Monday, December 28, 2015

...is feeling the love.


Happy holidays everyone! We are halfway through one of our favorite times of the year, Christmas and New Year’s Eve, so we thought we’d update everyone on our awesome day after Christmas party and our plans for New Year’s Eve. This past Saturday we hosted 9 good friends for a Christmas party. Everyone made it here despite some difficulties with public transport (there’s always difficulties with transport) and we had a wonderful time. We kicked the party off officially around 5pm when everyone got there, hosting parties is a little weird here because different transport situations mean some people show up around 11am, then a few at 1pm, and finally 4pm. Nevertheless, we were just happy to spend some time with good friends and enjoy the holiday. Grace had worked all week prepping incredible finger foods, and despite fearing that it wasn't enough, we had more than enough to make lunch of the leftovers the next day! The food was delicious! We had Mexican roll-ups, 7-layer dip, pasta salad, bruschetta, fruit and cheese, but most importantly…cookies. There was a small army of gingerbread men and mountains of snicker doodles and chocolate oatmeal cookies. We all stuffed ourselves to the limit and then pushed onwards realizing that we’re PCVs and we don't eat that good very often! From there we went on to what was the highlight for all of us that evening, the sharing of Christmas traditions. We made snowflakes and ornaments, decorated our door with a special family Christmas tree, heard the telling of a Christmas story complete with small gifts, and sang what had to be the best rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas any of us had ever heard. At least the funniest rendition. Through it all the most amazing thing to me was the wonderful support network we all have here in Swaziland. 6 months ago we were all complete strangers, and now we’re giving all we got singing the 12 Days of Christmas so Christmas can feel a little more Christmassy for one volunteer. It's amazing how fast and strong friends can be made when you all share a common dream like being a PCV. 

Now, it's Monday. On Wednesday a group of us will be traveling to Durban, South Africa for New Year’s Eve! Grace and I have enjoyed some really fun New Year’s Eve’s parties the last couple years with friends and family alike, and this year should be no different. It’ll also be our first true vacation and we’re very excited to hit the beach and feel like tourists for a couple days! We’ll be sure to update you all once we get back!

We’re loving and missing all of our family and friends back home right now, but we’re also incredibly blessed to be able to enjoy the holidays with bangani betfu eSwatini. Know that at 5pm (Tennessee time) on Dec. 31st we’ll be wishing everyone back home a happy New Year, and wishing nothing but the best to come for all. 

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

...hodgepodges the holidays.

"Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection." - Winston Churchill


So as many of you know it's Christmas time. You are probably saying "duh Grace, how could I forget?", but for me it is actually quiet easy. Christmas is not such a big deal here in Swaziland depending on the region, community, or family. To our family "Christmas is just another day". It is also easy to forget because it's hot. I can honestly say that when I return to the states I intend to live in an area in which coldness and Christmas are paired. Furthermore it's easier to forget it's Christmas because we have found we really miss home during this time. Christmas has always been and hopefully will always remain one of my favorite times to spend time with family. Knowing what we are missing this year has definitely pulled at our heart strings in the past weeks and made some days not so great. But Christmas is still something we want here, mainly because of the memories that it holds. So I baked Nan's gingerbread men and Chris' snickerdoodles. I mean they aren't as good as the original, but no one will know the difference. I have grandmother's stockings hanging from our bookshelf and we cut out snowflakes to pretend it's cold. We plan on getting an extra Charlie Brown Christmas tree and making homemade ornaments, which has been a mini tradition of ours since marriage. 

I know I will miss Christmas Eve with the Eastridge crew. I will miss granddad opening all his presents before all of them are even passed out to everyone. I will miss eating every type of cookie at the Collins and not even being shy about it because there is enough to last until next year. I will miss Freeman talking excessively about exactly what his presents were Christmas morning. I will miss Christmas night movie, well maybe, sometimes mom gives our tickets away. 

But I think it's okay. On the bright side I've never been this tan on Christmas! Sean is going to cook a Christmas dinner and we are going to prepare to celebrate with 10 friends on the 26th. Only two rules apply for those coming to our house, bring your own beverage and bring a tradition to share. So I am excited to share the traditions that we hold so dear to our heart and learn what matters to those that have becomes what matters to us here. 

The more I think on it the more I want to thank the people that make it hard to be gone during this holiday season. I appreciate you making Christmas hard to miss. Christmas has never been "just another day" and for that I am truly blessed. Merry Christmas everyone!

Sunday, December 13, 2015

...teaches new SKILLZ.


“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” ~Thomas A. Edison

Yesterday concluded the hardest work week we’ve had yet. All week long we’ve been running a SKILLZ Basketball Camp for the youth at the SOS Village here in Ka-Langa. SKILLZ Basketball is all about teaching HIV/AIDS prevention and life skills using basketball in a fun interactive way. We basically used a Peace Corps SKILLZ manual for soccer and adapted it to basketball. In November we pitched the camp to SOS staff and it just so happened that they were scrambling to come up with a summer program for the kids. What Grace and I intended to be a 3 days a week for 4 weeks camp, quickly turned into  6 straight days in December and then another 6 straight days in January. The reasoning for this was that the youth we’re working with at SOS are all orphans or vulnerable children from the surrounding area. During the holidays after school is out, the kids that are able to go home for the holidays do, and the rest stay in the village until school starts up again late January. We were so thrilled about having a good project to dive into we didn't think too much on the schedule, we just wanted to start playing and teaching! 

This past Monday we weren't exactly sure what the response would be. We had been around the village handing out flyers on the weekend, and we had given the house mothers a copy of the schedule and group breakdown. The schedule and grouping was 8:00-9:15am 9yrs old and under, 9:30-10:45am 10-13yrs old, 11:00-12:30pm 14-15yrs old, and finally 4:00-6:00pm 16yrs old and up. It's impossible to be out on a basketball court in the middle of the day here, it's just way too hot and the kids don't have water, hence the long break in the afternoon. In the end though we had no reason to worry. Our first day, 61 kids showed up throughout the day and we had a blast! All in all, 93 of 122 kids who stay at the village have participated this week in at least one session with many of them coming to all 6 sessions. 

Grace and I are exhausted and pretty sunburnt after we finished the first half of SKILLZ this week but more than that, we are motivated and inspired by all the kids who came out this week. Every session there would be a stream of kids ready to play with smiles on their faces despite the heat and the difficulty of learning a new sport. There were no quitters even though surface temperatures on the court were 100+ and a lot of players didn't have shoes. There were no quitters even though the temperature was over 90 everyday (we hit 103 once) and the only water to drink came out of a tap that went dry a couple times. There were no quitters even though some players couldn't hit the rim on their first day. Everybody came back to try again and play another day. Grace and I are also quite proud of what everyone has learned and how much all their confidence has improved. The first day we explained to every group that we wouldn't ever yell at them or hit them for getting an answer wrong (this is common in school), we just wanted them to try in English. The first couple days it was hard to pull answers out of them, and we got no additional questions asked, but at the end of the week in our older groups everybody would raise their hand to answer a question, and we started to have great conversations about HIV and how to prevent it.

Kids have it rough here. There's no doubt about it, and it's hard to digest sometimes. There's also no doubt though that 93 of the greatest kids Grace and I have ever been so privileged to meet, are right here in Ka-Langa Swaziland. All of them orphaned or considered vulnerable due to horrible circumstances sometimes incomprehensible to them, they've showed all week that they are going to take control of their own lives and make their country a better place. I think that's what the Peace Corps is all about.








BIG THANKS to the Morristown East Hurricanes and Coach Collins for hooking us up with jerseys so we can look like “real pro’s”! Also thanks to Grandaddy and Grandma Jane for making sure it got here!