swaziland: lotsa pics, lotsa rambling...

After a very lovely dinner with friends in Joburg and a few more glasses of wine than was necessarily clever and a pre-dawn departure via airport shuttle and a terrible latte at OR Tambo Int and the very disappointing discovery that all the duty-free shops were still closed at that time, I wasn't in the strongest frame of mind to be confronted with this:

Um... that's not really the 30 seater propeller plane I'm getting onto right? Not really...?

But it seems it was, and after a remarkably smooth flight in which I got my head straight and made lots of notes and drank lots of water, I felt remarkably refreshed and rearing (raring?) to go by the time we landed in Swaziland.

The MSF offices are in a house in one of the out-lying suburbs of Mbabane. A gorgeous setting to work from.

See that pine tree in the fore-ground? A couple of weeks ago it was struck by lightening. Literally. And not just the top of the tree - like this:

Ka-pow!!! The wood shrapnel broke all the windows of the closest office, and the occupant (who'd been bombed before in an MSF office somewhere else in the world and said it was exactly the same) narrowly missed serious injury. And scored a great excuse for late responses to a bunch of emails (mine included), the strike blew all their telephone lines for days.

The view from the office....

And an illustration (on the main high-way) of how much work needs to be done in the HIV/AIDS field in terms of education and awareness and fighting stigmatisation...

The country was gorgeously green and lush, very unlike last time I was there which was in winter (it's a summer rainfall region). The bluest blue skies, little puffy white clouds and air so delicious and warm and soft you feel like you're breathing in some kind of youth elixir.

It was strange being back after 14 years, when I was here last I'd just finished high-school, just gotten my driver's licence and was in the heady thrill of leaving home for the first time.

Back then my cousin and I rumbled around these roads in an old farm truck, keeping our eyes peeled for stray goats (and kinda for chickens, but those goats could do a whole lot more damage!) and often singing Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of our lungs. Not sure why, does being young and free seem like a good enough reason?

A far cry from this visit, in which I whizzed around visiting venues and meeting people in the Swazi Health Ministry and generally being very busy and important. As us International Expert Consultants are wont to do you understand...

I illicitly smuggled 2 delicious Swazi mangoes back into SA, and last night left the packaging on the kitchen table to trick Husband into thinking I'd brought back a parcel... 

I inadvertently tried to bring in a banana too (it was leftover in my backpack) and had an embarrassing incident at OR Tambo when the sweetest looking beagle hound was getting really friendly and I was rubbing his jowls and making stupid whosealickledoggiewoggie noises, until a beefy security lady appeared and demanded to know what I had in my bag that her highly trained sniffer doggiewoggie was smelling, hence his interest in me.

Obviously I immediately felt as if I was smuggling heroin.... stuttering and stammering about bananas and having low blood sugar and needing a snack. I'm sure she realised straight away from my general geekiness that I clearly wasn't an international drug smuggler!

And lastly, the perils of not unpacking one's suitcase immediately upon arrival home, is always this... a little ginger cat who dreams of travelling to distant climes...

And the little pink wheel in the corner of the pic? It belongs to the wildly successful gift Frieda received from her Ouma the day I left, a little dolly pram complete with insipid blonde dolly. Seems it was a more than adequate replacement for her beloved mama, and is definitely topping the charts for Number 1 gift of 2008!