A Month to Make a Home - Settling In

Yikes I’m a terrible blogger! To be fair, I have equally terrible internet access. On August 29th, I was officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV)! I made it through the nine weeks of training. In the meantime, lots of interesting stuff has happened which I’ve of course neglected to fill you in on. The first week I was supposed to be at my site I actually spent 10 days at site with my friend and fellow PCV, Janae. Unfortunately, my host uncle died so my family had A LOT of people here for the funeral. They asked me to stay elsewhere so they could house people in my hut. It was a good week because all that stuff they tell us about being lonely at site wasn’t so lonely when you have a friend, but it was disappointing I couldn’t unpack and get settled.
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So on September 9th, I moved to my home for two years! It’s a one room hut with a thatched roof and two windows. I do have electricity but for a few weeks all I had was a lightbulb, no outlets, so I charged my electronics in the main house. I gave you the run down on my family in my last blog. This time I’ll try to give you an idea of my town, which for safety reasons I won’t type outright. It’s a town of about 400 homesteads, we have two small stores, and two umphakatsi houses. Technically most places only have one umphakatsi but ours had a lot of wives. I live about a 20 minute walk from the main tarred road and the school is along the way so I’m close to everything that I need.
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In the five weeks since swearing in I haven’t done a lot in the way of projects. In case I forgot to explain earlier, I have three months of what PC calls “integration.” In these three months I have a set of tasks I should complete so I can do a Site Assessment Report. This report will help me shape projects and goals to fit what my community/school wants and needs. One of these projects is homestead visits where I visit each homestead. I’ve been asking some simple questions like if they have a garden, electricity, how many children, do they go to school, etc. It’s a good way to go around and get to know people. Most people I’ve visited have been receptive but some are a little suspicious and don’t really like me asking questions. I don’t blame them and hopefully over time they’ll talk to me on other occasions so they can know me better. I don’t do the visits alone. I have a really great Rural Health Motivator (RHM) who walks around with me. Bless her soul for putting up with walking around in this heat.
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The first week and a half or so I focused on getting comfortable. I bought a bed and a fridge (which couldn’t be plugged in for a while but it’s easiest to pay transport once). Then I painted my room blue and green in true Evenline fashion (Wells College…google it). I now have some tables and my mosquito net is hung so it’s really coming together to feel like a home. I’ve been trying to post photos but it’s expensive to do on my phone.
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My pit latrine has showed me the wonders my grandfather loved so much as an entomologist. We had some BIIIGGG nasty bugs in there. I spent half an hour one day walking around the toilet seat spraying Doom (bug killer). I’m sure my family thought I had lost my mind. Not entirely certain they’re wrong but who knows. We also had eight lovely pups when I arrived. Two have been sold since then but good news we are keeping two of the male puppies!! Oh I can’t wait to train them. Unfortunately that means squishing the bot fly larvae from under their skin (don’t google that one…it might make you toss your lunch). They have tons of fleas but such is the dog life around here. We have goats around all the time but they aren’t ours. They even tried to drink my laundry water while I still had clothes in the bucket. Lesson learned: do laundry indoors and guard it with your life.
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One friend from home asked me if everything tasted different here so I wanted to give a little explanation of food. Since I can’t default to my nachos or quesadillas for dinner without tortillas and salsa, I often resort to rice and beans or fried egg sandwiches. Pasta is easy to do here so that’s a huge plus. In Senegal the pasta was outrageously expensive. I also eat a lot of peanut butter and apples. The cereal options are quite limited which is so sad because otherwise I would eat that all the time. I found chicken franks that are almost like hot dogs but not quite the same. In summary, everything tastes a little different but most of it still tastes pretty darn good. And on days when I miss Cheetos, Nik Naks are SPOT ON. That’s one thing Swaziland learned to replicate exactly.
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Last weekend I went to Mbabane, the capital, and ran a 5k race. Why you ask? Because it was a good way to go see friends and do something that makes me healthier. I’m not a runner and no I don’t enjoy it but it felt good to finish. I also learned my lesson about traveling at month’s end. Just don’t. It’s awful. Payday means people have money to travel and buy stuff. There’s a saying here that tomorrow doesn’t exist, aka take advantage of everything today. Unfortunately, I’ve embraced this habit when noshing on nik naks and coke but it’s awful when traveling.
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This past week was a little tough. I’ve been a bit restless and I miss home. The two combined makes me generally grumpy. I’ll bounce back but don’t think I’ve forgotten about you back in the States. There are times when I remember certain memories or listen to a song I sang in my car to work every day before I left. It makes me miss it all, but on the other hand I’m starting a project to get a library at my school and I’ve been organizing activities for my school’s health club meetings. Slowly but surely may days seem to get a little busier and I meet new people. Another girl left at the end of September and I have to say I was a little jealous she gets to eat salsa and honey bunches of oats at home. On tough days all I have to do is play with our six puppies and it puts me in a much better place. Ahh the love of a dog! Unconditional whether I can speak Siswati or teach a class effectively!
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Hope everyone is doing well at home (except for the whole Syria shindig and US govt shutdown that’s pending)! See Swaziland does have some advantages! If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment or whatsapp me. I’m sure I missed some stuff about my first month at site.