Building a kitchen in Swaziland

As with moist projects in Africa, there is the "hurry up and wait method".  Having arrived at the project site in Shewula, Swaziland we discovered that there was no cement, even though it had been ordered and there were not enough bricks - welcome to Africa!  So, Bex, Kate and I drove to Cash Build to buy construction materials for a kitchen.  You can buy all the materials for a building in fell swoop, load it onto a lorry and ship it to where you are going to build.  So that is what we did.  Simple.

Matola, the builder, was there to give us direction for the building and we all got stuck into mixing the cement, which over the following eight days we became professionals at. It was hard work but in a week we saw the kitchen for the NCP building rise from it's foundations. 

The NCP (National Care Point) is a place for children to be looked after by volunteer women from the community during the day and a place to get fed at lunchtime - for some children this may be their only meal of the day.  Most of the children are AIDS orphans who are being looked after by extended family and can not afford to go school.

The project had been chosen by the committee as the most needed project for the community and we only realised the significance of this once we had got started. A number of people have been over to the building site to thank us for supporting them and yesterday we discovered that this was the last place in the whole community that needed a decent kitchen. The women had been cooking out of a shack that looked as if it was about to fall down.

The roof is now on the kitchen and the plastering has been completed along with setting the two very large and very heavy cauldrons into cement, suspended over a fireplace, and fitted by Domenica and Lexie.  Matola is pretty happy with the work that we are doing, although our plastering leaves a bit to be desired - chunks of wet cement having a tendency to fall off the wall!  Lydia and Jess have got that in order now.

On Sunday we all went to church with Nomsa and we were welcomed by the whole community. The girls sang a lovely song for the congregation and gave a short talk. The locals were surprised at their excellent harmonies, as was I and everyone shook hands with us at the end to show their appreciation.
We will be leaving the site tomorrow to let the plaster dry, but we will be back in a week to paint the building and for the opening ceremony which Ellen is organising - I suspect there will be a few songs by the children to organise.

Off to Hlane Royal National Park to track white rhino .... Another adventure in store for us all.

Bone Chewing Giraffe?

Mbuluzi Game Reserve in Swaziland, in my mind, is the one of the best places to see giraffe - up close and personal.  This is probably because I have spent many weeks tracking giraffe in the reserve and after a while I could identify each giraffe by its manner, who it was with and its individual markings.  I was amazed at how different each giraffe is in character, scratches and nicks as well as the colour variation.  There is one giraffe called Othello (right) who has the darkest colouration that I have ever seen in Africa, very nearly jet black. Astounding.

On the last Sense Africa trip we had a bizarre sighting.  Clarence and Clarabel, who are often found together, were standing around a zebra carcass and at first it looked like they were eating the bones.  Clarence had this enormous thigh bone in his mouth and was twirling it around with his black tongue, a bit like a majorette.  If he had swallowed it I wondered whether we would see the bone descend his neck in true cartoon style! Needless to say the bones were not consumed but they were licked, sucked and chewed, the bones being used like a giraffe lollipop. I had not seen behaviour like this before, but I suspect that they were getting extra nutrients from these bones.

Bone chewing giraffes - not seen every day, even on safari!