Hi, everybody!
We finally made it to Swaziland after an impressive 17-hour flight from JFK to Johannesburg. Some highlights:
- More mosquitoes than people boarded the plane at our one stop in Dakar, Senegal. I spent the entire time we were on the ground swatting at them. : (
- We stayed at the Southern Sun in Johannesburg, which was super-posh, but interestingly, had those weird showers with a translucent wall looking out into the room. Totally skeezy James Bond film style. Worse, you couldn't read in the bathroom after your roommate slept because the light just poured out through the wall into the room. Lame.
- The next day, we took a bus to Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland, where we stayed at Emafini Christian Centre, which is apparently in fact run by Baha'is, or so says the word on the street. It had wireless, though, which is awesome.
- A little while later, we booked it to Ngwane Teachers College, outside Nhlangano. It was about at this point that all this moving started to get REALLY IRRITATING. Training started here, which consists of daily about 2 hours of language, 2 of cross culture, and some technical or health training after lunch. They keep us pretty busy. Lunch and Dinner at Ngwane consisted of, on average:
3 kinds of starch (samp, mashed potatoes, porridge, rice, etc)
Some kind of meat stew/gravy (Swazis do not remove fat or bones, so one must be careful!)
Strangely bitter spinach.
An apple.
Not half bad, all in all.
- Finally, after a week at Ngwane we moved out to our host families, where we are now. More later; time is short and expensive at this internet cafe, which is in Manzini, where I am for volunteer shadowing. Finally, we get to see what the job is really like!! I hope everyone is doing well!

Love,
Rob