Home sweet Swaziland.
My favorite place to be… especially after the drive today
from Johannesburg. We started out at the
Hertz counter. Which took forever. And just when we reached the front of the
line, he told me that I have reached the “Gold Status” for the number of rental
cars I’ve ordered which means we have to go upstairs to another counter…and
another line. Then that line leader
tells me we get a BRAND NEW Toyota Fortuner, like it’s some kind of prize. It
would be great if we were traveling around Springfield, IL…but we’re going to
Swaziland where the car will be transporting dozens of orphans oozing butt
sweat (it’s HOT here), spilling bottles of cooking oil, tons of food for the
orphans (thanks Mitali!) and maybe some dead animal guts. Hopefully they’ll be
lenient with the condition upon which we return their BRAND NEW car.
Then as I am telling the volunteers about a goofy story in
the past where I thought maybe a police officer was flagging me down but I couldn’t
tell so I sped by – it happened!! I saw the “cop car” and the lone officer “kind
of waving” at me… so I waved back and kept going again (annie…international
fugitive). But my luck ran out when at
the border crossing where a cop stood out in the middle of the road and flagged
me over. I was going 86km/hr in an
80km/hr. Barely 3 miles an hour
over. I asked to see the radar. No such thing apparently – they detected it
with their bare eyes. So he told me he
wanted to talk to me “in private” and asked me to come over to his car where he
proceeded to tell me that he could drive
me to the police station where I would
pay a 1,500 rand ticket ($150) or I could pay him 400 rand ($40) on the spot
and be let go. PS, he has my passport
and driver’s license and looks mean. So
I tell him I have to go to the car and get it.
So I go to the car, get a pep talk from my volunteers, get my game-face
on, and shove $20 (200 rand) crumpled up in his hand, grab my passport and run
toward the car and speed away (accidentally with the parking brake on, so the
speeding part of that story may be exaggerated a bit). Just as I thought I have evaded the police
twice, I meet a foreign couple at the border who was stopped by the same dirty
cop who said they paid him only 50 rand ($5).
I WAS RIPPED OFF! South Africa is
corrupt. I am glad to be out of there…
When we get to Swaziland, everything changed. I look around at the gorgeous lowering orange
sun, the red clay soil, the empty rolling mountains of beauty and I breathe in
the clean crisp winter air.
Perfection. Even Casey commented
on the innocence of the stars in the sky and the ability to see them all
despite the fog that loomed over our drive today. Every concern and worry melts away here in
this utopia 20,000 miles away from home.
We go straight to the wholesale shop where we buy mealies, rice, beans,
brown sugar, cooking oil, toilet paper, soap, baked beans, canned fish, peanut
butter, candles, and matches and take them straight to two of our child-headed
households (thanks Mitali!!). We didn’t
have any more sunlight beyond that but will finish with the other kiddos this
week. We delivered food to the Maziyas
(Mazwi, Samkelo, and Philo) who were studying for their exams tonight. Mazwi read us a few of the vocabulary words
he will have to recite and spell tomorrow and even used them in a
sentence. He said “When we die we become
immobile and smelly”. YIKES! Let’s find
my beloved Mazwi a more uplifting vocabulary sentence. In my opinion, he is never allowed to die. Ever.
And then we went to the Msibi house where we played cards, hand clapping
games, and word vocabulary games. I am
SO PROUD of my volunteer group. They did
amazingly tonight. Blended in well. They were only 4 in a group of about 10
orphans but they kept the conversation light and laughter-filled (is that a
word??). I am blessed with an amazing
volunteer team this trip which I am forever grateful for. Going to bed early for a big day
tomorrow. Goodnight from Swaziland.
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