Halloween & Black Thumb

Nov. 11th, 2010
6:28pm

I know Halloween was last month’s holiday, but I had quite a bit of fun with the Health Club kids that Friday before, so I want to share. Halloween is not celebrated in Swaziland. Unlike other cultures who celebrate a non-Americanized version of All Souls / All Saints Day, Swazis don’t dedicate a day to celebrating the lives of their dead. Their tradition rests in ancestor worship but is not seen much in modern daily living. It is more present in traditional ceremonies such as weddings and funerals. Nonetheless, there isn’t a day where kids get to dress up and mooch candy off of neighbors. :-P In an attempt to share this culturally important holiday in America (ranking in difficulty to explaining Groundhog’s Day) I brought a mini-Halloween party to my Health Club kids on October 29th. After we reviewed the lesson on TB prevention and treatment, I posted a couple decorations on the board. Then after a difficult and poorly translated version of how and why we celebrate Halloween (in which I’m not 100% sure) they lined up and individually said “Trick or Treat”! To “dress up” we put a Halloween themed sticker on our faces. The line would quickly move to a different “house”, or corner of the room, and then they repeated the procedure for a few sweets. That happened a couple times, to be concluded with a line round of “What would you want to dress up as if you could?” Many kids replied with a profession they thought would be neat to work at, while others decided a spider would be more Halloween appropriate. It was a blast all the way around! So, Happy Belated Halloween everyone! “Trick or Treat” from Swaziland!

The last couple of weeks have been nice but somewhat scattered. The Books for Swaziland Project is in full swing both locally and nationally. Brooke, the PCV who is organizing the national program with me, came over last week to bust out some planning details. We will begin the selection process next Friday, and hopefully the donor webpage (on www.peacecorps.gov under partnership projects) will be available early December. All three of my primary schools applied, which meant I ran around for the last couple weeks instructing professional teachers about the basics of properly filling out a proposal application. That was a bit frustrating, but they are all finished and will be delivered by yours truly to Mbabane tomorrow.

I have also started a small vegetable garden…. Yes, I heard that collective gasp!! At the moment there are only a kick-butt fence and 6 tomato seedlings, but next week the plan is to purchase a few more varieties of seedlings and possibly attempt to construct a compost pile. Aunt Mainy – you might need to be on speed dial/email for this one. :-P This is not the best time to plant veggies in my community, too hot and too many insects, but it has been a goal of mine since coming. I figure I’ll make a million kagillion mistakes this round, blame it on the weather, and then try again when it cools down a bit. :-P As always, I am providing massive amounts of entertainment and gossip for my community members. Today I was asked if people “weed” in America? Any time I pick up a gardening tool and start using it people are shocked that I know what I’m doing (in all honesty, I am too!). Buh bye black thumb… hello blisters!!

By the way, if you try to call me and I seem to have dropped off the face of the earth, I apologize and try again in a while. My phone tried to be an Olympic swimmer for a moment and now I can’t keep it charged for more than 2 hours and less if I’m actually using it. Thus, I’m golden when it is gulping electricity from my homestead, but not if I’m gone. I am finally coming to grips with the fact that I will need to buy a new phone, but this probably won’t happen until next month. Sorry for the inconvenience.