...is still building but playing a little too.

We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.” -Charles Schaefer

Well…we’re still building. In fact, we’re building even more! In the past three weeks we have built 4 playgrounds around the Lubombo region, and started a fifth one just today. That's a quite a few long hot days and nights sleeping on concrete floors, but it has definitely been worth all the effort, including the day it tipped 101° in Ntandweni. I'm a little biased, but I would say our playground at the neighborhood care point in Maphatsindvuku has been the best so far! That's completely outside of our doing though, we had a lot of great people come and give their time, energy, and spare materials during our two day build. 

We built a smaller version of the playground than what was initially designed because most of the kids are between the ages of 3 and 5, but they play harder than most kids their senior. Now, instead of playing with shoe cars and imaginary tea sets, they have swings, a tire swing, two mini towers, and soon some fun and games on a learning wall! It's been a long time since we facilitated and participated in the playground training in July but it's all come together now and it's a wonderful thing. I really don't know how to explain what it's like seeing kids playing on something built specifically for them for the first time, some of you parents out there will undoubtedly remember, but it's a fascinating thing to see a group of happy kids start defining themselves through play. Some are adventurous, fearless, and bold while others are timid, cautious, and careful. Some become great pushers while others become great swingers. Eventually they all level out, the bold helping the timid figure out the ladder, the swingers reciprocating the efforts of the pushers on the tire swing. (The tire swing is apparently much less intimidating, I seem to remember most injuries of my childhood on the tire swing however…) The whole playground becomes a beautiful chaos of tiny children with huge smiles. A cacophony of laughter and screams and short siSwati phrases that seem to me to say “Let's do that again!”. It's amazing to watch, exhausting to get in the middle of, and wonderful to reflect on at the end of the day. We can only really say thank you to all those people who came out to help us, brought us something to make the job easier, or let us play with them for a couple days while we worked around them. (We’ve learned beep beep is the best child speak for excuse me)

Speaking of thank you’s though we had another great time this week as we passed out 500 bookmarks at the primary school! It was the final cap to a very rewarding library project, and the bookmarks were distributed just in time because we got a call earlier this week saying the librarian is ready to commence the check out process! (Keep our librarian in your prayers because supervising that process for 500 students and teachers with no experience is a Herculean task, one which she is so excited to take on!) We handed out the bookmarks grade by grade at assembly with the help of a few teachers and it was a great sight seeing proud children with bookmarks overhead ready to read! So thank you very very much to Make Collins and all of the family and friends who helped craft and put a little love in 500 bookmarks! Siyabonga kakhulu kakhulu!!! 

...builds together.

Remember that moment two blog posts ago when we were so bored we didn't even know what to do with ourselves? Well that time is most certainly over. Over the past few weeks we have been working on renovations at the church we attend in KaLanga. We have been approved by the umphakatsi (only a 3 hour wait time for Sipho this time) to build our community playground at the NCP that I love. We will build 4 playgrounds over the next two weeks in fellow volunteer communities and we will be visited by friends from America for a few days starting tomorrow! It feels sane to be busy again. 

Before September comes and goes I want to take a moment to speak about the church project we are currently in the midst of at Christian Revival Church. I could talk extensively about how grateful and blessed we were to find this church home last November, but it would take too long and my focus here is to explain the ongoing project. We had been contemplating helping our church finish the renovations needed on the building we attend church in every Sunday. We know with all our hearts they are so deserving of the assistance and we selfishly want to leave Peace Corps knowing we had a lasting impact, and this was something that could give us that gift. With some help from generous people back home we set out to buy materials for the latrines, plaster and paint the building, flooring, and electricity. The work would have to come from the congregation. Our first day of work occurred last Friday. Over 30 people showed up to help. We figured that we could rally some people for the Saturday as well and then maybe plan for a few weekends ahead to have another work day. Plans change, as we keep assuring you nothing ever goes to plan here in this small country. People came in droves on Saturday, boMake, bobhuti, and bosisi working all day in the hot sun. Everyone fed, in Swazi custom, a full meal at the end of the working day. Sunday, day of rest, we came to church with an almost finished latrine house. Sean spoke his word of thanks to all those who came and spoke about how we are all apart of the Body of Christ, loving one another, able to do immeasurable things through God. 

Either we way underestimated our expectations or Sean's testimony of thanks rallied people into action, because we worked Monday, Tuesday, took Wednesday off (umphakatsi day), purchased electrical supplies Thursday, and are back at work today laying a concrete floor. We are told that the plan is to finish the floor and all the plaster by Tuesday. I wish you could be here to witness the joy and the work. I wish you could see the smiles on our faces from our inability to keep up with the pace of material needs. Our pastor "does not want to disappoint those who believe in the church". I am proud to say that being disappointed is not in the cards for those who have supported this project. 

"For just as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we who are many are one Body in Christ, and individual members of one another."

- Romans 12: 4-5

...thinks about tea time.

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.

-Camille Pissarro

There was a tea party outside the SOS village today. Do you remember tea parties as a young girl? Maybe you collected all of your animals around a table or bench. Maybe you had a tea set. Maybe you had crackers or water for pretending. Maybe you had a father who would take the time out of his today to extend his pinky finger and tell you "I've had the most wonderful time my dear". 

The tea party today lacked the maybes. In the thorny, red dust covered bush 7 young girls sat on a makeshift picnic blanket, made from old plastic bags, bottles, and cardboard. Wearing torn and tattered clothes these girls sat in a circle exchanging pleasantries and pretend life stories, laughing and carrying on for hours. No pretend crackers, no real water, absolutely no tea set or father.

I am a believer in God. I would call myself a Christian each day and a good one every once in a while. I recently listened to an Andy Stanley sermon in which he stated "if you live in America you are blessed. You are ahead already". Most every day here I believe that, but today I struggled with the blessing part. Being blessed, undeserving of such. I've become much more a believer in pure dumb luck since I've been here. My ability to have a voice and power as a woman, access to proper education, free speech, and even access to know "what is a Google". Mimi, Nomdumiso, Nophumelelo, Luyanda, and Samu. All intelligent, beautiful, selfless girls who deserve the same but lack all. They deserve such blessings, why is their luck so bad? 

I was told once by a very wise man that feeling guilty about your blessings will destroy your soul. "Never curse your blessing" I was advised. So today I cry for a tea party that deserves so much more glam and glory. Tomorrow, I guess I will try and do the best with my blessed self that I can. 

There seems to be a great deal of strife and negativity in America, we have tried to keep up. But for today, bask in your blessedness and say a quick thanks for your pure dumb luck. 

...has found the doldrums.

"Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is." - Thomas Szasz

Well it's time to tackle perhaps the foremost aspect of Peace Corps service here in Swaziland. Something that catches up with every PCV sooner or later, and that is…BOREDOM. Grace and I wrapped up the library, chicken farming, and permagardening projects with a fantastic getaway to Italy with friends and family, and returned to a hectic couple of weeks of playground build trainings, but since then we have definitely hit a lull. We have several playground builds coming up in mid-September, but not a whole lot of very meaningful work in between now and then. So…we face a few weeks of unprecedented boredom.

Boredom is defined in one way as being “the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest.” In siSwati the word for boredom is situnge, but the root of that word ore accurately translates to loneliness. Grace and I are blessed that we don't have to deal with situnge like so many of our peers, but I'm quite convinced that boredom strikes everyone at some point. For us it results in endless games of cards, new workout routines and videos, TV shows both educational and fictional, books from all genres (there's a good reason the PC Kindle library boasts some 20,000 titles), and occasionally, when we’re at wits end, a nap. However, true to definition we eventually lose interest in these boredom remedies. Not because they don't do a sound job of killing time with various added benefits, but precisely because we know that's all they're doing…wasting time. We came to Swaziland to work towards the goals of our program and community, not to waste time. But alas, it is inevitable and it is everywhere. We get bored at all times of day while we wait for our planned events to come up, morning, afternoon, and night. We face boredom in the bus ranks when we wait for an hour for the khumbi and another hour to even start moving (we’re quite fortunate here as many volunteers can wait up to 3hrs total). We lose interest in our remedies and resort to delirious banter or contemplative silence. 

Swaziland has affected our personalities in more ways than we can count, and I think we both agree that for the most part it's been for the better. So, here’s to hoping in the next few weeks that we can shift from boredom to serenity.

P.S. - The very not boring photos for this post are from Emlembe, the highest peak in Swaziland and a part of the Drakensberg Mountain Range.