Pleasant Surprises

So far Swaziland has been full of pleasant surprises. My favourite surprise has been a selfish one; we were supposed to be moving to Swaziland to live in a tent until we have enough funding to build a house. When we arrived to the farm where we are staying Brian drove up to a little house and told us that the current tenants are not here so we three can rent this home for an unknown period of time. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be a gracious tent dweller and not having a lot of camping experience I wasn’t sure how I would do moving to Africa, learning to live in a new culture and doing all that in the comfort of a tent. I am so grateful that our life in Swaziland can begin in a house. It’s nice having this home comfort that we are used to while we adjust to this new culture and place.

Our little home has been filled with unexpected comforts such as running water, electricity, a flushable toilet and Brian purchased a fridge to store my insulin in. We were able to purchase a foam mattress in a near by town and having been sleeping so well. I had been used to sleeping very well in our log cabin in Canada, probably a bit too well and didn’t rise too early in the mornings. Here we’ve been waking before 5am to the sound of birds singing outside our window and although that early hour would have shocked me a few weeks ago I actually enjoy waking early to have some quiet time before we go about our days activities. We don’t know how long we can rent this house for but we’re definitely grateful for it.

I think I was expecting Swaziland to be similar to Haiti probably because that is my only other experience in a less developed country. Swaziland seems to be so different from what I was expecting. It is such a beautiful mountainous country with so many green fields; many people have little gardens in their yards mostly growing corn, which provides them with their food staple. The country is full of trees and flowers, it is so clean and the air smells fresh.

The farm where we are renting has a large sugar cane crop that is irrigated by a sprinkler system. There is also a chicken farm here, a few livestock and goats this provides employment for a lot of people. The farm is located in the countryside, just outside of a little town called Sidokodvo, which is 15 minutes away from the larger town of Manzini.

The Swazi people are incredibly friendly and many of them speak English, so that’s been helpful for us to communicate with them. We would love to learn the local language, SiSwati, so that we can develop deeper relationships with people here. Everyone is so polite and they love to wave and smile at us or stop and talk with us. We are very excited to get to know the people here.