Dear Readers,

I would first like to apologize for a dormant blog site. I am so sorry that I havent written a blog post in so long. Those that know me really well, know that I have always been bad at keeping in touch long-distance.

This has been my first experience with blogging and I have found it to be harder than I thought it would be. My first challenge to blogging is the lack of internet in this country. I dont have wifi or internet for my laptop at site where I live, so I have to come to town for it. The trek to town is a long, tiring, and expensive one. Even then, if I do come to town, the internet is unreliable, slow or expensive. The second challenge to my blogging is that when I sit down to type a blog post, I have trouble thinking of what I want to say which is ironic because I am really good at writing letters to my loved ones back home and always have lots to say! There is something about the blog post going on the internet that scares me and weird that I am not addressing someone specific.

Anyway, here is my attempt to catch my readers up on my life and Peace Corps experience in Swaziland thus far. I am typing this blog post on October 16th, 2016 in the Peace Corps lounge waiting for the internet to come back on, so well see how long after typing this blog post will it actually get posted to my blog. I cant believe that I have been in Swaziland now for 16 months with only 11 months to go!

This first year has been such a journey filled with ups and downs and it is difficult to encompass all that has happened this past year. I can say that I have been so blessed to have this opportunity and I thank God for it. Although it has not been without its challenges, I am so completely at peace knowing that this is where I am supposed to be at this time in my life. I have no regrets.

By now I have adjusted really well to life here. I live and work in a community in the low-veld of Swaziland. We dont have much rainfall in this area, so its hard to grow any produce here. Although we have been blessed lately with a few rainy days and nights! The staple food of Swaziland in maize and cows mean everything in my community.

I live on a homestead with a host family. My Swazi name is Nosipho Simelane and it was given to me by my host Mother. Above is a picture of my host Mother, Mrs. Simelane, with her mangoes.

Nosipho means gift from God and Simelane is my surname. The family I live with is absolutely amazing and I love living with them. I also stay with my three brothers (Selu, Mazwi, and Bright), and one sister (Nothando Gwebu). We also have pigs, chickens, cows, goats, and 2 dogs.

Only Selu is my host mothers biological grandson, the other kids are orphans and vulnerable children that she has taken in. We have other family and there are other children that my host mother has taken in and cares for that dont stay on the homestead. Families tend to be large here, extended family often live together on one homestead, and it is a very important aspect of the culture.

I am lucky to have my own, separate hut on the homestead for privacy and much needed alone time. Below is a picture of my lovely home that I have grown quite attached to.

I have a host sister named Nothando Msibi who is currently doing Form 5, which is the last year of highschool here in Swaziland.

She does not stay with us on the homestead because she is schooling in a nearby town. Awhile back I received an email from a RPCV who started an organization called Africas Tomorrow that gives scholarships for $5,000/year to young females from rural Africa to study at any college or university in America. I helped her fill out the application and she was selected! I have been busy helping her prepare for taking the TOEFL, registering her for the test, helping her fill out her college applications, and fundraising for her. She is such an amazing and inspiring young lady and I really hope this opportunity works out for her. The previous Peace Corps volunteer who stayed on my homestead 2013-2015 and is back in the States now, Nothando, and I have been working so hard to make this happen! That is one of my many projects that I have going on right now. I put projects in quotations because my job here is quite usual. Peace Corps volunteers dont have 9-5 jobs where they go home at the end of the day. I am always on the job because one aspect of my job is just being here and present in my community.

Currently, I am doing a moringa tree project where I grow moringa on my homestead and once the moringa sprouts, I give it out to community members to plant on their homestead. My goal is to have one moringa tree planted at every homestead in my community. Moringa has many benefits. First, it is a tree so it requires less water than a vegetable garden, which is better for this area, and the leaves of the moringa tree are edible. We have a huge problem of food insecurity in this area. Many people are hungry and have no money to buy food, but the drought has made it difficult for anyone to plant anything to grow their own food. Moringa has also been used as traditional medicine, raises CD4 count when taken with ARVs, and the moringa seed can be used to purify drinking water.

Back in August, we built a playground at my primary school and preschool. It was part of a big Peace Corps project that a couple of volunteers spearheaded. We attended two trainings to learn how to build the playgrounds. Now we have been traveling around to other volunteers sites for two day builds where we lead the builds and teach our community members. We have built at our primary schools, preschools, and neighborhood care points. It has been a fun, but time consuming, project so far. We are required to go to 4-5 other volunteers playground builds besides our own. It has been fun traveling to other parts of Swaziland to see my fellow volunteers sites and the kids love the playgrounds. It seems at most of the builds their favorite part is the swings. The kids run to the swings during break time, have been coming early to school to swing, and staying after as well to swing which never happens and the teachers are amazed! The kids have to rush though because there are only 3 swings -one tire and two wooden- and around 300 kids. This is a picture of the playground at my primary school in my community after one of the final days of building. The swings are not up yet in this picture, but you can see the A- frames where theyll be hung.

I also had the idea and made tether ball for the kids!

I spend a lot of my time in the mornings at the preschool. The preschoolers are so cute! They run to me to greet me, Hi, Sister Nosipho! when they see me coming. It is a small group, there are only about 14 and not all come every day on the same day. We have preschool in a small one- room building. I make learning materials and games for the preschoolers, such as flashcards and alphabet letters, out of whatever scrap materials or cardboard I can find. One day I brought toilet paper rolls for them to decorate, stapled them together, and put string on them to make binoculars for the kids to hang around their necks. We just have a lot of fun. Last month we passed out Mother Bears for the preschoolers. Mother Bears is an organization in the USA that knits teddy bears and mails them for free to children in areas affected by HIV/AIDS.

Next month, we are having a special day at the preschool. A guest speaker is coming to talk to the children about washing their hands and brushing their teeth. The children are then getting toothbrushes, toothpaste, and bars of soap. This may not seem like a big deal, but some cant afford to buy these things. Afterwards we are going to paint the inside of the playground and we are really looking forward to this day!

At the primary school, I lead an after school girls club on Fridays with another teacher at the school. The club is called GLOW which stands for Girls Leading Our World. These clubs are at schools all over Swaziland run by a PCV and Swazi counterpart. GLOW holds counselor trainings for the PCV and CP and once a year hosts two week long GLOW camps- one for the older (high school) girls and one for the younger (primary school) girls. The mission of GLOW is to empower and educate young girls to make smart choices and the right life decisions. There are specific issues here that affect girls in this country and oftentimes these issues arent talked about or discussed in depth. In our GLOW club, we talk about the importance of staying in school and doing well in school, what happens during menstruation, HIV/AIDS education and prevention, Gender based violence, abuse, and staying safe/healthy. An issue we have in the rural areas is young girls, even primary school age, getting pregnant and dropping out of school. Unfortunately we have a problem of sugar daddies here where young girls who dont have money will have a relationship with an older man in exchange for food, money, or to have their school fees paid. These girls then are at risk for pregnancy, STIs/STDs, or being infected with HIV/AIDS.

We also do a number of other projects with our primary school GLOW club. We are selling wallets made out of recycled milk and juice cartons as a fundraiser to raise money for our club. We are also making washable and reusable sanitary pads because they are very expensive here and some girls cant afford to buy them when theyre menstruating.

At the primary school, I also act as the temporary school librarian until one of the teachers can take over. I am working on making improvements to our library and work with a library committee of school students. There is one student, a very sweet young girl that helps me with students coming to check books in/out of the library.

Another project I am doing in the community is we are trying to start a community library. We are starting this from complete scratch. I am working with two other community members on this project. We are trying to find a place in the community to store the books, are hoping to get donated books from an organization in town, and we think World Vision can help with the transport of the books. We want to use a storage room in one of the local convenience stores to store the books where community members can come and check out books. It should be interesting because this project has never been done before in this community!

I also work with a womens saving group. Womens savings groups are very common is this area where women in the community get together and save money each week or however often they meet. Then you are able to take a large sum of money from the savings group and pay it back to the group at an interest rate. I am working with one of these groups to start a soaps and sponges business. Two women in the group and I met up to practice how to make liquid soap and they are going to do a training to teach the whole group how to make the soap and then start a business selling the liquid soap in the community. We are also going to sell crocheted sponges as well. I showed one of the women in the group the sponge sent to me from my grandmother in America (Thanks, Grandma!) and the material used and she immediately knew how to make it. She is going to teach the rest of the group so the women can start crocheting and selling these as well.

There is a woman in this savings group that makes beautiful mats out of recycled plastic bags. I take her mats into town with me when I go and sell them for her. I am trying to help her expand her business. I want to help her with marketing, like putting up flyers around the community or trying to get her product into stores that tourists pass through.

The pictures above show her mats and her working on her mats in my home one day.

In the evenings I tutor my younger host brother who is in grade 2 at the primary school. He is a very timid child and was really behind when I first started working with him. He couldnt even write his name and couldnt recite the alphabet. He would write his Z backwards, had a number of other mistakes, and just really struggled. However, we have been working together almost every evening when Im home. He has really improved. He is less timid now and smiles at me more! He is able to recite his full alphabet and we have moved on to him writing the full alphabet. He is able to tell me what letter comes next, even if he cant always remember how to write it. Trust me, this is an improvement. I just help him out when he forgets and eventually with practice every day, I know hell get it. Even though he still messes up from time to time, I am so proud of him and he writes his Zs correctly now.

I know this may not seem like a lot compared to what you can accomplish in 2 years in America, but I am happy and busy all the time! There is one thing you should know about living here, everything takes so long to get done! Even the simplest of projects, I kid you not, can take weeks or a month to complete. Swazi time. I am often reminded there is no hurry in Swaziland.

Coming up next month I am going to lead a session at IDM with another volunteer from my group for the new group of volunteers that just arrived 4 months ago. I am very excited about this! We are leading a session about Teach Like a Champion, which is something myself and the other volunteer are hoping to spearhead and get going in Peace Corps communities during our remaining time here. Teach like a Champion is a program created for educators that aims to share techniques, skills, and best practices of high-performing teachers that have documented success in schools that lack resources in order to enhance the classroom performance of students at disadvantaged schools. Teach like a champion has given us 3 of their trainings for free to use for Peace Corps Swaziland, which the other volunteer and I are going to introduce at the next Peace Corps training.

IDM is a sort of a technical training college that has allowed Peace Corps to rent out their rooms and a few of their offices. It is where we attended classes during our pre-service training for 2 months after we had arrived in country before getting our permanent site placements. Now, we come back to stay at IDM every so often for various Peace Corps trainings. I always get excited for upcoming trainings at IDM because they are usually a couple days and the volunteers get to stay overnight at IDM. We get to stay in a room with another volunteer with comfy beds, running water, toilets, sinks, and hot showers! We also get hot meals catered for us -no cooking or doing dishes- while at IDM! I get to see all my friends, we play sports together in the afternoons after the sessions end for the day, and play Avalon, or other board games, in the evenings. I also love it because I get to dress up in fancy business attire for the training sessions, instead of my grungy clothes I wear at site.

Here are a couple pictures of IDM.

There are many things I love about this experience. There have also been challenges and there are things that I really dont love, but I want to tell you that this has absolutely been one of the best experiences of my life.

I get to do one of the things here that I really love and that is to live minimally. My carbon footprint on the world is so small here! I dont have that much trash here, it takes me a couple weeks to fill up a small grocery bag full of trash. I dont waste any water here and typically use less than 20 Liters of water for three days. Bucket bathing saves so much water and now that I have dread locks, I dont wash my hair that often which also saves water. I think I want to keep bucket bathing even after I return to the States. I also have to wash all my clothes by hand and hang them up to dry on a clothesline. I have found that hand washing my clothes relaxes me, and it is great if its a nice day out and I want to spend the day outside. Even though it is a pain when I havent done laundry in a while and I have a big pile of dirty clothes to wash, there is something soothing about the process though I wont be taking a washing machine for granted when I return to the States.

I have gotten pretty good at cooking things in a frying pan over a two- burner propane gas stove. Ive made anything from pizza to cookies! I have done quite a few building projects around my home, building a kitchen rack and bathroom shelf and still have some upcoming ones, such as a bookshelf made out of taken apart pallet wood. I have had plenty of help along the way! My nice friends have come to visit me and taught me a thing or two in the kitchen, a few recipes, and just how to cook in general. Another friend mapped out the building plans for me on how to construct my book shelf.

Another new hobby of mine is composting and trying to grow things in my garden, even during the drought.

When other volunteers come to visit me they usually first comment on how wow, youre really way out there a ways off the beaten path middle or nowhere and then you really do have so much aloe and I never knew aloe grew like trees like that.

The way in or out is the main gravel road which leads to my communitys shopping town. You wait by the road until a vehicle passes and wave them down for a hitch. That bumpy ride down the gravel road in the bed of the pick-up passing by the mountains of aloe trees has come to be one of my favorite things about being here.

Will there be things that I will appreciate when Im back home? Oh, yeah, absolutely! I miss the food in America so much. I will love having a car again so I dont have to haul my groceries home on foot and I will enjoy not having to lug all my stuff around with me everywhere anytime I go anywhere. Ill be so happy to see all my friends and family again.

There have been days that made me want to cry and times that have made me laugh out loud, like when one of the boys at the primary school told me he wished I was his Mom. Some things make me sad, when I know many people in my area are starving and when you look around my community you still find houses made out of mud and sticks. There are still many things that I need to improve, my Siswati is still not the best, but all in all its been quite the journey.

Although I have been here year and I live in the rural community where I work, I cant pretend to know what its like to live here as one of my Swazi community members or what its like in their shoes. I can only talk about my journey here and the new perspective that I have now and the personal growth that Ive experienced while living here.

My Mom, Dad, and sister are coming to visit me for 11 days some months from now. I cant wait for them to see me here and experience my life in Swaziland here with me. I just hope theyll be so proud of me. I cant wait for them to stay with me at my site in my rural community, see my projects, meet my community members, and meet my host family. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world and so very blessed, thanks be to God.

Thats all Ive got to say for now! Salani kahle bonkhosi.