By Mitch McSweeney:
Aloha – no, wait, that’s not right – Sawubona!
Ligama lami ngingu Mitch (My name is Mitch) and I am the other SportWORKS Officer in Swaziland along with Jenna. We have been here for just about two weeks up to this point, and I can hardly describe everything we have done, or even come close to describing the fascinating lifestyle of Swaziland, but I shall try my best here.
Upon arrival in Swaziland, Jenna and I were welcomed by two Swazis who work at the Olympafrica Centre (OAC) in Lobamba, and were shown different areas of Swaziland, including the Swaziland Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association offices, as well as Bombaso’s Backpackers, which is where we will be staying for the four months we’re here. Work has begun to pick up as we are now somewhat settled in and have been given specific tasks, and I have had the opportunity of visiting the OAC for a few days as part of my internship. While at the OAC, I traveled to different communities with Bandili to hand out forms, visited schools to speak with teachers and youth for an upcoming Futbolnet tournament, and also played various new sports such as netball (like basketball), woodball (like golf), and football-volleyball-tennis, which I was absolutely terrible at.
In non-work related news, we have done a bunch of stuff, including: taking the Combi (which is a mini-bus) to work and to other places; hiked up Mount Sibebe, which took four hours and was probably the most adventurous thing I’ve done in my life; bought tickets for an extremely popular African music festival called “Bushfire”, which everyone, including our supervisor, has told us to go to; been learning siSwati, which most people talk here along with English; and of course, tried Swaziland beer and wine, with Sibebe (a locally crafted Swazi beer) being a favourite of mine thus far. We’ve also tried some Swazi food, which is super tasty, and actually tried a really good type of sausage (a type of braai) today at work – which was bekumunandzi (delicious).
That’s it for now, but I’ll be posting about this adventure regularly, and most definitely will after the Bushfire festival.
Ube nelilanga lelihle wena sala kahle! (Have a nice day and goodbye!)
Mitch