On School Break

I've been so busy lately, but things have been very exciting! I went to Mlilwane game park on Monday with Cynthia, a pioneer from Canada who is also the high school principal's wife. We saw Impala, Inyala, wildebeast, warthogs, zebras, blesbok, etc. It was very exciting! I took a lot of pictures, and hope to get some posted soon. I even have a picture standing about a foot from an Inyala!

Yesterday the boys (Emmanuel, Ndumiso, Mbuso, Njabulo, and Sabelo) took me mountain climbing to the highest point in Swaziland. We took six hours there and back because we stopped a lot to rest and take pictures and eat peanut butter sandwiches. I thought I would die on the way down because it was so steep. We scooted on our butts for about an hour on and off and jumped across rocks at a waterfall. It was very exciting! Now my legs are very sore, though.

One of the boys, Sabelo, only just declared his faith in Baha'u'llah on April 4! We were all happy. He's been studying with Emmanuel for some time and he's already so knowledgable that he's teaching other receptive souls about the Baha'i Faith! We had a youth day for the neighborhood last Saturday which was very successful and we had a couple of people ask to study more with us. One of them is a girl that sings in a band with my roommate, Thobile, and her sister Nomsa. They sing Baha'i music, so I guess this girl has been listening to the lyrics and wants to know more about what inspired them! Their guitar players, Nick and Musa, are also studying Ruhi book 1 now.

In the Ridvan election of the Local Spiritual Assembly, Emmanuel was elected! He was shocked! He's very suprised but of course it's an honor to serve the Faith in this way, or in any way. I know he'll be a good addition to the assembly because he's very intelligent and knowledgable about the Faith, and he's very devoted to service. He's going to be extremely busy now because he's a full time Master's student, a full-time volunteer at the high school teaching Human Development and helping to develop legal contracts, and now an LSA member!

We were supposed to start an intensive Ruhi book 5, but we postponed it until next week so this week I have a lot of free time. Since I have the time, I'm going to attempt to make fried chicken tonight. I've become addicted to KFC and Kowloon Chinese Take-away because they're the only fast foods available! I get lazy during the school days because there's a lot of other work to do besides cooking.

Since one of the high school teachers became very ill (some sort of swelling in her optic nerve) they asked me to substitute for her four English classes. Some of the kids are older than me in Form 4! But they are good and I'm trying to do my best since I'm the only teacher available to them. I appreciate my high school teachers so much better now. How did they manage to fit so much material into such a short time? And how did Mr. Nerf mark a hundred or so 4 page essays in one weekend? I struggle to mark 65 one and a half page essays in a week! But grades are all done for term 1 and now I just need to do some plans for term 2. Hopefully the teacher will be better by term 2, but no one's holding their breath, and she didn't leave any plans for her classes so I'm on my own for the most part. But like I said, I'm trying to do my best. I'm actually finding that I quite enjoy secondary education and now I'm thinking of changing my major to English so I can teach at the secondary level.

I'm finding that doing service in Swaziland has been an eye-opening experience for me, giving me insights into world affairs (like the AIDS epidemic and widespread poverty), as well as my own capabilities, desires, and needs. I'm glad I'm finding all this out now when I still have time to change the course of my life and career!