Swaziland, Christian Terrett, and Clowns Without Borders: Just Another Week in the Life

While traveling, one is confronted with constant decisions. Should we stay in this town or move on? Should we sleep at this hostel or that one? Do we dare enter this souvenir shop? And the decisions can be stressful, but more often than not, the stars just seem to align and the decision makes itself. And so when we found ourselves in a hectic bus station, throwing our backpacks into the open trailer, and boarding a minibus to Swaziland with Christian Terrett and Nozizwe, there were no decisions involved. It was simply what had to be done and we were doing it.

For those of you not so lucky to know Christian Terrett, he is a long time friend of ours from Eugene who just happened to be in South Africa at the same time as us, and just happened to have free time exactly when we had the opportunity to go to Swaziland. You can check out the wonderful tales of Christian's travels at http://yankeeshoes.blogspot.com.

You might remember Nozizwe from Cape Town. She is one of the incredible film makers working on The Commandments project. Nozizwe is from Swaziland and all we knew was that we were going to her home. She thought the rest should be a surprise.

We discovered immediately that Nozizwe is not from a typical home. She grew up on the mission of an Italian priest who has dedicated his life to the disabled children of Swaziland. Traditionally, disabled children in Swaziland are abandoned or worse. When the priest arrived as a young man, Nozizwe's mother, then a small girl disabled by polio, was the first child he saved from the streets. Since then the mission has expanded into a boarding school and vocational training program that serves hundreds of children and adults every year. Nozizwe's mother is now the school's principal.

One day we visited a preschool for children affected by HIV/AIDS that is supported by the mission.
Lots of holding hands and duck,duck, goose.

And we taught them about important American traditions like the chicken dance.

The four of us eating delicious Swaziland-roasted corn.

Did you know there was such thing as Clowns Without Borders? Well, there is, and they are hard at work educated the youth of the world about HIV/AIDS through clowning. When he's not making balloon animals, this Clown Without a Border looks after the boys of the mission's boarding school.

This mission is so amazing that they make their own eyeglasses at their own lab. (Former students, now in the vocational programs, also make all the school uniforms, all of the furniture, and even transcribe text books into brail for the blind students) Here we are trying on some of the fine products. Alisa just made a really clever joke that only smart people understand.

Back in Durban, Alisa insisted on buying an ice cream topped donut (which Tessa had to eat), so that she could get the free drinking straw eyeglasses that came with it.

And the people just can't resist.



In another really good purchase, we bought matching vests with pointy hoods.

Three Countries in Under 36 Hours

Time is flying by...since our last blog, we have stayed with a SERVAS host family in Durban, celebrated two Shabbat dinners with Gilli's family in Johannesburg, and ventured into Swaziland with Christian Terrett and Nozizwe. These stories will all make their way onto the blog...as for now though, we are heading off to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. That will mean that, in a period of 36 short hours, we will have been present (and active) in Swaziland, South Africa, and Ethiopia.