Holidays & Visitors

Sarah's mom and aunt (Pam's gift for Janette's 60th birthday was this trip) came to Africa for three weeks over the holidays. Arriving just a few days before Christmas they barely had time to settle in before we headed out to explore. I think our desire to make sure people have a good time can lead to some over-scheduling, but Pam and Janette hung in there and we saw some amazing things. 

New to all of us was Christmas in the southern hemisphere. Although songs about snow still played in our house, we spent Christmas morning opening presents with the doors to the front porch wide open, looking across sunny skies to the rocky green hills on the far side of the river from our house. A midday hike along the Sibebe trail left us overheated and we quickly climbed down, submerging ourselves in the pool for the rest of the afternoon as we snacked on mangos and passion fruit. A recently arrived French couple live in the same valley and also spent the holidays in Swaziland, so we stopped by in the late afternoon for some coffee and wine, watching the sun go down across Pine Valley. It was a good, cocktail filled Christmas that we won't soon forget. And, hopefully, Janette won't ever forget her stocking for Christmas-timed travel again. 

A couple weeks earlier, Sarah and I made two trees out of dried aloe vera flowers, spray painting them gold and stringing them with lights before hanging the few ornaments we brought along and those we’ve picked up from local handicraft makers. 

The next morning we left early for Kruger National Park. Upon entering, everyone listed the things they most wanted to see. Armand quickly named two -- a Bateleur Hawk and Wild Dogs -- and we stumbled upon both within the first thirty minutes. Instead of turning around and going home, though, we pressed on, logging some serious car time and wonderful animal viewing over the course of three full days. While everyone had their highlight, there are roughly 300 Wild Dogs, a highly endangered species, in Kruger, a park roughly the size of Israel. That we saw a pack of them within a few feet of the car within our first hour is a sign of just how magical this place can be. 

For the first time, we stayed outside the park, at a lodge along the Sabie River, which marks one of the park's borders. Hippos played in the water and we stayed alert for other animals coming to the river to drink as we ended each day with a cocktail on the deck. 

It is challenging to pick just a few highlights from any trip to Kruger, and for the full recap I think Pam has put together an intermission-worthy slideshow, but here are a few: 

A rhino, grazing as rain poured down. 

Two lionesses, startling us all by leaping directly in front of our parked car.

And, of course, the elephants. One of the few animals in the park where being in a car doesn't necessarily feel safe.

We were also reminded that vervet monkeys can look cute so long as they aren't eating our apricots

Two nights back in Mbabane to catch up on sleep and laundry and we were off again, this time to St. Lucia, about four hours away, tucked between a croc- and hippo-filled estuary and the pounding Indian Ocean. The area spans five ecosystems and was South Africa's first UNESCO World Heritage Site. The town itself felt quiet and walkable; a small mix of residential streets, nature paths, and a single main drag with a few shops and restaurants. Mostly, though, we tried to adhere to the name of our unexpectedly wonderful B&B, Serene Estate. 

Our rooms faced a wildlife preserve, protected from the hippos by this small fence (hippos are not good jumpers). 

We spent New Year's Eve in St. Lucia, starting the day with a boat ride through the estuary where we spotted crocodiles, hippos, egrets, herons, and so-called Jesus birds (they appear to walk on water). 

We spent the afternoon at the beach, reading and relaxing as kids played and adults cast lines into the sea. 

After a surprisingly good wood-fired pizza, we filled our water bottles with white wine and hopped into an open air vehicle for a night drive through iSimangaliso Wetland Park, where our driver's superhuman vision and encyclopedic knowledge had us just as excited by the small reptiles of the park as the hippos, rhinos, bush babies, genet, and hyenas that we spotted along the way. 

We made it back with just a few minutes to get a bottle of champagne open and toast the new year. A very active, unique new years eve, that was also one of our best. 

The next morning, we pressed on, heading north into Mozambique and staying two nights just outside of Ponto do' Ouro, a secluded beach town reachable only by 4x4 through unmarked sandy roads. It was tense getting there, but we quickly relaxed into this beautiful setting and our confidence grew each day as we became more adept at navigating the maze of winding beach paths. We swam and read, ate prawns and looked at the stars. 

On our way home we stopped at Tembe Elephant Reserve, which boasts the largest elephants in the world and a pretty amazing "hide" for animal viewing around one of the reserve's few watering holes. There's even a webcam. 

Our final week in Swaziland was spent gardening, cooking, working on a quilt that Janette passed on to Sarah. Started by Sarah's great, great, great grandmother, Pam, Janette & Sarah reinforced the work that had already been done -- strips of flowery cloth mixed with fabric from old sugar bags -- and added a backside with fabrics from Mozambique. 

It was a wonderful few weeks. We were able to show more family the life we have here and some of the beauty of the region. Pam and Janette got to tour around Mbabane and see the clinic where Sarah works. 

More than anything, though, we were able to spend some good time here with family, which made Swaziland feel even more like home. 

Right... we have a blog.

We've been settling into a good routine here. Hopefully a few pictures can provide a nice update, but first: Sarah passed the Boards! She flew back to the States in October to take this exam -- literally the last hurdle in a process that started 9 years ago with the MCATs -- and she got the results just before the holidays. It's fantastic news and seems to have marked the beginning of a new chapter in our life, just as significant as moving to Swaziland. Or maybe now that she's done studying for the Boards we are finally seeing what living in Swaziland is truly like. What that has meant over the past couple months is a full life. We're getting out and doing more. So, a quick recap of the past few months.

We got puppies. After the monkeys ravaged our apricot tree just before we were ready to pick HUNDREDS of these amazing fruits to make jam, a troop swooped in and took a bite or two out of every single one. It was maddening. We got dogs the next day from SAWS, the local animal shelter. Don't they look like they would strike fear into the heart of a pack of hungry monkeys?

They're sisters. Juma (Swahili for "born on Friday," which she was) and Khaya (siSwati for "home"). They've learned to sit and they spend most of their time sleeping on each other or wrestling with each other. We were told we had to pick an alpha to maintain order, but I don't know that our pick is faring that well as she's usually scrapping from the bottom when they tumble in the yard. I think they're in heaven.

We've also been busy with friends. A Baylor doc and his wife (almost entirely his wife) hosted this year's American Thanksgiving in Swaziland. There were around 80 folks and four turkeys (Armand, for some reason, was picked to carve them all). The Swaziland Times even covered the event thanks to the efforts of a Fulbright fellow with a journalism focus who wanted to bring even more personal interest stories to the hard-hitting Swazi Times.

We hosted a weekly yoga class a while back and have been attending semi-regularly as it rotates houses.  Two expats are instructors and they lead a class of 6-12 every Tuesday evening, followed by a low-key potluck.

With summer in full swing, we've had a lot of lazy weekend mornings in the sun and barbecues at friends houses, with the near-constant presence of arriving and going-away parties that seem to be a big part of life here. Here's a table set for brunch a few Sundays ago:

We've also gotten out a bit more and explored the countryside, staying a night with friends at Rock Lodge, an EU-funded, community-owned lodge built into these gigantic boulders on the edge of a canyon. There were amazing views of the river below and at night the full moon shown like a spotlight. This minimalist entrance belies a surprisingly expansive lodging area and open kitchen facing the valley below.

One weekend, some friends showed us an amazing waterfall about a 20 minute drive from our house, and then a 20 minute hike from the car.

And not to lose our urban edge, we attended the Rural to Ramp fashion show, where Swaziland's handicraft-makers custom designed their goods into high-end clothing to raise funds for homeopathic outreach. As unexpected as it was stunning.

We hosted two Christmas parties -- one for the staff at the Baylor clinics (around 50) and a decidely more low-key one for friends. Both were a blast. Baylor's entailed a big pot of pap (ground maize meal mixed with water to a porridge-like consistency) and a serious braai (BBQ), as Swazis don't seem to consider it a proper meal unless there's a substantial amount of meat. Ours was a bit more vegetarian-friendly, but both featured some aamzing Christmas cookies we've worked on over the years (Mexican wedding cakes, ginger snaps, shortbread dipped in chocolate, gingerbread, and peanut butter).

We've also harvested a TON of food from the garden, pulling many things and replanting others after their fruiting cycle. We think we'll be able to get three rounds of vegetables, from starts to fruit, during the growing season. Hot days and rainy afternoons seem to have done the trick. Bananas and green beans, sugar snap peas and bell peppers, passion fruit and tomatoes, red onions, strawberries, lettuces, grapes, and herbs.

Our First Visitor!

A long overdue thanks to our first visitor: Armand's sister, Rachel. A fortunate combination of expiring vacation time and our move to the new house meant that Rachel had a really good trip to Swaziland. And although we don't typically wear helmets around each other, they are required for zip-lining in Malalotja Forest, a lush green reserve about 30 minutes outside Mbabane.

Although Rachel was only here for a week, her time was filled with visits to handicraft markets, good meals, day trips around Swaziland, and a few nights in Kruger.

After a brief drive into Malalotja Forest and a short walk to the first platform -- the pleasantness of the hike briefly interrupted by a half-coiled puff adder choking a frog down its throat -- we were off. Rachel, the experienced zip-liner, merrily took to the lines. Informed by the instructors that if I pulled on the line too much to brake I would lose momentum and have to pull myself, hand over hand, to the other side, I quickly developed a penchant for lightening fast approaches to the small wooden platforms bolted to the other side of this gorgeous canyon.

The lines, about a dozen in all, crisscrossed the forest with a stunning river flowing about 100m below. The views were gorgeous, and save for a wobbly suspension bridge that felt completely unfit for taller people with high centers of gravity (like me), it was a blast.

The afternoon of Rachel's arrival, though, we started with animals. One of our favorite parks, and Swaziland's first nature reserve, is tucked between the airport and our house. We drove the dirt roads, spotting wildebeest and impala, warthogs and crocodiles, as they searched for shade on an unusually hot day. We also came upon this amazing hippo-out-of-the-water sighting. My limited understanding is that hippos stay in the water because of sun sensitivity, and I've never really seen them laying out like this midday. The luckier sighting would have been watching them climb onto their tiny island perch, but all told this wasn't a half-bad consolation prize.

Our three days in Kruger was the place for animal sightings, however. Within minutes of entering the gates we'd spotted giraffe searching for food and elephants in the distance. The rains hadn't come in full and it seemed that the scarcity of food drove animals to the rivers and watering holes throughout the park.

The elephants were too numerous to count. And while the rhinos kept more of a distance, the elephants often strayed close to the roads and dirt paths, adding a real intensity to our daily sightings.

Rachel, a nocturnal creature if ever there was one, also pushed to go on a night drive. Although I was a bit reticent -- it seemed invasive to shine bright lights on animals -- I was probably a bit too skeptical.  Many animals don't come out, or really move around, until night falls. And it's peaceful to be out in the park, after everyone else has settled in for the night and non-park vehicles are prohibited from driving the roads. We didn't encounter another car for the 3 hours we were out and we saw things we wouldn't otherwise have been able to: several hyenas on the prowl, an African wild cat, hippos out of the water looking for food, and some rodent-sized kangaroo-like creatures, hoping around in small groups. Nothing photographed well, save for this owl, perched on a bridge high above the Olifants River. 

Our closest encounter was saved for the last day, though. As we made our way through the middle of the park, two lions rested along the side of the road, largely ignoring our car and the few others that passed by. We turned off the engine and spent a long while sitting there, within feet of these very sleepy cats. It was spectacular. Those paws are like baseball bats.

Back in Swaziland, Sarah, still studying for the Boards and unable to go on a lot of these trips, searched for a proper send-off. She quickly plucked mulberries from our tree and strawberries from the garden, putting together this impressive tart.

Rachel made it happen. She got to Swaziland first and we couldn't have been happier to have her. It was all the better in our new house and with so many places to explore, new to both her and us.

When Your Oven Won't Work...

because you haven't yet figured out that the clock must be set on your Defy 731T Thermofan before anything but the stove-top burners will operate, and you really want some kind of Sunday morning baked good, remember: you pan-bake English muffins. Win.

Pine Valley

And that's the view from our deck. Needless to say, it didn't take long for us to decide to move. Living close to city center had it's perks, especially as we were getting set up, but after spending the last few weeks in our new house, we couldn't be happier with our move to the country. 

About 10km from downtown Mbabane, Pine Valley sits snugly between two sets of rolling hills. A river cuts through the center of the valley and Sibebe, the world's largest granite outcrop, if Swazi promotional materials are to be believed, juts along one side for most of the drive to our house. Cows wander into the road. Two days ago, a dozen monkeys climbed onto our deck, taking in the view and peering through the wood-paned windows. I tried to keep them away from the fruiting loquat tree. After playing on our roof for a bit they seemed to retreat. Guinea fowl scamper in groups of two or three, rustling among fallen banana leaves on the border of the garden. But here's the thing, we can't talk about the house without confronting the elephant in the room: it is way too big for the two of us. We need visitors, fast. Like, long-term, sabbatical, finally-write-that-damn-book, unpaid-leave-from-work type visitors. Consider that an invite.  

The house has beautiful stone floors and wood ceilings downstairs; it's all wood upstairs.  

We have too many rooms to fill on our own, so for now that means rolling out a yoga mat and calling it a "yoga" room, or sliding a guitar in another space and calling it done, as if each hobby needs its own dedicated area with a closing door. 

The property itself is expansive and littered with fruit and nut trees that we are only beginning to identify. Here's our running list: avocado; lemon; orange; kumquat; guava; fig; pear; plum; apple; peach (so many small green fruits right now on several trees); apricot; banana; papaya; lychee; mango; loquat (amazingly good and so productive right now); mulberry; granadilla/passion fruit; wild raspberry; macadamia nut; and grapes. It. Is. Unbelievable. To say nothing of the roses and jasmine; hyacinth and honeysuckle; and all of the other flowers we discover each time we take a walk.  

Or the seventeen (!) garden plots that we, and, mostly, a neighbor for hire, laboriously turned over to prepare for planting.   

It's like this property was built with us in mind, designed to take advantage of all of our free time and send us on this one, particular path.  

Mozambique, Bagels, and Protests

Shit.  Another exceptionally long delay between postings is about to result in a harried recap of our last few weeks.  At least we’re leaving room for improvement on the blogging front….

Sarah’s board studying has begun in earnest, which means fewer adventures until she’s done in mid-October, BUT before that self-imposed exile, we managed to escape with some friends to Mozambique a few weekends back.  I say “escape” because this was the weekend of Swaziland’s  Umhlanga (Reed) Dance, an annual event where bare-breasted virgins gather for a week or so in a large soccer field to celebrate the Queen Mother (by bringing her reeds for her palace) and their own virginity (rolled out this year, a pilot program to test the girls' virginity).  The King has also occasionally used the opportunity to pick a new wife, once even fining himself a cow for picking an underage girl (the traditional sanction in place at that time).  Despite this kind of self-regulation, the marriages don't always work out that well.   So, we took a pass, even though the Reed Dance is considered one of Swaziland's largest tourist attractions, and headed out of country.  

Maputo, Mozambique's capital, has this kind of crumbling beauty.  Portuguese architecture stained from years of coastal winds stand tall, with fenced-in balconies often stretching to the top floors.  

Among these old giants, other jewels remain, like the city’s nearly defunct train station, designed a century ago by Gustave Eiffel’s firm.

 

Or the stunningly-refurbished Hotel Polana, the “Grande Dame of Africa,” where we ordered cocktails in a spot once favored by WWII spies. 

These few flashes of past (or restored) brilliance are not indicative of the state of the country, though.  Infrastructure doesn’t feel updated since independence.  Roads, frequently named for communist heroes, were deeply potholed and dangerous.  The rural poverty leading into Maputo was on full display as we drove along the two-lane highway that leads into this city of a million plus.  It was interesting just how used to Swaziland we had become in such a short period of time; Mozambique felt different.  While Swaziland’s border post is large and relatively modern (there are computers), Mozambique’s was an exercise in triplicate and included a border guard who, with our passports firmly in his grip, informed us that he was hungry.   You can drink the water in Swaziland (I know!), which means we eat fresh vegetables; in Mozambique, like in most of the third world, it’s gotta be boiled, fried, or peeled.  Everything becomes so relative so quickly that it is hard to get a handle on how deeply your expectations have altered until you change something dramatic, like countries.

We took pleasure in the differences, though, and are excited to stretch our explorations into deeper territories north and south.  We tried to provide our own small economic stimulus to the economy, too: perusing local markets; buying more cashews on the streets than we knew what to do with; seeking out delicious Thai and Indian food; returning for gelato, again, to that brightly-lit place around the corner; and finding live music, first drumming and dancing at the Franco-Mozambican Cultural Centre, and the next night, a four-piece jazz outfit at a small wine bar lined with large, open windows to let in the breeze.  

Oh, and the fish.  Although the city’s beaches are landmines of broken beer bottles and rusty bottlecaps, the view from the city is beautiful and fishing boats dot the horizon.  At this market you buy your seafood wholesale:

And then one of the restaurants at an adjacent courtyard turns it into this:

It was a trip with later nights out than sleepy Swaziland usually affords, and a mix of cultures that coastal destinations seem uniquely positioned to provide. 

Back in Swaziland, we’ve settled into a pretty good routine.  Most days, Sarah’s work takes her to the Baylor Clinic in Mbabane a few blocks from our house, but at least once a week she’s off to the satellite clinic in Manzini (about 35km away) or a rural clinic mostly staffed by MSF docs in Hlatikulu (100km away).   Armand splits his days working on law- and NGO-connections for possible volunteer or work opportunities, with time leftover for reading and guitar and the occasional stop at the tiny but beautifully situated gym in town.   At night, Sarah studies and Armand cooks.  We read.  The other night we made pizza at a Spanish doctor’s house.  She’s lived here for four years and has a projector in her house for watching downloaded movies, which was kind of amazing.  We’ve been making pita and tortillas, banana bread and hummus, and partly-inspired by Gayle’s recent vacation recap, started kneading bagel dough on Friday night, letting it rise in the refrigerator, and then shaping, boiling, and baking them on Saturday morning.  They’re delicious, and after two weeks we’re already much better at it, like deciding to put fresh-pressed garlic on several bagels and baking them to a toasty, crackly brown.   Salt, honey whole-wheat, cinnamon raisin, and poppy have been successes.  

Despite the relative stability of our own lives, Swaziland continues to face one crisis after another.  First, their near financial collapse, saved at the last minute by a loan from South Africa, has stalled.  And this after the King requested that he receive a commission for securing the loan.  I think the technical term is kickback.  Although the IMF, World Bank, and numerous other countries declined, one can only imagine that South Africa is not chomping at the bit to see a country almost entirely within its own borders fail, let alone one with the highest HIV rate in the world. 

School resumed today after a month off for winter break, but only because the teachers' union committed to being there.  The principals did not want to return until the government delivered the required funds necessary to continue to provide free primary education.   

Last week saw several days of protests in cities countrywide, as university students objected to the government’s failure to deliver funds sufficient for all of its students to return and pro-democracy forces and unionists protested, as well.  Political parties are banned, but unions are allowed to do so, although the government sought an injunction on Saturday to stop the week-long demonstrations.  Swaziland's rulers seemed to have learned a lesson from last April, refusing to confront the protesters to create newsworthy events, even here as I watched youth mock the belly of a particularly heavyset officer.

Later in the day, though, away from my own camera’s eye, police unleashed tear gas and rubber bullets.  Without a critical mass of protest participants, a reaction from the government was the only thing that might escalate the disturbance into something that could actually foster change, and this one incident doesn't seem up to muster.  

Swaziland is also in the middle of a judicial crisis, started by the actions of the High Court's Chief Justice, which has led the lawyers to strike and the courts to close for several weeks. 

It is a fascinating time to be here; one with the markers of great change, but the seeming lack of either popular will or a singular, precipitating event to actually make it happen.   We're very happy to be here at such a significant moment, and remain content to intersperse our cultural immersion with the occasional trip abroad and a few homemade bagels.