Sawubona/Hello from Mbabane in the beautiful Kingdom of Eswatini!
It was a lengthy 41 hours of travel to finally arrive but the journey has been well worth it so far. “Winter” may be on its way but I’ve been in Eswatini for just under two weeks and I have zero complaints.
Things have settled in quite nicely, much of which can be attributed to the very friendly owners of Red Berry Bed and Breakfast, Janice and Derek, and of course the welcoming staff at the Eswatini Olympic and Commonwealth Games Association (EOCGA). I’m looking forward to continuing to get to know everyone here and early returns suggest enjoyable experiences await working alongside my new colleagues.
The majority of my time so far has been spent in the EOCGA administration office and much of our work has been focused on the planning for our Olympic Day event taking place a little over a month from now. This has included some budgeting, ordering items for giveaways and sending out letters to potential sponsors.
Along with the work, it didn’t take long for the staff to assign me my own siSwati name as apart of the welcoming process. They settled on “Musa”, which translates to mercy.
In addition to our Olympic Day planning, I’ve been assisting in charting some athlete competition results so that athletes will be able to easily track their progress over the course of their training. I’ve also been evaluating the EOCGA website and making some updates, we’ll hopefully have some changes to its layout soon.
Most notably, this past weekend my colleagues and I had the opportunity to set up an anti-doping information tent at the Athletic Association of Swaziland National Championships in Manzini. The host facility was excellent, and it was great to see the events up close while helping promote fair competition and the Olympic values.
That’s all for now from Eswatini, I can’t wait to update you on whatever comes next! In the meantime, I’m looking forward to the famous Bushfire music festival this weekend.
Until next time,
Brendan aka Musa