You know you’re in Swaziland
when…
You live in a hut.
You become addicted to instant coffee.
You smash spiders on your face.
You name the longdrop the ‘green castle’ and weekly announce the Queen (whoever
spent the most time in there)
You live out in the middle of nowhere.
You see the most beautiful sunsets nightly.
You want to go to bed at 5pm when the sun sets… and get up at 5am when it
rises.
You walk miles and miles to get anywhere.
You look out of the hut and see gorgeous mountains.
You get used to hopping on a Kumbi and paying 70 cents to get to town 20 miles
away.
You fill up a bucket of cold water and dump it on your head and call It a
shower.
You fill up a bucket of cold water and dip your clothes it in and call it clean
laundry.
You fill up a bucket of cold water and dunk your plate in it and call it clean
dishes.
You realize the man you live with has beat up many robbers…
You plot which babies you are going to steal.
You hang out with a neighbor a few times only to find out he’s a National Swazi
Soccer player.
You’re told something is only 2 Kilometers away and then walk for hours and
hours.
You look forward to Monday because it’s Monday Funday.
You get told that a pair of earrings are 20 rand (2 USD) and tell them you’ll
take them for 10 rand.
You sit in a circle with your team and play music on the computer and get your
worship on.
You eat beans and rice, rice and avacado, rice and soup for the first week…
Then get super creative and forget the rice and have breakfast for dinner,
fajitas, pasta, etc.
You make homemade donuts with the most random ingredients.
You take a coconut cookie, a piece of dark chocolate and a strawberry
marshmellow and call it a S’more.
You purchase a coke for 20 cents.
You often step in cow poop, chicken poop…. or the occasional human poop.
You see grown men peeing on the side of the road no matter where you look.
You sweep out the hut daily to remove the sand, poop and rocks that you brought
in.
You sweep out your sunken mattress to get to sand out.
You brush your teeth every few days if your name is Gene Hughes. :))))
You nickname the locals because there is no way you’re going to pronounce their
names correctly.
You paint your nails to feel like a girl.
You daily talk about what happened in the green castle.
You pray with GoGo (our grandma) daily.
You catch the same stomach virus as GoGo and throw up at the same time.
You sweat by day and freeze by night.
You use your headlamp as a light so your teammates can sleep on the other side
of the hut.
You mix instant coffee, coco powder and cinnamon and call yourself a barista.
You make popcorn on the stove and watch Lion King just to say you did it in
Africa.
You all feel the presence of the Lord… and sometimes the presence of evil and
pray it out.
You get hit on by local men and tell them you’re married.
You buy an Avocado’s for 30 cents and make use of them at every meal.
You sit through 4 hour long church services.
You get sick… and the rest of your team gets sick.
You pay a friend to translate because it’s hard to spread the gospel without
it.
You ache for the starving babies you see.
You ache for the people at the Hope House waiting to die.
You feel the heaviness of loss just by driving by the cemetery.
You pray and they are answered immediately.
You cry out to the Lord and he immediately answers your prayers.
You see a woman dying of AIDS and have complete faith she will be healed.
You get righteously angry at the corrupt King and how Swaziland suffers.
You get chill bumps listening to the worship of Swazi’s who truly get it.
You laugh till you cry.
You cry so hard that you laugh.
You come expecting to impact a country but instead are impacted in bigger ways.
You come one person and leave the next.
You realize you’re just a sojourn in this world…
A traveler…
Here one day, gone the next.
Merely a tiny vapor… called to change the world.
And that is just a glimpse.
