Meet the Fockers

WOW! It’s been so long! How are all of you? Just so you know you haven’t been forgotten and I hope you haven’t forgotten me- your good ol’ friend south of the Equator. I feel like I have neglected this blog the past two months, so I apoloize. When the supply is low, the demand is high. ☺ Thankfully, I did have some complaints which was kinda nice because now I know I wasn’t writing just to make myself think people wanted to read about my life. Haha Social ranking in this life relies heavily on whether or not you have a blog on the world wide web. I am proud to say that I will be able to write more regularly now that I have moved to closer to a computer! I have moved to the big city (Mbabane) to begin with Baylor as the Teen Club Support Group Coordinator. I’m overwhelmed by the conveniences of life in the capital and my regular showering habits. I’m clean! No longer is it like my host community in southern Swaziland having everyone eagerly greet me by name, children repeatedly yelling, “Ha whar uuu??” when walking past the school, and being allowed to go to the bathroom whenever I want. Apparently those rules don’t apply in the capital city and people get offended if you squat on their yard. Haha Just kidding. The truth is though, people don’t care as much when I arrive to the Baylor Clinic and the children in the city have better English than I do I’ve noticed. To both your and my surprise, I’ve been busy but it feels good to be back blogging to my homies back in the US.

Once I arrived from Lesotho over Easter, I got right into work. Lacey De Jager and Adam Sieff came to visit! Which having friends and family from back at home visit are one of the highlights of being here! Although it was nice to catch up a bit, we enjoyed our adventures that could only happen when the three of us unite. Let me brief you because we could talk about this vacation for days: Lacey was a champ. We went to Mozambique and made a lot of random friends. We hung out with a girl named Judith form Mexico City, chatted it up with some dudes from Chile and Argentina, drank out of of coconuts near the beach, bought jewelry from local markets, and hiked around the entire city of Maputo about 100 times. We were on a poor man’s budget so we ate our weight in local Mozambiquan bread and tuna packets she packed from home. Haha It was so fun. I had an event the first weekend Lacey came, so she helped me coordinate half of it. We held a career fair for all the youth in my area. It had its crazy moments (a lot of them actually), but at the end of the day the purpose of the event was met. It was a totally humbling experience. I know it would have not been of any success without the people praying for it constantly and having the amazing volunteers/friends helping out. Lacey took over the workshop part with my host aunt (Thobile) while I ran the other half. They were champs. 36 students and out out school youth from 8 local high schools within the area I live were able to learn how to write resumes, have successful interviews, and how to start their own businesses after/during school to generate income for their families. I invited a program called Juinor Achievement Program to facilitate the project and it went really well. The kids enjoyed the presentation and now have the information to begin business clubs within their schools to teach other students how to begin income generation. At the same time (poor planning maybe? Haha) I was coordinating a Future Planning Day for all the youth within a 15K radius. Eight high schools came throughout the day to participate and a lot of drop out/out of school youth that are unemployed came. Population Service International came to do HIV testing (which is difficult to test teenagers) for two hours for the youth who were sitting around. I gave incentives to get tested for HIV (Adam Sieff’s “Sieffstyle” CD) and everyone got a prize. 30 kids were tested and 10 kids were recruited for male circumcision, which helps reduce the chances of contracting HIV. It was so fun and God really showed himself during the constant challenges faced and overcome during the course of the day. ☺ Long story short, Lacey was really busy the entire time she was in Africa but she helped me in so many ways with all my projects and community work. I’m so thankful she came. She even helped me finish up the library we built in the high school. She wrote down book numbers and recorded everything for us to organize the room. When Adam came, we took on Swaziland to the max. We wanted him to see as much as possible. Our first night all together was a clear indication that our time together was going to awesome. Our backpackers didn’t pick us up and arranged another backpackers to collect us at 11:30pm from the airport with Adam and his stuff. Once someone picked us up finally, the 5 minute drive to the backpackers (across the road) became a two hour drive of confusion and madness. Welcome to Jo’burg, Adam. When we stopped at our 4th gas station to get directions (driver’s first night on the job) and so that he could have a cigarette, we couldn’t help but get excited for the remainder of our trip together knowing that our first 2 hours together had already been an adventure. Sieff gave a concert to the youth in my area, we walked around craft markets and the capital city, helped Sieff buy enough Bafana Bafana soccer jerseys to cloth South Africa, and we went to a game park with a small 70 year old Asian man named Lin we met when standing near a grocery store in Mbabane. Our time together was not a disappointment and I was so happy they could use their skills to help the youth in my area while they were around. Good friends.

We went to Durban two weeks ago for the Australia vs Germany World Cup game in South Africa! Six other friends and I went to the game over the weekend. It rocked! We watched England vs. USA on big screen while eating pizza downtown Durban, South Africa. It was awesome and the next day we went to our game in the stadium! We painted our faces and I made everyone wear a cape (because that’s normal). My friend, Hong, is so cool that she actually let me cut her hair so that I could give her a mohawk…that is fan dedication and one of the million reasons she is a hip hip lady. I jelled, spiked, and glittered her lovely very short locks until they could be considered a lethal weapon. As we got to the gate of the stadium and all my dreams came true, a news anchor from one of the South African news stations stopped me and my friends to get interviewed. It was hilarious and the viewers will not be disappointed. But than again, who has ever been disappointed talking to four strangers in body glitter and capes. I never have. I never have…(whispered). Haha

Now, I am working at Baylor Clinic in Mbabane. This is my first week here and I am temporarily living in an apartment with a nice 60 year old couple from Vermont. We call them "the Fockers"...but they don't know that. They are part of Peace Corps, but here just for a year working with the Ministry of Education. I am happy to be here, but miss my host community down in the south a lot. I miss having kids around and not being expected to have my clothes match. I guess its like they always say, “You don’t know what you had until its gone…” ☺ I look forward to visiting them once a month. The roomies I will live with in 2 weeks will be nothing short of amazing. I couldn’t have been paired with anyone better, one does Nelson Mandela impersonations and the other is a Canadian…enough said. I look forward to hearing from you guys too. I miss you guys and would love to hear what you’ve been up to. Take care. Love, Jaclyn.