any snakes here yet.

It has been very different in Eswatini compared to South Africa. We are not allowed to leave the property unless it is with our whole group. You have to be much more careful in town and we definitely stick out like a sore thumb here. When we were driving through town people yelled white people which was so funny and something we are definitely not used to. The men here are also very forward and don’t respect women so we normally get lots of yells and whistles when walking down the street. In this culture in order to marry your bride you have to pay her parents in cows. This makes for very awkward/funny situations where men will come up to us asking how may cows to marry us. 

Over all I am loving Eswatini. In my next blog I will explain the ministry I will be working with while I am here as I currently do not know exactly what it will look like other then the fact we will be feeding children at a care point. 

I am asking for prayers of health over my group and safety as this is a more dangerous country. Thank you again for all your prayers and support.