Swaziland

This morning we slept in. It was nice. You have to know that everything here is "go with the flow" and so I won't be telling you every little thing because there aren't many planned events, just spontaneous stopping and talking with people. That pretty much makes up a lot of my day.

This morning I heard water splashing behind our flat and I wondered who it was that was washing clothes...maybe Sibo? Yes it was. I went out and kept her company and helped her hang up her clothes when she was done. After she was done I did a few of my clothes and let me tell you, it is a workout! My arms and hands get so tired so quickly. I don't know how they can do so many clothes in one day. One day when the team was living on campus, the girls hired a woman to wash their clothes because they couldn't figure out how to do it by hand and they had bags and bags full of clothes to do. So instead of learning, they piled it all on this one woman to do. I'm sure they paid her well, but man, she had to have been so tired afterwards because she used all of the clothes lines behind the flats .... that is a lot of clothes!

Bongani was on the other end and saw me washing my clothes and he said, "When you're done you come this side and help me." I was like, yeah right. I was so tired after only doing like 10 pieces of clothing. I did go visit him though when I was done. He said, "Thank you for being done, now you come this side." I'm like, my goodness, you wash your own clothes, boy! I did ask him if he really wanted me to help and he said he was just joking and so we left it at that.

This afternoon at 2pm is Good News Kids "Kids club" where all kids from the community come and Dorcas teaches them something from the Bible and sings with them. Then they split into age groups and there are leaders for each age group. I was with the second oldest age group. I would guess, maybe between 8-12 or somewhere around there. The craft that I had them do was a little decorated frame for a list of the Ten Commandments that we provided. They will be teaching two commandments each Saturday for the next 5 Saturdays. They learned the song "The Perfect Ten"...those of you who know the song will know the song. Good for you.

At 6:30ish-pm is when Joy Youth group starts. I was assigned to come up with some game for them to do. I thought that they would enjoy "the human knot" and so I told them how and then there were two teams that competed and I think they enjoyed it. In comparison to the American version of the human knot, the Swazi's were crazy. When it came to "untying" the knot they just yanked around and didn't even really look to how the knot was tied and how people needed to step or turn or whatever. So anyway, this way is more rough, but the knot is untied a lot quicker than how Americans do it. We had fun. Including the college students, there was about 23.

Prayer Requests:
-That I can somehow connect with Joy youth and gain their trust and friendship.
-That I can think of some good games for next Saturday (ideas from you are greatly welcomed!)

Praise:
-I feel like I'm really connecting with the Africans here. (I say Africans because not everyone on campus is from Swaziland)
-Finally I will have a schedule during the week. Before there was no structure to my day.
-I get to work in the library a LOT!!!