The Valley of Hope

Pictured is us standing outside our main project, the Valley of Hope School.

Sawubona!

It’s been an extremely busy week, and we’ve been getting down to some real hard graft, making friends with the kids at school, teaching, preparing our surprise for the kids, and most importantly working on our main project, the Valley of Hope School (VOH).

Monday was our first day on the projects, and we were all completely exhausted by the evening, but as we all agree, being tired is a sign of good work. We got really involved with the kids, making friends, playing games, and teaching them about Britain. We have been organising a show to do on Tuesday, and we’re all teaching our classes’ dances, songs and dramas to go in it. That’s also where our ‘little surprise’ comes in. Between working in the school and working on VOH, we have been working our little bodies hard learning traditional Swazi dances and songs to perform on our last day, Tuesday. They are very strenuous and tiring, but we have been told that the kids will love it.

In the afternoon, (After a tasty lunch and alot of hill-walking) we go over to VOH, and help prepare and clean it ready for the painting, which may start today. We’ve been planning a mural to go on one of the walls which will let us leave our mark, and help us to be remembered for years to come. The school is in surprisingly good condition, seeing as some of the classrooms have been left untouched for over forty years.

We’ve been falling into this schedule every day, but there is always something that changes, always something that goes wrong, or surprises us.

As Rose (Our group manager) says every morning, “Be flexible, be flexible, and be flexible”...

We couldn’t agree more!

On Monday night, we were all ready to leave the town as a bush fire, purposely started and used to fertilise the ground and remove the risk of a potential unexpected blaze, moved continually throughout the night across the border and towards Bulembu. The Bulembu fire-fighting team are used to handling situations like this and before we knew it, it was professionally diverted and successfully extinguished, but made for some great excitement!

We are continually amazed by all the people here, their faith, hard work and love for the world are helping them achieve a better country and better community. The guards for instance, are on patrol 18 hours at a time, and we have yet to see a single place un-watched by them. We’ve also been noticing ourselves becoming more grateful for everything we get. For instance, a ‘fatty’ (A little ball of oily bread made in the bakery) has become a choice treat, and we are willing to trek down the hills to go and buy them (Occasionally coming near to buying out the shop).

Our star spotting record is yet to be broken, as we have normally been sitting outside by the fire, as it is warmer than indoors, and far more beautiful. We continue to think of you, and have got a few shout-outs, as this blog is coming to you from The Clubhouse!

Sarah-Jane would like to wish a very Happy Birthday to her Granddad and Leo for today! And Alex would like to wish a Happy First Birthday to his Little Sister Emily for tomorrow!

That’s all for now from Swaziland, the next blog post will be on Friday!
Lots of love,

Team Bulembu