Olympics, Pancakes, and Hiking

This weekend was such a great time away from school, at least for a few days. I spent Friday night at a friend's house, watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Sadly, Swaziland did not have a team, but Zimbabwe was well-represented! I mean, if you can call one athlete well-represented, but good for him! I am continuing to fight for the TV room at school when I want to watch certain events, because the guys in hostel seem to think that soccer is constantly more important than luge. But, that might just be because those who have grown up in the southern hemisphere are woefully uneducated in the ways of winter sports. We had a good time watching figure skating ("HOW DO THEY DO THAT WITH THEIR BODIES?") and freestyle skiing last night ("Wait, so it's a race, but they also get points on how their knees are held together, AND how they flip off the jumps?").

Anyways, then, on Saturday, I spent the morning working at my friend's dad's restaurant in Mbabane. They were having an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast, and so I was waitress-ing. Let me tell you - keeping coffee coming to people is not easy.But, that kind of stressful, energetic, dealing-wth-impatient-people kind of work just happens to be my forte (cough, used to work at Toys-R-Us, cough), and so I felt quite at home. I know, I'm strange, but I really enjoy working, and it's not something I get to do all that often here in Swaziland. And, while I spent the whole day thinking I was just helping out, I got paid at the end - that's a few hundred more emalangeni to help finance my return to Cape Town in a few weeks!

So, that was Saturday. Then, yesterday (Sunday), we went hiking just outside of Mbabane. The hike was along this ridge, and then down into a valley where we swam in the river. The thing with this hike is that, while navigation is pretty easy (stay on top of the ridge), there are these massive boulders along the way, and you can find yourself pretty easily in quite a sticky situation, where you don't want to go forwards or backwards. Essentially, the whole thing turned into more of a climbing than a hiking trip, with people pulling each other up rock faces, or yelling encouragement as people essentially crossed their fingers and jumped three meters down. It was very team-build-ish, but definitely a great time. And, the swim in the Mbuluzi never ceases to make me happy.

So, that's about it! Now I'm back in school for another week, trying to enjoy it, but already missing the weekend! Here's a picture of our lunch spot yesterday, and our swimming spot.