Author: Emily
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Volunteering Looks like Coffee on an XL Yellow Shirt
“At least we’re late together!” My khumbi had been late getting to Durban – two bomake had to get off the khumbi after a fight over the ownership of a bag – and my taxi driver kind of understood where I needed to go but not really. I had remembered my passport, so that was…
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Half the City
Knee to sweaty knee with two of my best friends here, our khumbi swung around the highway towards the Umhlanga resorts and we got our first view of the sea – and, like the first time I saw the Indian Ocean, I got emotional. Whitecaps and tankers and sand, and, growing slowly larger, the skyscrapers…
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Learning Curve
The first day of school was always one of my favorite days of the year. New backpacks filled with new clean notebooks, six pencils ready to go, schedule in hand, and it was another year for new friendships, new books, new everything. The first days of school in Swaziland have looked nothing like my autumnal…
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Catch-Up
Outside of the Pick ‘n Pay grocery store in the Mbabane mall, there is a whole row of Christmas trees, drenched in fake snow and trinkets, right next to a bunch of reindeer, who are themselves right next to a Santa Clause, in Bermuda shorts, playing a guitar. The oddity of it all, especially as…
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#projectGirl
We asked girls across Swaziland — and across the world! — what made them proud to be girls. These are some of their responses. Want to contribute? Send your own photo to dayofthegirlswaziland@gmail.com
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Four Months Late, Hello
Nothing happens when you expect it to here. Swaziland has, among many other fascinating and colorful cultural traditions, a very different concept of time. A very forgiving concept of time. This was actually a training point for us during our first three months – Swazis, generally speaking, do not do punctuality. A meeting at 10…
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TL;DR — France Gives You a Lot of Vacation Time
To begin, the usual disclaimer: I am pretty terrible at keeping up with this blog. (Sorry, Grandma.) I would say it’s because nothing happens in this sleepy little town, though that’s not true — small wonders every day, new discoveries of flower-covered paths, lots of cow-spottings, late nights with Leffe in friends’ apartments where everyone…
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I Went on Vacation
My left leg is bruised, in four places. The first is from a graceful trip over my computer cord; the second, from an even more graceful encounter with a chair; and the third and fourth from the rhythm of a very heavy bag (but less than 20kg!) that broke blood vessels from Clamecy to Paris…
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In Brief
I never, ever, ever want to introduce myself again. Yesterday was my first day of classes (forREAL classes) and after going to four classes last Wednesday and another five yesterday, I was really itching to say “Yes hello my name is Heidi yes I’m from Germany ja, never been to the USA” because after my…
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Flea-Whisperer
Every day at around noon, the bell on the church tower five houses away from mine chimes, regally, elegantly, comfortingly. Every morning I get up and make myself a huge cup of instant coffee, not because I need the caffeine (for all the nothing I have to do), and I eat a bruised apple because…
Emily Wolfteich 