The End of Self Site-Imprisonment: Hostel Takeover and the Super Bowl

Happy almost my birthday everyone! ; )

Also, happy almost 18th birthday to my little bro and a Congrats on finishing High School as well! Another congrats to my UMN Synchro team and their amazing skate at Mids this year!! Good luck at Nationals girls, I’ll be thinking good thoughts for you!!

I am very happy to say things are continuing to move along here! My project is going very well so far, and life is moving along here in the Swaz.

Things are actually ahead of schedule for my project which is fabulous. I intended to submit the proposal for the funding for our project to the Peace Corps at the end of February. It is a large VAST as they’re called (Volunteer Activities Support and Training) so it needed to be submitted at least 3 months before the project, due to start May 30. But my counterpart and I finished it three weeks ahead of schedule and I submitted it on Friday! It was very exciting and I was very proud of myself so needless to say I was feeling pretty good this weekend. Even a packer win couldn’t bring me down! I’ve got a meeting next week with the PC office staff to discuss the project, and keep going down the path toward getting the funding. We’ve also talked with people from the various NGOs we are asking to come for our project and with the director at the clinic to lend us a nurse for the day, and everyone is very willing to help out so far so I am feeling pretty good about everything! We’re heading into town on Thursday for more meetings, so its just busy busy getting this stuff done!

I am also starting to teach Life Skills at the Primary School tomorrow! I hope. I thought I would teach last week, but it kept getting pushed back. But I finally got my schedule last Thursday and I now teach Grades 5 and 6 on Wednesdays and Fridays. It’ll be nice to have a little more of a schedule, while still having a lot of time to organize short notice meetings and impulsive trips to town. I’m a little nervous about the young age, both for material comprehension and English comprehension as well, but so far I have been impressed with the kids’ English here, so here’s hoping.

This last weekend ended a long continuous time at site for me, my own self induced site imprisonment. ;) Being in a small country like Swaziland with relatively good transport (meaning you don’t have to wait days…) makes it easy to get into town fairly often, which can be a blessing and a curse. I didn’t really plan it, but I went into town just once for a few hours since I returned from Mozambique a little over a month ago. It was good to just be at site, hang out in the community, and be productive! But with that being said, I welcomed this past weekend of Hostel Takeover and the Super Bowl with open arms. Hostel Takeover was a blast. One volunteer had the idea in November that since our All-Volunteer Conference was so fun and we all don’t usually get to see each other, we should all get together once every three or four months at a backpackers in town, just to catch up. So that was this weekend. So fun. We had a little over half the volunteers there, so it was a pretty good turn out. Then of course there was the Super Bowl. I was very excited to finally see a football game, heck anything besides soccer and cricket, for the first time in a year. But why the only football game I got to see had to be a packer game, I’ll never know. So there were about 8 of us, 7 people cheering for the packers and me, who stayed up literally ALL NIGHT watching the game, 1:30am to 5:15am. Well Steph fell asleep in the first quarter and I took my usual third quarter nap, but other than that ALL NIGHT! Ha. It was fun, but we didn’t get to see any cool commercials, just the same three ESPN commercials, as it was broadcast on ESPN International. We did however get to see Christina mess up the National Anthem and the Black Eyed Peas, Slash, and Usher at half time. But that will probably be our only American sporting event this year. At least until next Super Bowl. Unless of course the Wild/Blackhawks/Penguins go to the Stanley Cup Playoffs and that is broadcast on ESPN International… Then I just might have to camp out at the backpackers for the series, sleeping during the day and watching the games all night. ; )

On another note, our trip to Cape Town is coming together quite nicely. We are meeting up with our friends from PC Lesotho that we met in Mozambique for this trip so it should be even more fun. Frankly, I am mostly just ecstatic about hitting up McDonald’s. But of course we’ll make sure to get to other places too. ; ) Trips to Table Mountain, Robben Island, and Simon’s Town for penguins are definitely on the agenda.

But before its time for Cape Town, we have our Mid Service Conference in March (Mid Service? Already?) then after Cape Town it will be time to get my health project underway before my parents come to visit in June! How exciting will that be?? Lots of stuff to look forward to coming up, which is very exciting.

Well I hope everyone is enjoying their February and the snow. At least Phil the groundhog says your winter will end early. We have translated that into an early end of summer here, which those in Lubombo are quite pleased about as well. Though me in the mountains? Not quite sure I’m ready for an early transition into winter. Though it won’t be even close to the Minnesota winter I’m used to, I hear there is frost sometimes and frankly, when inside your hut is the same temperature as it is outside, anything under 70 is pretty darn cold.

Anyway, love and miss you all! Thanks for all the birthday cards and the package(s) that I’m not sure who its from yet till I get into town next week, but whoever you are thanks!

Love, Megan