From Swazi Hills Back to Judy's Costume Closet: And Everything In Between

Mozambique: Taking a ferry over to the beach.

I have been back with the red, white and blue for about 4 weeks now (pretend I am raising the roof)! Can you believe it?!? Although it hasn’t been that long since I left Swaziland, I feel like I’ve adjusted well to the American ways of life so far! Hopefully, besides retiring, this will be the only time I will be unemployed so I might as well enjoy it! Even though it is a little scary when looking at my student loans bills accruing, but being unemployed has its perks. I’ve learned some Taylor Swift and Sugarland songs on the guitar and I basically only have to shower and brush my teeth each day when it comes to getting ready because I have nowhere to go. Althoug, one day I was sick of looking like a teenager who just finished gym class, so I spent 30 minutes giving myself smokey eyes with my mom’s eye shadow and went to the grocery store…but I still wore jogging pants. You know it’s been a long day when your mom asks you, “What did you do today?” and you list flossing your teeth as an activity to make the list seem longer. Yikes, I really don’t know where my time goes. When I left Swaziland, we were having the longest days of summer full of hiking and swimming, but a month later I am sitting here in northwest Iowa confronting the shortest and coldest days of the year. That has been the hardest part of being back…the lack of motivation for human contact because that requires going out in the cold. I might as well be wearing an ankle bracelet because I rarely leave the house in this snowy weather anyways.


Our camp Leadership staff. Left to right: Nomcebo, Zandy, Ann, me, Justin, and Raps


Last month of my service in Swaziland was dedicated to coordinating all camp activities for 100 kids on behalf of Baylor Clinic.


Serving the kids their lunch. Squash, rice and chicken. Yum!

Last month was incredible! I explored and enjoyed the last days in Swaziland and tried to go out with a bang. After another amazing season of leading activities with Hole in the Wall camps in December for roughly 100 kids with HIV, I took a vacation to Mozambique…again. I LOVE that place. The beaches, the Portuguese, the cheap shopping…the city is alive and I spent hours walking around while my friends went to a wedding. Earlier that day we went searching for ice cream in the dead heat of the summer. To help you envision it, my shins were sweating drips. The coast gave us 110 degree weather. My two friends and I needed something cold so I navigated with the map. Soon a suspicious couple of boys followed closely behind us. I started to get a funny feeling. My friend Kim also sensed something was wrong, so she stopped to “fix” her shoe. The teenage boys slowly passed us. We saw one hiding something shiny under his handkerchief in right hand. There had been consistent traffic that day along the beach’s road for some reason, so I think they were scared to do anything until there weren’t any cars. Some trees were ahead of us on the path where the boys vanished into, so decided to hike up a hill to avoid a potential mugging. It was scary and the first time I really felt in danger there. Later when I checked the map, there was a message in the legend directed towards the area we found those boys, “Danger: Under no circumstances should you go in this area day or night.” Oops. The rest of the group didn’t find it as funny when I told him. haha We hid at a restaurant for a bit to get our pulses back to a reasonable speed. Hey, at least we still found an ice cream shop. :)


Christmas Eve at the Fishmarket!

On Christmas Eve I met two girls at the hostile I was staying at and I joined them for dinner at a fish market in a shady part of town. Now that sounds like Christmas Eve. They didn’t know my history with maps and although I was confident with my sense of direction in Mozambique’s capital, I did almost get us killed earlier that day when looking for ice cream. I got us there though…after dark, but I got us there! One lady was a recruiter from Penn State about 45 years old and the other was a Peace Corps Zambia volunteer in her 20’s passing through to meet her friends up north. It was fun and they were so sweet. The next morning, Christmas, I went to brush my teeth and once I arrived back at my bunk bed there was a pair of pants. I had admired a pair of pants the lady from Penn State was wearing at the fish market. They were these Egyptian looking pants with colorful embroidery that she found in Morocco. After only meeting me the day before, she decided to give me a Christmas present! That was one of the nicest things anyone has done for me during my time there. It ended up being a great Christmas and the thought of being back home in the US kept me going strong. We spent the day at the beach of the Indian Ocean on Christmas day. This was my 3rd consecutive Christmas on the sandy beaches of the ocean. It was a treat and I chased crabs.


Baywatch moves. Christmas Day at the Indian Ocean.

It was definitely hard to say goodbye to my host family after returning from my Christmas trip to Mozambique. I spent the last few days in Swaziland and went to see my host family the last full day before my flight. It was nice taking the rough rural public buses back to New Haven (my home for 2 ½ years) from the capital. I looked out of the windows and spoke SiSwati with people who sat next to me. I decided to enjoy the long ride down the dusty roads of rural Swaziland one last time. I saw friends from my host community on the bus and joked with the bus drivers who knew me by name now. “SIHLE (my Swazi name)!” they yelled as I got on the bus. A few of them in the past would always give me “a special price (wink)”, but they hadn’t seen me for a while. Of course, I always took the “special price”, however, I never asked what the wink meant. :) The bus conductors in general had scandalous reputations including alcohol and women. Some would have a girlfriend at each bus stop along the dirt roads from the beginning to the end of their bus routes. I wasn’t the only girl getting those “special prices” if you know what I mean (poking you with my elbow). haha Everyday they would be riding on those smelly crowded buses from morning to night. Occasionally, I would ride with them to go to the city to see other volunteers or get groceries. I knew the bus conductors well after living there for a while and although many had a bad rep, they always looked out for me, even if it was from each other. Haha They knew that I wasn’t about to be some Baby Mamma at bus stop number 7, so they started asking me questions about HIV and infidelity. I was able to talk to a lot of men on the bus. My last trip back home before my flight to the USA, a man who originally sat next to me to get my phone number eventually got a life lesson about self-control and being faithful. Little did he know. Haha He debated me and tried to get under my skin, but by the end of the trip I had won he started changing his mind. My final day in Swaziland and I tried a jump shot. It didn’t go in because of talent, because if you’ve seen me play basketball you would know that isn’t the case. It was because something greater took the ball that I was willing to shoot and dunked it in. “We wait for miracles, when we should be making them…Never think of one moment, one life, or one word as irrelevant when it comes to the value of another person. Use those uncertain moments.” Chasing Daylight. I will really miss Swaziland. Not only for the people I met there, but also for the times where God gave me courage to do things I didn’t think I could do and humbled me by using the same people I went to Swaziland to serve to be the ones to teach me new things about myself. The youth group I worked with in my community threw me a party right before I left to catch a bus. They gave me a gift, made speeches and the leader, my dear friend Nhlanhla (a Swazi version of Adam Sieff), drove me back half way across the country that evening so that I could catch transport back to my apartment in the capital. The next day I packed and spent time with my friends Zandy and Nomcebo. We had dinner together and wore some of the dresses and clothes I was leaving behind in a box for them. Zandy dropped me off at the bus rank to get on transport to bring me to the airport and a few of my close friends met me there and waited with me in the parking lot. When my bus drove off, they ran beside the vehicle until the intersection where the light went red. They started cheering and singing, “Ole, Ole, Ole, Ole!!! Ole! Ole!” on the corner and yelling my name. People on the bus laughed with me and thought my friends (the white foreigners jumping up and down) were clinically nuts. I met the most amazing people during my service there and just as much as I moved to Swaziland wanting to show people that I cared for them, they through love right back at me. I really can’t wait to continue those relationships living in Swaziland even while I’m back here moving on to my next chapter in my life.


Last day with my host family.


My good friends, Zandy and Nomcebo, hung out with me on my last night.


The youth group for church I worked with the past 2 1/2 years with 3 carved bowls they gave me as a going away present inscribed "Sihle", my Swazi name.

I had a layover in Cairo (before the riots) on my way back and stopped in New York before going home. My friend from that area offered me a place to sleep and to go see NYC for once. It was a perfect way to get back into America! My first day back on American soil in 30 months and I was giving credit checks to the Statue of Liberty and throwing diamonds in the air to my peeps in da’ Bronx! It was cold getting off the plane and we were the first flights allowed to land that day due to the snow storms. I saw Bryant Park, Jay Z’s projects, ate from hot dog vendors, made snow angels in Central Park (the cookie monster from Sesame Street was walking around and photo bombed one of my pictures!), and we went out for New Year’s Eve in new dresses from 5th Avenue. Unfortunately, we didn’t even make it to 11pm. Karla and I were fast asleep before midnight. It was still amazing and I loved the city. It was better than I ever thought and I’m excited for a round two someday. I kept singing Alicia Keys “Empire State of Mind” on the subway to Karla and she helped me learn the area by referencing places the Newsies talked about. I left New York that morning at 4am after a taxi driver picked me up at her apartment. He was really mad because I was quoted the wrong price when calling for a driver on the phone. The taxi place was run by an Italian mob according to my friend, so after the huge dude driving my taxi to the airport became really mad and started swearing at people over the phone I paid him the amount he. He didn’t necessarily deserve it, but it was a “thank you” for not trying to kill me or telling your cousin Vinny to take me down a dark alleyway. Once I landed in Sioux Falls that morning, I surprised my mom and dad (they thought I was coming the following day). They were staying in a hotel with the grandkids for New Year’s Day. After my sister went into the room I ran in and said, “Happy New Year’s, everybody!” They were still sleeping, so I started jumping on beds and running from room to room. My mom just screamed running around with me. It was so funny. My nieces and nephews hung on my back while I ran around. Once the excitement died down, I showered and went to my friend’s wedding. It was an eventful non-stop couple weeks from Mozambique to South Africa to New York to home sweet home.


New York Pizza!!

Besides going to my nieces and nephew’s basketball games, I have also found some fun time. My favorite. Last weekend we shot clay pigeons outside of town. Yeehaw! We were scolded by two cops within 20 minutes. Thank goodness, it wouldn’t be a family Schaap reunion without a police officer present, so I’m glad they could make it. :) I’ve also hung out with friends a little bit here and there. I’ve also…are you sitting down…been interviewed by the Primghar Belle. It’s no New York Times…yet…but it is front page news about my time in Swaziland. If you need a copy, you can give me a call and I’ll send you an autographed page.


New York City!

There have been moments where I feel like a lot of changes have happened within the people’s lives around me that I didn’t know about or I was told, but since I didn’t see it happen I couldn’t understand what the changes would really look like when I got back from overseas. A few changes is that there is a new sign near the windmill in my home town that welcomes Tulip Festival visitors, Subway apparently has breakfast now, my parents have a flatscreen TV and cable (Judy and Dar have gone wild!), my dad shaved his head, there is a Mexican restaurant downtown Orange City, Charlie Sheen has overdosed again, and I share my old bedroom with my mom’s old costumes. Yep, my mom has enough costumes to have its own room. Your mom didn’t turn your old nightstand to prop up her sombreros when you moved out of the house? I think we might be the only house in Orange City (perhaps the world), where you can go into a random closet and find German flashcards, a giant pair of clown underwear, a dated badminton set, and old camouflage hunting bow all on one shelf. Imagine what is on the other shelves…or don’t for your own sake. No one here, by the way, can speak German, but if we wanted to we have a box to get us started courtesy of 1972. I went looking for my winter jacket and I came out holding a plastic turd and jar of bubbles. Thanks, mom.


Back in America!


No time to be a lady! It's Central Park!

So what is the next adventure?? I am currently looking into school and I have applied at two places. The question is “where do I want to live?” and furthermore, “what…and where…and when do I want to study?” I’ve already applied to Tulane and I am going to continue applying to University of Chicago for their Master’s of Social Work programs. I also have been wavering between this and my other constant consideration, nursing. I’ve been trying to talk to people in both fields and finding the feasibility of doing both, so we will just have to wait and see what happens. Maybe I will just take over S&S Construction. Is that ok, dad? Running the dump truck can’t be that hard, right? One thing I’ve learned through everything is I can’t control plans anyways. Nurse? Social Worker? Renaissance clothing designer? “This realm of uncertainty is the place of miracles. Sometimes the miracle is wrapped around the person we become. The courage and nobility expressed through a life well lived.” Chasing Daylight


Hugging one of my good friends, Muhle, when he came to help work at camp.


My host family mother, Make Balesa. She gave me a grass mat she made as my going away present. This is her waiting with me to get picked up to leave.