Church with Make(Mom) and Reed Dance

Today I woke up at dawn so I could travel 2.5 hours to the capital city.  I was notified that I had a package there from home, Thanks Patty and Sommer!   I also wanted to take a shower, and let me say how awesome that was!  It has been almost a month since my last real shower!!  And I also wanted to type a blog that was longer than the 500 characters allowed by my phone.

My Make (mom) came by my room at 5am this morning.  She wanted to tell me that she was going into the city to buy a part for the maize mill on our homestead and she wouldn't be home tonight.  My Make is a great woman.  She is in her late 40s, never married.  She runs our huge homestead all by herself, as my Gogo is too old to do much of anything.  I have learned more about small business skills from my Make in the short time I have lived here that I ever did in 4 years at business school.  My Make is very ambitious, always moving, and busy with something or other.  I rarely see her sit down to rest, and when I do she is already getting up again to check the pigs or fetch firewood or mop the front stoop even though it will be dusty again in no time.  Neighbors from all over come to buy biscuits, cheeto things, flavored ice, meat from the cow they killed a couple weeks ago,or fruit from the trees in her orchard.  We also have a maize mill on our homestead to grind the corn into corn meal that they use to make the porridge the eat with all their meals.  The band on the machine is broken right now, but it should be fixed soon.

On Sundays, I have been going to church with my Make.  Definitely a cultural experience!  There is no bulletin with the days readings, no organ, no choir, no hymnal, and not even a cross at the front.  The only thing that makes it resemble a church are the rows of chairs and benches and a table at the front that is used as an alter table.  They sing songs all from memory. It is so cool to be in the middle of all of them as they sing.  Mostly its all in siSwati, so I don't know what they are singing.  It gives me the opportunity to just listen.  Their songs are so beautiful, and the spirit immediately penetrates right to my heart.  If you single one voice out, you hear their pain, but together the congregation's singing sounds like resilience and hope.  Life is hard in the people in this country.  It amazes me that through all their struggles and all their losses they come to church and confess how thankful they are for the things and people they do have in their lives.

On Monday, I went to the Reed Dance.  It is  the biggest cultural event in the country.  Girls from all over come to pay homage to the Queen Mother and the celebrate their virginity.  The girls wear their traditional regalia, topless.  We, Americans have been told that Swazis aren't afraid of boobs.lol  I watched the 80,000 girls dance past us, and then I had to leave early since I wasn't planning on staying the night away from home.  Transport home was a bit tricky since I missed my last bus, but I was with a woman who had missed the same bus.  She made sure I got home ok.

The rest of the week was pretty quiet.  I take walks to the river and read a book.  In the afternoons a couple of the neighbor girls come to visit.  Their English isn't so good.  I taught the older ones how to do framework puzzles and word searches and the younger ones draw pictures or I quiz them on addition problems.  Hopefully before I leave they will be able to do addition without counting on their fingers.

My Training Family from my first 2 months.