Officially two months at site and I’m finally ready to show you all the place I now call home! Aside from a few little projects I’m waiting until my Peace Corps budget allows for, I’m pretty much completely settled in! I’m so happy to say that I love this space more than any room I’ve ever called my own. It was made special by a fresh coat of paint, some awesome gifts from home, and plenty of free time to sew my own curtains and get creative with storage solutions. To give you an idea of the size of my hut, it is about 50ft in circumference (200 square feet). I’m pretty sure this is the standard size for a Swazi rondavel.
Here is my very own first house!
Come in the door and turn left for the kitchen area,
complete with mini fridge and electric stove top/oven combo
As we keep moving around the hut here is the living
room/dining area haha. My host family gave me these two chairs, and I don’t
know what I’d do without them! That the Peace Corps-issued blue trunk I use as
a table.
Here is my bed, and to the right is where I store my basins
for bathing and washing clothes. You can also see my hammock, I pin it up when
I’m not using it so I can get to those clothes.
Potentially my favorite part of the hut: My closet! I made
the hanging system with some rope and a pipe of some sort that I found on the
homestead the day I moved in. I had that little dressing table made along with
the one you saw in the kitchen by a local carpenter. The shelves are essential!
In other news, nothing too exciting has been going on
lately. I started my private siSwati lessons last week with a teacher from the
high school. Peace Corps has required all of us to get a tutor and continue
learning the language for our whole two years here, which is not standard
procedure across most PC programs. The volunteers are having a Halloween party
this weekend at one of the backpackers in town! I could not be more excited for
that! Then, beginning on Monday and continuing for ten days, I’ll be back at
Peace Corps’ training facility for In Service Training with all the other G12
volunteers. We’ll have more intensive siSwati lessons and be learning about the
grant/project funding processes available to us.
October disappeared entirely too quickly and my November
schedule is already filling up! By the time the holidays arrive and my six-months-in-Swaziland
mark is here, I’ll be off to Tofo, Mozambique with 15 other volunteers for a
weekend of music festivals, sun bathing, snorkeling, and ringing in 2015 on the
beach of the Indian Ocean! Sometimes I really have to stop everything and
recognize that this is my life now, and it’s so, so freaking cool.
A few people have been asking, with my birthday and
Christmas around the corner and shipping times being unpredictable (but
averaging 3-4 weeks) what I “need” sent to me. And to be honest, nothing I
truly need couldn’t be purchased right here in Swaziland. Some nice things to
get from home, though, include macaroni and cheese, Starbucks ground coffee,
scented candles, candy and other snacks, and random cute little things (see:
the aisle between the greeting cards and gift wrap at Target. I’m obsessed).
Sending checks/money here isn’t the best idea, because the banks suck and there
are like three fees involved in transferring currency. I do have a few trips
coming up though, and shipping real gifts to Swaziland is crazy expensive, so
if anyone is interested in going that route, getting the money into my American
account is easy and I am able to access it here. But I’m really not asking for
anything, people. I’m so incredibly content and have everything I need! This is
just the easiest place to get information to the most people who have been
asking these types of questions haha. I
love getting letters, and you may have noticed I have a special place for
sparkly cards by the door of my hut. Truly just knowing I’m being thought about
all the way on the other side of the world is a gift. I wouldn’t be getting
through this without all that support!
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