Initiation School

I was delighted to get to one of the ceremonies of the Maswati village initiation school.
It started with the slaughtering if a sheep (ugh!) – I think I got to see more than I wanted and the smell was unbelievable! Then it’s the women’s job to clean the intestines and fill it with left over meat to make sausages. The men butchered the rest of the sheep and started cooking it….
We spent the next few hours watching dancing, songs and story telling….. This was class!
The chief and the sangoma (traditional doctor) then brought us to the kraal (A resting place for animals and where the first and last parts of the school take place). Initiation school is not talked about and is a kind of taboo so to be able to go there and be told about it was impressive!
We met with boys who have graduated, as you can not see the boys who are in the school. This school is for males and females, and as a female we were only allowed to hear about there roll of girls, but we managed to get some info out of the lads after!
When we went back to the village it was time to eat. Seeing the sheep slaughtered and how it was cooked did nothing for my apatite!

Maputsoe

Here's a few sights I see everyday in Maputsoe.

IN KINGS PRESENTS

Me and Elena at the Kings house.

The King and his daughter.

The backdrop to the kings house....

No1. The Funeral
The queen’s grandmother died in May and on the 27th we attended her funeral here in Mapustoe in the present of the king.

No2. The Christening
Last Saturday we were honored to be invited to the christening of the next in line to the thrown. The kings first son Seeiso Seeiso. After we went to the king’s residences for a slap-up meal in his beautiful gardens. I got to meet and have a little chat with him. He’s a good looking man!

No3. The Castle
Wednesday is the day we have our formal reception in the palace……I’ll let you know how I get on.

Broken Bakkie

Oh I am so stupid sometimes…. I had to go up the north of the country last Wednesday so I took the mission’s bakkie (pick-up truck). After my day of touring I pulled into the local petrol station to fill up. I couldn’t get hold of Fr. Tim so I asked the guy at the pump if it took petrol or diesel – after a lot of smelling stuff he decided diesel. So 5 min later I found myself at the side of the road with a broken bakkie and no credit on my phone! This would have all been fine except it was getting dark (you don’t be outside in the dark in this country!) Just before I started panicking Bethanne phoned. She and Sarah B were running around trying to get credit for me and text me the number so I could send out a few SOS’s……….
Fr. Tim to the rescue…….we got towed to a garage which cleaned the engine and the bakkie was back to normal the very next day!

Durban

It wasn’t warm enough to swim but paddling was nice.

Well after waiting for our trip to Durban it finally came and went. We had such a blast. We got a little heat into our bones. Durban is a seaside city that has tropical weather all year round.

Pic915

We managed to stumble across ‘Africa day’ in the middle of the colonial area. There was music and people just enjoying the weather on there bank holiday weekend.

Durban has a big Indian influence – so to get the most of the city we went to the Indian market to browse, shop and haggle. We left at 5….after waiting and waiting for our taxi and being told that it wasn’t safe for us to be out; we were ushered by a friendly local in to the Cathedral. Being told again that it was not safe; we met a guy from the church youth group who brought us in to the priest’s house for safety while we waited for the slowest taxi. When our taxi finally arrived we were escorted out by body guard! It was exciting stuff – Durban is not a safe place to be after dark!

Knowing that the biggest shopping mall in the southern hemisphere was in Durban we had to see it – It was big. The problem with big malls is that you have to walk like miles to find what you want, it was a bit unproductive, but I did manage to buy a scarf!

The Aquarium was one of my highlights. It was massive and in an old ship. It took us most of the day to get around it and marvel at everything.

I got the chance to sample foods that I wouldn’t normally taste. First, sushi – which was horrible! We were in like the best sushi place in South Africa and I ended up having noodles and beef. I also had the Durban Indian specialty, bunny chow - half a loaf of bread scooped out and filled with curry. I think we all tasted dished that night that were too hot for us and it was glasses of milk all round (well to begin with!)
We managed to stumble across ‘Africa day’ in the middle of the colonial area. There was music and people just enjoying the weather on there bank holiday weekend.

After trying in vain to find live music we ended up in a rock bar that was having a fashion shoot for some magazine. I was hilarious to see the models pose and men wearing way too much make up…..as well as every male in the bar looking like they had reached heaven – Beer, music and the chance to oogle at 6ft models. Unfortunately we I didn’t get in the shoot but Bethanne should be getting a huge check some day soon for her the back of her head appearing in a picture!