No Electricity

We had quite a storm last Sunday night, so Monday morning when we got to school there was no electricity. There was no electricity at the school all week. When it’s sunny outside it doesn’t matter as much if there is or isn’t electricity because it’s fairly bright in the classroom then, but it was a pretty overcast week, so it was a bit of a struggle. It was also fairly cold and since there was no electricity we could not use the room heaters. But the biggest pain was probably that we could not heat up water to make ourselves a nice cup or coffee or tea during the break, which was really a bummer!!! So then we heated up water at home and brought it in a thermos and then all was good in the world again. I felt bad for the kids because they were working so hard and it was so chilly and dark…no fun. On Friday after the morning break we brought all the students up to our house (which is like 5 steps from the school grounds) and practiced singing these songs we are presenting at church on Sunday. Friday was a beautiful day so it was nice to get them out of the classroom and give them a little break.
This weekend there were around 150 people here from various places celebrating a Bulembu reunion. Apparently back in the day when Bulembu was really nice and financially stable there were loads of people living and working here at the mine. Most of the people were white, but I’m not sure where all they came from. Last night they had a big party up at the club house with a band and everything! They were playing some great music. Some of them went to the school Friday afternoon and reminisced about when they were there. I wonder what this place was like back then. Looking at the remnants now you can easily that it was quite a wonderful place in its prime.
Today my roommates went to Nelspruit, SA to fetch a team that’s coming in from Capetown. I could have gone but I decided to stay in Bu because I need to prep for teaching this week and it is a 2 hour drive there and back…and they will only be in Nelspruit for about 3 hours total. I am going there next weekend for an overnight trip anyway, so today I’m just gonna relax at home again. I’m looking forward to going to Nelspruit next weekend because they have a movie theatre and big grocery markets. I guess it’s a fairly large city. There are no movie theatres in Swaziland. I love movies.
We have a school break after this week, so I am trying to sort out a way to get over to Durban, SA to visit my friend Sarah. Durban is on the coast and is supposed to be a pretty nice place. I hope I get to go!
Have a blessed week!

Life In The Bu

It’s Saturday evening and I am sitting on the couch, typing emails on my laptop. I just heard some singing from outside…sounded like praise. So I walked over to the window and looked up to the road behind our house and there I saw several teenagers (one American, the rest Swazi) who have been out and about riding their bikes…now taking a quick break to sing “Jesus Lover of My Soul” to our heavenly Father. Praise God for them. They seem to have their priorities straight. This is not something a person would normally encounter, but things are different in The Bu. Pretty sweet. The American girl is about 14 or 15 and her parents are missionaries here. What an interesting life…to be raised by your parents in a country such as this.
Anyhow…today has been extremely uneventful. I think many of my Saturdays will be like this. I am so worn out and tired by the end of the week that Saturday has to be a chill day for me it seems. Last weekend was nice and relaxing…and this one has followed the same structure. Sleep in…do some aerobics….eat some food…take some washing up to the lodge…type emails…prepare for school next week. Very calm. We had a super fun Friday night though. We (Candace and I) had the 3 American girls (Julie, Kara, and Gennie) and another South African girl called Jackie, who lives with the other 3 girls, over for dinner and a LOST marathon and slumber party. We had decided on it earlier this week. We began watching LOST season 1 last week and it is extremely intriguing…but quite creepy too. This is why we had a slumber party-girls do not want to walk home in the extreme dark after watching LOST. There are no lights in Bulembu on the roads or anywhere outside I guess…so it’s incredibly dark. The sky is pretty amazing at night though. I’ve NEVER seen so many stars in all my life. Anyhow, back to Friday night…Candace and I made a carbolicious meal consisting of some FANTASTAIC garlic bread, two types of potatoes, mixed veg, and chicken sausages. Then we started the marathon. I fell asleep during the 3rd episode we were watching, so was ready to call it quits then. But Kara and Gennie said “I thought this was a marathon!!” So I tried my hardest to stay awake for some more. Well, 8 EPISODES LATER we called it good and went to bed. 8 stinkin episodes. That’s crazy. I was totally falling asleep during the last and maybe the 7th as well. So, we went to bed at 3 a.m. Wow. I go to bed at 10 normally. 9:15 Thursday night actually. I was one tired little girl…so I slept til 11 today!! Amazing. The girls made french toast for breakfast, but I was totally out so I missed the whole thing. They saved me some.
Turns out tomorrow I get to leave the Bu for the day and go to South Africa!! We are going to Nelspruit to pick up a team of 10 coming from Capetown. They are from the same church as my roommate Candace. They will be here for the week, but I don’t know what they’re doing actually. We have teams in and out. There is another team in from America this week, but I haven’t seen any of them. So I’m really excited to go to Nelspruit because they have REAL grocery stores there and other stores too!!!
That’s about it for now. Have a blessed day!

Weekend in Bulembu

So I was in Bulembu the entire weekend and it was actually pretty nice, but definitely not something I would be up for every weekend. There isn’t anything to do here, so you have to create things. This means a lot of together and having friends over, watching DVD’s on the laptop, playing games, sitting around talking, etc. So that is all pretty normal and similar to home…except there is no “going out” here. No restaurants or shops or anything. This is what I mean when I say you have to create things to do. Luckily, I REALLY REALLY like people and enjoy just hanging out so it was really a nice, fun, relaxing weekend BUT I also really really like a change of scenery/change of pace every now and again…so staying in Bulembu every weekend is just not possible! The problem is that I do not have a car, so we’ll see what happens.
I taught all day Thursday and Friday and it went really well. It’s an extremely tiring job though! Wow. Like I said before, these kids have a difficult time grasping new concepts, so math is really a challenge. We will persevere and just do the best we can! Thursday night we had a big thing at the community center with sports/games, worship, skits, a talk, and some food at the end for the people. There were 200 people there!!! How crazy is that! It was the first one, so this week they expect more people once word gets out about the free food. So that was a pretty cool deal. Friday afternoon the 4 of us American girls and Candace and Kathie had our first Christian Life Skills group thing with the older girls. It went really well. We set up a manicure station so that they would come in and have their hands washed, dryed, moisturized, nails filed, and nails painted. So that’s what we began with. They LOVED it. Afterward we talked to them about how our bodies belong to God and we are the temple of God-so we must take good care of our bodies…so we talked about good hygiene. We had little skit type things that were funny for each thing we talked about-like dental hygiene and bathing and deoderizing and such. Then we gave them each a bag that we had put together with a journal, a purse/bag, deo, soap, toothbrush and paste, pen, shampoo, lotion. They really had a great time and we are looking forward to our next get together with them.
Then Friday night Candace (my awesome roommate) and I invited over the other American girls and Brian for a bring and share (potluck) meal and a movie. It was really fun! Brian and I mad cous cous and chicken, Candace made spaghetti, and the girls brought over pancake mix, but we were all full from the other stuff and didn’t get to it. Then we watched Wedding Singer. Saturday was really chill and Candace and I pretty much stayed home all day and watched The Color Purple and just hung out. I also moved in to my new room, which was pretty exciting. Now I’m all settled in! Then Saturday night we had a big braii (SA cookout/bbq) at the club house. I guess it was just for the people working for Bulembu ministries. It was good eatin’. I had chicken sausage for the first time ever. Yum. Sunday was chill too. I watched 3 episodes of LOST!! I had never seen any and I immediately became addicted. It’s really intriguing and you just want to keep watching and see what’s next. Great stuff. I also did some planning for school. Then we had church at 4 and it lasted until 6! Afterward a bunch of us went over to the American girls’ house for the pancakes and eggs we never got to enjoy on Friday. It was seriously yum. Good times all weekend. Oh, and there is another new girl from South Korea and she is super cool. I really like her. She doesn’t live with us though. Her name is Sujin I think. I have no idea how it’s spelled. She is here 3 months and was previously doing YWAM in Capetown.
Did I tell you that the kids call the adults aunty’s and uncle’s? So I am Aunty Lindsey to all the children. It cracks me up. I’m used to it now though really. That’s about it. Hope you had a nice weekend too.

My First Full Day Teaching

So today Hayley had to go to Mbabane, so I was the one and only teacher in my classroom. She’ll be around tomorrow, but then as of Monday, the class is fully mine and I am fully theirs. (At that time I will also be moving into my very own bedroom…which I would like to add is the “the big bedroom” with a bathroom and shower in it!!!) So today went pretty well I think. I have to say that teaching these kids is not as easy as one might assume simply because they are so behind in their education and many of them do not easily grasp new concepts and ideas. Today we talked about simple and complex sentences, which a person might think is easy to understand. I mean you are really just combining Michael went to the station. He missed the bus. into one sentence by adding but, and, or, because, etc. Seems easy enough to understand, but wow, apparently not. Actually after a while most of the kids did understand it, but I was surprised at how they kept thinking that I was speaking only one sentence when I was speaking two (with a very evident, long pause in between sentences!) So my point is, I have my work cut out for me. I really enjoy teaching though. It’s difficult…sometimes I just don’t know what else to say to try and make them understand. Like with percentages, wow, they really struggle with understanding. It’s hard without manipulatives because these are abstract concepts and need to be really shown and explored for better understanding. Ya know? Anyway, the kids are awesome and they really try hard and work well without complaint, so that in itself is a beautiful thing.
It’s a perfect day outside and shortly I will make the long hike down/up to the office (walk down the hilly street, then up another) to post this and send emails. Because the office is on a pay by the minute dial up plan (this is the only option, but I’m thinking that’s pretty good for Bulembu anyway) we must write all of our emails and such beforehand and save them onto a flash disk-then take them in and send them. At that point I must copy and paste all of my new emails into a document to save it onto the flash disk so I can bring them home to read. It’s a process. Everything is a process, but it’s cool. It’s not a hurry up rush rush world here, so you can take time to do things.
Thanks for reading.

Sanibonani

First I just have to say that Bulembu is so stinkin BEAUTIFUL!! It’s just a lovely place. The mountains and trees are so nice. It’s very peaceful here. Sunday was my first full day in Bulembu. I slept until 10!! That’s pretty crazy for me, but I was one tired girl. I went for a nice long walk around and just spent the afternoon relaxing at home. Church is at 4 p.m. each Sunday, so I was looking forward to that. My first church service in Africa! It was a good mix of Caucasians and Swazis, which was really cool. The inside of it really appeared to me sort of as my mind’s image of a little African church. I loved it! We had a great time of praise and worship and then a message presented by a Swazi man. It was pretty charismatic. I guess most of the people here speak in other tongues. So some of the worship was free flowing, which I can appreciate. It was a good service. Afterward Lee-Ann had invited my house and Brian over for dinner. It was a lovely time and we even played a board game that is similar to Taboo. Monday I got up early and went to the school at 7:30 with Hayley and Candace. Hayley is the lady I am sort of replacing-well I’m taking over her 5th and 6th grade class. She actually just took it over in July when the teacher went back home early. I absolutely loved being in the classroom and I am so looking forward to teaching. I will start teaching on Thursday. I have 13 students and they are an enjoyable group. So the last couple of days I have mostly been observing Hayley and discussing what the kids have learned, need to learn, ideas, curriculum, etc. I am excited to start, but a tiny bit nervous I think. I have been soooo busy! I thought I might get bored here but I have already realized that I won’t even have a chance to get bored. I will be quite busy with school stuff and bible study and getting together with friends and doing household things. It is such a different lifestyle here of course, but I so appreciate it. I am loving the simplicity. Today I actually washed a couple of clothes items in a basin in the tub. Yes. We boil our tap water so that it is drinkable. I have no vehicle, so am completely reliant on others to take me to town for groceries and such. There is not a grocery store here. There is a tiny food store that has like 5 items. We have no heating and it gets pretty chilled at night. My first night I slept in flannel pants, tank top, sweatshirt, thick socks, fleece beanie over my head and ears, blanket, and duvet cover. I was warm and comfy then. So what I’m trying to say is that I LOVE IT HERE. So far so good. Monday after school I went into town to get groceries (all stores close at 5!!!!), then came home and made a baked potato and then it was already 7 and the American girls arrived at my house to watch Lost. It’s my DVD and I couldn’t even join them because I still had to clean up and do dishes and boil some water and put groceries away and blah blah blah and I was so tired because my day had been so busy that I had not had 5 minutes to myself. Today was exactly the same…after school we came home to eat, then had women’s bible study at 2:15, the women left at about 5 and I started preparing dinner and the girls got here at 6 to discuss this Life Skills Christian group thing we (Candace, Julie, Kara, Jenny, Kathie, and me) are going to do with the girls that are 9 and up. They left at 8:30, I got ready for bed and then came and started typing away. So you see!! No boredom allowed. I think tomorrow night I will finally have some Lindsey time to actually read a bit and watch something and just chill. I’m not complaining, just saying that I am surprised at how busy I have been. I haven’t had a chance to really even look ahead for what I’m going to be teaching next week! Well I must go to bed now. Please keep me and Bulembu in your prayers. We would like to see the school get funded so that it can stay opened next year and be an accredited school using a Christian curriculum. Hayley is going to fundraise in October and the school will need either $40,000 or 40,000 pds basically. This is no big deal for God.
Oh, and I live across the street from the school. I literally just walk through my yard to the street, walk across the tiny street, and down the stairs into the school. Pretty convenient. And here are a couple of names of students in my class: Phila, Fikelphi, Ncobile, Nontobeko, More Blessing (i'm dead serious), Nothando, Mxolisi, and Bongekile. Try pronouncing those.
Thanks for reading. Be blessed.

Arrival

(I will just write here about my arrival stuff and then write a new entry about actually being here-so if you want to skip this one because it may be boring, you may do so! But the bit at the end sort of introduces the people.)

Hi friends and family! Boy am I glad to FINALLY be writing. I’m in my room in my house in Bulembu at the moment. No, we don’t have wireless internet! I’m going to be writing all of my blogs and emails here and then sending them when I get to use the internet.
Let’s start with the beginning. I arrived in Joburg Friday morning after a long haul over! I flew from Dallas Wednesday afternoon at 4 and got to London the following morning at 7, only to see the LONGEST customs line I think I’ve ever seen! Lisa Mellgard, my surrogate mother, picked me up from the airport. I was sure happy to see her! She took me to the house and I got to rest and shower and repack because apparently you cannot have a normal size carry on when you go through London Heathrow airport, but only a briefcase. Of course BA flew me into Gatwick where a normal carry on was fine, but then they sent me out of Heathrow and it was up to me to suddenly shrink my baggage in order to not have to pay the ridiculous fee of 30 pds per kilogram!!! So that was a bit annoying. That evening at 7 I flew from LHR to Joburg, arriving Friday at 7 a.m. I wasn’t able to have much real sleep on the fully booked plane…just a few hours of plane sleep. So I was TIRED! Well…after going through customs I waited a while for my baggage…and I got some of it, but was missing one piece…so after a very long while there was no more luggage coming and I came to the conclusion that my last piece, my very small piece, was not there. So I went to the desk only to find out that it would be coming in on the next flight from LHR at 9:30. Unlucky! So we had to wait around a couple of hours. Well we were actually waiting for Brian anyway so we didn’t mind too much… Brian’s flight was meant to arrive at the same time as mine…but at about 8:30 we were really concerned because the only flight in from Cairo had already landed about an hour earlier. I finally got my last little piece of luggage and we decided that Brian must not have been on that flight after all….so I thought I should go check my email immediately to see what happened. To make a long story short, I had an email saying that he would hopefully be in Joburg the following morning instead. So Lee-Ann and I were able to spend the day and night in Joburg, which was great! We did a bit of shopping and eating and then went to her friend’s house, where we would stay overnight. We even got to go to the movies that evening! So the next morning we grabbed Brian and headed up to Bulembu. We arrived in Bulembu around 5:30 and went straight to a dinner party that was actually sort of a welcoming thing for these 2 American girls who had also just arrived that day. I was so excited to meet all of the young people! There are so many people around my age…I already have more friends my age than I did in England. How crazy is that! We have Julie from California/Georgia who is 23 and here for a year, Kara and Jenny from Boston who are in their early to mid 20’s and here 6 months (also brand new), Carl and Megen in their 20’s who are here for 5 years and are married with a precious little 4 year old daughter, Kathie in her early 20’s who has always lived in South Africa/Swaziland and is teaching at the school, my housemate Candace is 24 and is here through December and possibly another year (she teaches at the school as well and she’s my new best friend), another housemate called Jo who is South Korean and here another full year to teach at the preschool, Jackie who is South African and in her 20’s, Lee-Ann who is my friend and in her 30’s, Brian who is 25 and here 2 ½ months…I think that’s about it for the young and singles. As you can see, Brian is the long single male amongst a plethora of women!! I’m sure he’ll enjoy it though. So that is the run down. Now, in order to not make this entry any longer, I will do a new entry about my time here since my first day.

Sep 6th = Leave for Africa

Hi peeps, just wanted to write a note to say that I am once again on my way out of the country. I leave Wednesday afternoon at 4:20 for Africa. It's a long trip. I first fly to London Gatwick and arrive at 7 a.m. their time, when I'll be picked up by my surrogate mother Lisa...then I will hang out with my surrogate fam there for the day until that evening when they drop me off at London Heathrow to fly to Johannesburg. After that 11 hour flight I will arrive in Johannesburg, only to be driven another 5 hours to Bulembu, Swaziland...so I should actually be at my final destination Friday afternoon. It's a long haul. I want to apologize to the four of you that actually read this because I have been a crap blogger and have been very infrequent with my posts. Hopefully in Africa I'll post weekly or bi-weekly. We'll see. I think that was always my goal but it never happened. Please pray for me and the other missionaries I'll be with and the children we'll be working with whenever you think of it, I appreciate it very much!
May each of you be blessed and loved in all that you do!