(due to a really, really sketchy internet signal, this was written a few days ago, and I wasn't able to post it until now).
January 14th and 15th –Before Orientation Itself Actually Begins
There has been no internet since we’ve arrived, and won’t be any time in the foreseeable future. So, when we do get internet back, I’m going to end up posting a bunch of posts that won’t be technically “on-time,” but here, as I’ve quickly learned, we operate on “Swazi time.”
MEETING PEOPLE AT THE AIRPORT
It was the strangest thing to see a group of people, and have them be so happy to see you, and to be so happy to see them, especially when you’ve never met before. This is really hard to explain, but the excitement was a little bit overwhelming. Sometimes, when you meet a new group of people, you look around like “Hey, these people are pretty cool.” At the airport, meeting everyone, we were looking around like “Hey, these people are pretty cool. It’s a little strange though that this is going to be my family for the next two years.” Because that’s the thing – despite it feeling like this is a summer program or some international camp, we have to keep reminding ourselves that this is our new home for the next two years, and that the people around us are our new family members.
The only challenge for me with meeting people was the names. I hate to generalize, because some of the African names weren’t so difficult, but for the most part, to me, the names are just a bunch of syllables jammed together, and that makes it so, so, so hard to pronounce them, much less remember them. Also, with a school like this, it’s kind of like everyone has two names – their name, and their country.
BUS RIDE TO THE CAMPUS
So, the bus from Johannesburg to Mbabane (which, as I recently discovered, is pronounced “buh-bahn”) is supposedly four hours, if you’re taking a car. Let me describe to you the absolute joy that was the Waterford Bus ride. To be honest, it wasn’t that bad, but it just felt a little ridiculous at the time.
The bus was supposed to leave at two, but since we were operating on some sort of Africa time, we left around three thirty. Before leaving, we had to pile all the suitcases on the top of the bus, which was quite interesting, considering that everyone had brought luggage for the year, and so our suitcases were anything but small.
Then, once we were on the road, our driver would randomly stop along the side of the road for a cigarette, and would just kind of walk in circles around the bus. Then, he would get back in and keep going.
After being on the bus for probably five or six hours, we finally get to South Africa’s border with Swaziland. To get a bus full of students across the border, we just got off the bus and walked across. First, you exit South Africa, and then walk about a hundred feet in what I’m assuming is just no-man’s land until you get to the Swazi building, where you do customs and immigration. It’s a little bit sketchy, to be honest. Some woman stamps your passport, and then stamps a sheet of paper with the same thing as is on your passport, and then you have to hand the sheet of paper to this guy before you can leave the building and actually enter Swaziland.
But then, after all of us get through the border, we’re just waiting in Swaziland for the bus to get through. This takes about an hour and a half, for no reason. It wasn’t that bad to wait, except that by this point, it’s about ten o’clock on Monday night, and I personally hadn’t slept horizontally since Friday night. Airplane sleep doesn’t count for anything.
Finally, we get through the border though, and get to the campus. It was a little bit bizarre to arrive, but not really know what anything looked like, because it’s been really foggy so far, and we arrived in the middle of the night.
MY ROOM
I’ve been assigned to room 71, in a charming corridor called “The Dungeon,” named that for good reason. It’s kind of a split level thing, where the hallway is a couple steps down from the main hallway, and there are two rooms off that level, and then there are a bunch more steps down, and then there are four rooms at the bottom. So, essentially, I’m living at the bottom of this creepy, dark, hallway called the Dungeon. To be honest though, I rather like it.
My room itself is about five feet by seven feet, which I understand is tiny, but it hasn’t bothered me, at least not yet. There is a cabinet thing which has become my wardrobe in the corner, next to a grey desk-table-thing. On the other side (although keep in mind, the space between the sides is about a foot) is my bed, and a bunch of shelves. One of the shelves is kind of low, and near enough to my bed that I can use it as a tabletop while sitting on my bed, which is kind of nice.
Above the bed, there’s a big window, which is about fifteen feet tall. That’s right – while my room is teeny tiny as far as floor space goes, it’s really, really tall. That’s the perk of living about ten feet lower than the lowest actual floor of the building – props to the Dungeon for getting me a lot of natural light, which is rather wonderful!
I’ve decorated it quite a bit already, but because it’s so hot and humid I’ve been having a little bit of trouble taping stuff up. The tape itself hasn’t fallen down yet, but the paper gets flimsy in this weather and sags a bunch. I’m not quite sure what to do about it, so for now, I’m just leaving it. Regardless of the sagging, it looks rather nice. When I first got here, it really did look like a prison cell, but now that it’s decorated, and I’ve got my blanket on the bed and my stuff on the shelf, it looks a little more like home. It’s only been a few days, and it’s strange to think that this five foot by seven foot square is going to be my home for the next year, but it’s not a bad thing. I rather like it.
CAMPUS
I live in Emhlabeni, which is pronounced like “em-ple-ba-nee” except that the P is this siSwati sound that happens when there’s an H and an L next to each other. It’s not really a P sound at all, more of this strange breath thing. There are 130 people living here in mostly single rooms, with a few doubles. There is a large common room with a pool table, a ping pong table, a kitchen, and a bunch of couches in the middle, and then a girls’ wing and a boys’ wing. All the hallways, which are “corridors” here because people use British English, have strange names, such as Zion, Monkey Business, or Hollywood.
The thing about campus itself is that it’s more spread out that everyone had though before arriving, and that to get between buildings, it’s pretty much a maze of paths. There are these little stone walkways that are mostly stairs, because we’re on a mountain, and they go winding around everything. There are bridges over streams that make you feel like you’re in the middle of the jungle walking from Emhlabeni to the dining hall, and uneven steps that make you self-conscious about your cardio climbing back up from Elangeni to the amphitheater. All in all though, it’s very pretty, although to be honest we haven’t really seen it properly, just because there’s so much fog and drizzle. That should clear up eventually.
RANDOM THINGS THAT HAVE COME UP IN CONVERSATION IN THE PAST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS
1. Obama is hot stuff in Kenya, and a public holiday was declared when he was elected. School was cancelled for Kenyan students. Reminder – American students didn’t get the day off of school.
2. Kim Kardashian is not going to make a good mother. Just in case you were wondering.
3. American pancakes are not the same as African pancakes, which are more like crepes, but not the kind of crepes we have in America, but rather more like Swedish pancakes, although everyone thought I was a little crazy when I said we call them Swedish pancakes, even though they have no relation to Sweden.
4. Teenagers in Zimbabwe have this entire slang language to talk behind their parents back. Mostly, it’s just English backwards. For example, “item” in this slang is “meti,” which doesn’t sound like it’d be that hard to understand, but when stringing a bunch of this all together in a sentence, it sounds like proper gibberish.
THINGS THAT ARE DIFFERENT AND THE SAME AS AMERICA
The roads look the same. The cars look the same. The buildings look the same. The British English is different. The accents are different. The popular hairstyles are different. The books look the same. The plates look the same. Squash is still gross here. Rice is still rice, bread is still bread, and apples still mush up when they sit there for too long. The birds outside sound different, and it’s summertime in January, which is different. It’s much more humid, and there’s more fog than I’ve ever seen before.
All in all though, Swaziland so far is much more similar to America than I expected. I thought that it was going to be really different. I had no expectations of what it would be, except for different, and it’s rather similar, to be honest. It sounds really strange, but it’s true.
January 14th and 15th –Before Orientation Itself Actually Begins
There has been no internet since we’ve arrived, and won’t be any time in the foreseeable future. So, when we do get internet back, I’m going to end up posting a bunch of posts that won’t be technically “on-time,” but here, as I’ve quickly learned, we operate on “Swazi time.”
MEETING PEOPLE AT THE AIRPORT
It was the strangest thing to see a group of people, and have them be so happy to see you, and to be so happy to see them, especially when you’ve never met before. This is really hard to explain, but the excitement was a little bit overwhelming. Sometimes, when you meet a new group of people, you look around like “Hey, these people are pretty cool.” At the airport, meeting everyone, we were looking around like “Hey, these people are pretty cool. It’s a little strange though that this is going to be my family for the next two years.” Because that’s the thing – despite it feeling like this is a summer program or some international camp, we have to keep reminding ourselves that this is our new home for the next two years, and that the people around us are our new family members.
The only challenge for me with meeting people was the names. I hate to generalize, because some of the African names weren’t so difficult, but for the most part, to me, the names are just a bunch of syllables jammed together, and that makes it so, so, so hard to pronounce them, much less remember them. Also, with a school like this, it’s kind of like everyone has two names – their name, and their country.
BUS RIDE TO THE CAMPUS
So, the bus from Johannesburg to Mbabane (which, as I recently discovered, is pronounced “buh-bahn”) is supposedly four hours, if you’re taking a car. Let me describe to you the absolute joy that was the Waterford Bus ride. To be honest, it wasn’t that bad, but it just felt a little ridiculous at the time.
The bus was supposed to leave at two, but since we were operating on some sort of Africa time, we left around three thirty. Before leaving, we had to pile all the suitcases on the top of the bus, which was quite interesting, considering that everyone had brought luggage for the year, and so our suitcases were anything but small.
Then, once we were on the road, our driver would randomly stop along the side of the road for a cigarette, and would just kind of walk in circles around the bus. Then, he would get back in and keep going.
After being on the bus for probably five or six hours, we finally get to South Africa’s border with Swaziland. To get a bus full of students across the border, we just got off the bus and walked across. First, you exit South Africa, and then walk about a hundred feet in what I’m assuming is just no-man’s land until you get to the Swazi building, where you do customs and immigration. It’s a little bit sketchy, to be honest. Some woman stamps your passport, and then stamps a sheet of paper with the same thing as is on your passport, and then you have to hand the sheet of paper to this guy before you can leave the building and actually enter Swaziland.
But then, after all of us get through the border, we’re just waiting in Swaziland for the bus to get through. This takes about an hour and a half, for no reason. It wasn’t that bad to wait, except that by this point, it’s about ten o’clock on Monday night, and I personally hadn’t slept horizontally since Friday night. Airplane sleep doesn’t count for anything.
Finally, we get through the border though, and get to the campus. It was a little bit bizarre to arrive, but not really know what anything looked like, because it’s been really foggy so far, and we arrived in the middle of the night.
MY ROOM
I’ve been assigned to room 71, in a charming corridor called “The Dungeon,” named that for good reason. It’s kind of a split level thing, where the hallway is a couple steps down from the main hallway, and there are two rooms off that level, and then there are a bunch more steps down, and then there are four rooms at the bottom. So, essentially, I’m living at the bottom of this creepy, dark, hallway called the Dungeon. To be honest though, I rather like it.
My room itself is about five feet by seven feet, which I understand is tiny, but it hasn’t bothered me, at least not yet. There is a cabinet thing which has become my wardrobe in the corner, next to a grey desk-table-thing. On the other side (although keep in mind, the space between the sides is about a foot) is my bed, and a bunch of shelves. One of the shelves is kind of low, and near enough to my bed that I can use it as a tabletop while sitting on my bed, which is kind of nice.
Above the bed, there’s a big window, which is about fifteen feet tall. That’s right – while my room is teeny tiny as far as floor space goes, it’s really, really tall. That’s the perk of living about ten feet lower than the lowest actual floor of the building – props to the Dungeon for getting me a lot of natural light, which is rather wonderful!
I’ve decorated it quite a bit already, but because it’s so hot and humid I’ve been having a little bit of trouble taping stuff up. The tape itself hasn’t fallen down yet, but the paper gets flimsy in this weather and sags a bunch. I’m not quite sure what to do about it, so for now, I’m just leaving it. Regardless of the sagging, it looks rather nice. When I first got here, it really did look like a prison cell, but now that it’s decorated, and I’ve got my blanket on the bed and my stuff on the shelf, it looks a little more like home. It’s only been a few days, and it’s strange to think that this five foot by seven foot square is going to be my home for the next year, but it’s not a bad thing. I rather like it.
CAMPUS
I live in Emhlabeni, which is pronounced like “em-ple-ba-nee” except that the P is this siSwati sound that happens when there’s an H and an L next to each other. It’s not really a P sound at all, more of this strange breath thing. There are 130 people living here in mostly single rooms, with a few doubles. There is a large common room with a pool table, a ping pong table, a kitchen, and a bunch of couches in the middle, and then a girls’ wing and a boys’ wing. All the hallways, which are “corridors” here because people use British English, have strange names, such as Zion, Monkey Business, or Hollywood.
The thing about campus itself is that it’s more spread out that everyone had though before arriving, and that to get between buildings, it’s pretty much a maze of paths. There are these little stone walkways that are mostly stairs, because we’re on a mountain, and they go winding around everything. There are bridges over streams that make you feel like you’re in the middle of the jungle walking from Emhlabeni to the dining hall, and uneven steps that make you self-conscious about your cardio climbing back up from Elangeni to the amphitheater. All in all though, it’s very pretty, although to be honest we haven’t really seen it properly, just because there’s so much fog and drizzle. That should clear up eventually.
RANDOM THINGS THAT HAVE COME UP IN CONVERSATION IN THE PAST TWENTY-FOUR HOURS
1. Obama is hot stuff in Kenya, and a public holiday was declared when he was elected. School was cancelled for Kenyan students. Reminder – American students didn’t get the day off of school.
2. Kim Kardashian is not going to make a good mother. Just in case you were wondering.
3. American pancakes are not the same as African pancakes, which are more like crepes, but not the kind of crepes we have in America, but rather more like Swedish pancakes, although everyone thought I was a little crazy when I said we call them Swedish pancakes, even though they have no relation to Sweden.
4. Teenagers in Zimbabwe have this entire slang language to talk behind their parents back. Mostly, it’s just English backwards. For example, “item” in this slang is “meti,” which doesn’t sound like it’d be that hard to understand, but when stringing a bunch of this all together in a sentence, it sounds like proper gibberish.
THINGS THAT ARE DIFFERENT AND THE SAME AS AMERICA
The roads look the same. The cars look the same. The buildings look the same. The British English is different. The accents are different. The popular hairstyles are different. The books look the same. The plates look the same. Squash is still gross here. Rice is still rice, bread is still bread, and apples still mush up when they sit there for too long. The birds outside sound different, and it’s summertime in January, which is different. It’s much more humid, and there’s more fog than I’ve ever seen before.
All in all though, Swaziland so far is much more similar to America than I expected. I thought that it was going to be really different. I had no expectations of what it would be, except for different, and it’s rather similar, to be honest. It sounds really strange, but it’s true.
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