Only 7 of our 200 NYE meal/party kiddos!
December 31st
Today was a super fun day and it’s not even over! We hosted a New Years Eve party during the
day and dished out almost 200 plates of food.
I was so proud of our grill-masters (Njabuliso and Sizo – two of our
double orphans) who did such a great job cooking our meat. The kids ate salad, slaw, mealies, chicken,
beef, woers, and stew.
The kids taught Merindy and I to sing a siSwati song but I
forgot all of the words in every verse.
Ill blame it on the heat and lack of sleep – but the kids found it
hilarious that I was making up all of my own words! AND I got to finally see
Mazwi – he’s doing great and looked very healthy! He was running around in a little pack of
boys all day playing wheel-barrow, tag, and hide and seek. His giggles have to
be the sweetest sound to my ears!
At the party I met a professor who has been looking out for
the Maziya’s (little Mazwi) while I was gone.
She invited us to come over tonight to light off “crickets” (fireworks)
with her children and our littlest ones: Mazwi, Celimphilo, and Samkelo for New
Years. I am excited to see Samkelo and
remind him how proud I am that he has taken such great care of his brother and
sister! Samkelo recently called upon the professor to ask for money to go to
the hospital for Mazwi. Now with our new
GHFP emergency response program, they can contact Bheki and let him know what
they need – Bheki can relay that information to us through Facebook and we can
have money there in 10 minutes through MoneyGram International. Technology is amazing these days…
After the party, we went to the Incwala ceremony. When I’m in eLangeni I feel at home and as
one of them. Never have I felt as out of
place as at the Incwala ceremony (except MAYBE when we accidently crashed a
Swazi wedding when we were trying to go to church)! We stood around watching for the King and
when he made his grand entrance, we were told we could follow him to the
arena. Apparently to enter this arena
you needed things we didn’t have – dancing sticks, dancing skills, and Swazi
dress. The girls and boys had to enter different openings. The guys got the run-around and were never
able to enter. I took the “don’t make
eye contact and walk quickly” approach that I tend to find myself doing often
in Swaziland. With this, the girls were
inside. We had to walk past tons of
police officers and military men who all extended their arms out in front of
them as we went by. One of our
participants decided they were trying to “fist-bump” her and proceeded to make
an attempt. Little did we know, they were
actually preparing their pose for the dance and the whole group of Swazis
erupted in laughter. I think we exited
about one minute after we entered and that was 59 seconds too long. We had no idea what we were doing or what
people were saying when they were talking about us. It’s the worst when you try but miserably
fail at blending in yet hilarious at the same time.
To be continued about our NYE party… Im excited already!
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