Here is a video walk through of our new home. Just as a side note, don’t expect many more videos… it took almost two hours to upload this one and fortunately we found a loophole in our internet connection so we were not charged for the whole time.
My last blog post was from my kindle and was typed in the middle of night stuck in Newark airport due to a missed flight. At the time, things were still pretty up in the air, so I figured you would probably like to hear the rest of the story. If you follow my twitter feed (@kickert) you will least know we arrived in Africa, but getting there was interesting.
After missing our connection in Newark, I ended up staying up the entire night so Beth and Mikayla could catch some sleep while I watched our stuff. We basically took over a corner of the ticketing area and made a fort:
Part of the reason we stayed at the airport instead of getting a hotel (besides the fact Continental refused to help us cover the costs) is because our bags were at some indeterminate location: they came in on Continental, were supposed to go to Lufthansa on the connection, our rebooking was for an earlier Lufthansa flight, but it was being handled by United. With so many transitions we wanted to be able to physically see our bags to make sure they made it with us. That meant bugging the baggage agents every hour until they found our stuff. (On a side note, I have never encountered customer service employees as rude and unconcerned as the people at Continental in Newark. I could write a whole blog on that!)
Eventually they found our bags (actually I saw them rolling past on a luggage cart and recognized them and made them give them to me) so we could recheck in on our next flight. It was nice to have our luggage with us because we could get extra clothes out and have the peace of mind that it would probably make it on the plane with us, but it also meant we had to move it all around by ourselves on undersized baggage carts.
I felt pretty confident in my packing ability…
…until we found the cart couldn’t fit through the elevator door.
Once we changed terminals to check in, we found that Lufthansa did not open their ticketing counters until much later in the day. We were hoping to check in early so we could get rid of our luggage and then go back into the secure area, but no such luck. We were fortunate enough for Mikayla to find another small child to play with. That helped pass the time. I was also able to grab a 45 minute nap which was nice.
Eventually Lufthansa opened their counter and things seemed to be going well until they tried to charge us for our "extra" baggage. If you will remember, I was already upset because Lufthansa had promised 2 free bags, but Continental had charged us b/c they were the airline of origination. I flatly refused. Fortunately, we had a great agent who was very patient and realized the fee was a mistake due to the rebooking. In fact, she even went out of her way to let us pick our seats. We got seats right behind first class so we had extra legroom and no seats in front of us for Mikayla to kick. She even promised to try her best to improve our tickets on our final leg.
20 hours after we landed in Newark we were finally on our way to Germany (we were supposed to have a 2 hour layover). We were able to talk with the sisters and they were able to extend their stay in South Africa. I was also able to get in touch with my friend Ben in Frankfurt and he was able to rearrange his schedule to still meet us at the airport. Overall the flight across the Atlantic was uneventful and even a bit relaxing after what we had been through so far.
Upon landing, I decided to go ahead and get our boarding passes for our next flight before we left customs. That is when things started getting interesting again. It turns out that when we were rebooked, they had us listed as standby, but neither the rebooking agent, nor the Lufthansa agent mentioned that to us. Not only were we on standby, but the flight itself was overbooked. Frustrated, we walked away to try and figure out what we should do. I couldn’t imagine the sisters being excited about staying two days extra.
After thinking about things for a bit, I decided to go back to the Lufthansa agents to figure out my chances of getting off standby and actually on the flight. At least we could try and plan better if we knew how things might turn out. The agent told us that we had a slightly better than 50% chance of getting a seat. We took what we could get and headed through customs into Germany. Mikayla played at a playground in the terminal and we grabbed a quick snack to wait for Ben.
It was very cool to be able to catch up with him when he finally did arrive. It had been 13 years since I was in Germany visiting him, and almost 7 years since Beth was in the country visiting. At this point we were all in great need of a shower. Ben took us back to his apartment where we were able to freshen up and grab a bite of real food. Mikayla took a quick nap, but eventually we had to wake her up. She was so tired she fell asleep in the shower.
We then went back to Ben’s parents’ house. It was pretty cool to revisit the place I stayed for 3 weeks back when I was 16. Lots of memories came back that I had forgotten. The Dornhoffs are incredible hosts. We had coffee and cake and Ben’s mother played with Mikayla for quite a while.
We headed back to the airport to try and figure things out. We said bye to Ben and head through customs. We were told our best bet to get off standby was to be at the gate as early as possible, so we made sure we were there over 3 hours before the flight left. While that was probably good advice, it didn’t do us any good because the flight actually left an hour after we thought and the agents didn’t get to the gate until an hour and half before that.
By far, this was the most stressful part of the trip because we were in limbo not knowing if we were going to make it out of the country that day. You could say that the worst part was knowing that it could be worse. This was the only point of our entire journey where I was so anxious I needed to take a Xanax.
Once we did talk to an agent, we were told that even though we were first on standby, things were still not looking good. They didn’t tell us our chances, but by the way they were talking to us, I have a feeling we were below the 50% mark. The one comforting thing was knowing that if we did have to stay another night, at least we had people in the area who could pick us up and give us a place to stay.
Once people started loading the plane, we got more stressed out. Beth and I talked about our options and decided that if we could only get one ticket we all would stay, but if we could get two tickets only, Beth and Mikayla would fly out and I would follow the next day with the rest of our stuff and rent a car. We divided our stuff up so that could work if it needed to.
With about 10 minutes left before the plane was scheduled to leave the gate, the agents began looking to see if any of the standbyers could get on. With great relief, I heard my name called. We all got three tickets, but they were all separate. I told them there was no way Mikayla could be in a seat apart from us. They took our tickets and tried to work something out. The best they could do was get us all in the same section of the plane and hope something could work out. We took what we could and board the plane with all our stuff.
I am sure the people who had already boarded were not excited to see us come on dragging all our stuff and obviously holding up their departure. The flight attendants were able to get Mikayala and Beth together, but I was a couple seats over in a different row. That was fine by me… at least we were on the plane. But then, something really cool happened. The guy in the row with Beth and Mikayla heard what was happening and about our journey so far and offered to switch me seats. He traded a window seat for a center seat in the center section for an 11 hour flight. Let me tell you… that guy should be nominated for sainthood! It made the whole flight much easier with all three of us next to each other.
This last leg of our journey was great. The service was astounding, the food was great, and it was long enough that all of us could get some decent rest.
We landed in Jo-burg and made it through customs without any problem. Our luggage all arrived and the only problem we had was some of Beth’s mouthwash leaked. We met the sisters at the gate and were ready to leave.
The whole way to the vehicle you could tell the sisters were a bit nervous. They had been in South Africa long enough that they had their own luggage with them and they were afraid our stuff wouldn’t all fit. There was even talk of one of them catching a bus back to Swaziland. On any other trip, this would have been a concern to me, but after our journey so far, this seemed like a minor issue. I had actually already thought about this possible problem and thus had packed parachute cord so we could strap things to the roof. We packed what we could into the SUV and strapped one bag to the top. No worries at all.
The drive back to St. Phillips took about 6 hours, but was thankfully relatively uneventful. Sister Barbara was pulled over twice for speeding, but was able to sweet talk her way out of a ticket both times. The border crossing was easy and they didn’t even want to check our bags. Excellent!
We grabbed pizza on the way home, got back to the mission, unloaded our stuff and were finally able to breath easy.
From the time we left Bowling Green to the time we arrived at St. Phillips, our entire journey took 72 hours. By contrast, if our original flight had landed 15 minutes sooner, we would have only had a 48 hour trip, and if we had flown South African Air, it would have been a 35 hour trip.
I must say, in all of this, Mikayla was a super star. This trip could have been much worse if our toddler had chosen to be a brat, but the worst she got was the last 15 minutes of our flight when she decided to kick the seat of the guy in front of her. If that is all we have to deal with, I am super happy.
Our first night we headed to bed early. Mikayla got 15 hours of sleep and Beth and I got 12. Normally I would think jetlag would be an issue, but our trip was so crazy our bodies had no idea what time it was.
I will end this post with a touching note. Once we had everything unpacked and all our stuff figured out, I asked Mikayla where we were. I was hoping she would say "Africa" or "Swaziland" to show she understood that we had just made the transition we had been talking about, but what she said was even more significant.
"Mikayla, where are we?" I asked.
"Home" she said…. and she was right. After a month of being displaced and in crazy transition, we have found our new home… and things are great here.
Right now it is the calm before (in the midst?) of the storm. We leave Bowling Green in about 3 hours and family is scheduled to arrive any moment now. Last night we said our goodbyes to close friends and didn’t finish our packing until a few minutes ago. It has been a crazy few weeks. It would have been nice to have a few more hours or days, but we have been planning this transition for over 4 years now so I can’t really complain.
Mikayla is very excited about this departure. We have tried our best to prepare her and she certainly has a grasp of what is about to happen; but of course there is no way she can comprehend how much her life is about to change.
We have about 50 hours of traveling between Bowling Green, KY and St. Phillips Swaziland and that might be interesting with a toddler. The sisters are meeting us at the airport on Thursday morning and then we have a 5 hour drive to get there. It sounds like we will have some time to settle in, but there is so much to be done, I have a feeling I will jump in pretty quickly. It will be nice to have Beth at home to help get things in order.
Lots of thoughts going through my head now. We are certainly going to miss our friends and family, but I realize it is much different to live overseas now than it was even 5 years ago. We may not reliable internet, but things like Skype and Facebook will keep us connected when we have access to them.
It is at times like this that the title of my blog, "Dynamic yet consistent" takes special meaning. A whole lot has changed in our lives in the last 5-10 years, but looking back it is obvious that we have been moving in an intentional direction. And while today’s move is pretty substantial, it is simple another step towards where we have been heading for years. I am sure 5-10 years from now things will again look much different, but I am confident the movement will be consistent and for the better.
We will do our best to keep you posted.
Looking forward,
-bk
We are down to less than month before we depart for Swaziland and things have been alternating between hectic and laid back. One one hand we have a lot to get done before we leave, but on the other hand we have been able to enjoy some great relaxing time with friends and family. Here is our time frame:
June 27 – We want to be out of our house and have it completely prepped for our new renter. We are in the process of painting, cleaning, moving, etc. Lots to do in the short term to get that ready. On the plus side, we are very excited about the tenant who is moving in. Seems like a very nice guy who wants to stay a while. Great for both of us.
June 28 / 29 – Head to Somerset to spend some time with Beth’s family. We will see them again, but this will be our last formal trip that direction.
July 1-3 – Camping with Friends in the Big South Fork. Again, it won’t be our last time with them, but it will be the last big trip we take in the States for a while.
July 5ish – Catherine and Dave Altmaier are coming through town so we will get a chance to connect with them (Catherine was just in town for a couple days and it was great to catch up.)
July 14-17ish– Spend time with both sides of my family. First in Western Kentucky (and perhaps elsewhere) and then at Kentucky Lake with my Chicago family. We ended up pushing back our departure date to make sure we could see everyone.
July 18 – Casual day with friends. Basically we are planning on just relaxing and enjoying our time with friends the day before we leave.
July 19 – Departure at 5:00 from Nashville. We are planning on having our immediate family there for the final send off.
July 21 – Arrive is Swaziland.
As you can see, things are getting pretty tight. In all reality, the only days we have truly free between now and when we leave is the week and a half or so between the Altmaiers coming heading to spend time with our family. So… if you want to catch up with us before we leave, those are days to make it happen.
In other news, we were able to talk with the Sisters at Cabrini the other day and they are super excited to have us come. Should be a great environment to be moving into. Also, they informed us they will be upgrading our housing. The duplex we were slated to stay in would have been fine for us. The common areas were a bit small and it lacked a few amenities and was a bit rougher. But, the new place is excellent. A good bit more room (especially in the kitchen and living room), better yard / porch with great privacy and shade. It has ceiling fans and mango trees in the front yard. I have included a video a previous resident shot while he was staying there.
And then, totally unrelated… here is a picture of my always cute daughter:
I was able to put up a couple blog posts during my quick trip to Swaziland, but because of the lack of reliable internet, I couldn’t upload any media files. But rather than going back and "spicing up" the previous posts, I figured I would just throw everything into this new post. So here you go for your multi-sensory enjoyment:
Let’s start with some pictures. Most of these are pretty low quality because they were taken on either my cell phone or the video camera.
Airplane I flew in on
Dome of the church from the backside of the mission
(blurry) Swazi Sunrise
Posing with Janet, a pharmacy volunteer from Eastern Kentucky and one of the youth from the child care program
Two youth from the child care program. The dresses they are wearing were made by a church in Auburn Kentucky.
Several kids who live on the mission.
Mural on the side of one of the child care buildings painted a few months ago by Write on Africa.
A look at the agricultural fields on the mission.
A view of "Execution Rock" from a cafe in Mantenga
A little piece of Kentucky in the Ezulwini Valley.
I could think of a more appealing name for hair product.
A rare rain storm begins to roll in. Even though it was the "wet" season, it hadn’t rained in over a month before this.
While the rain made things green… it also made things pretty muddy.
A look at the village center several hours after the rain. It actually dries out really quick.
This is where the priest on the mission lives. You can see the residual mud from rain storm.
We actually had a second storm come through a few hours later, which I happened to get stuck in.
However, it was worth it to be able to see this rainbow over the mission.
Thanks to seatguru.com I was able to score the best seat in economy – extra leg room because of an access panel.
One of the cool experiences I had this week was attending mass at St. Philips church. It was all in siSwati, and despite a crowd of only about 100 people, the building resonated with the sound of the singing. Here is a brief audio clip I recorded:
You can download the audio only here.
Now let’s get to the videos. Here is some wildlife I fould on my porch. Just so you know this is a small one – I just happened to have my camera handy. Some of these on the mission are twice as large.
Speaking of our porch, one of the great things about taking this trip was I had the opportunity to stay in the duplex where we will be living in July. Here is a video of the house to give you a feel for what our living arrangement will be like:
Finally, I wanted to end with a short panoramic video from the center of the mission. You can’t see many of the important buildings (such as the clinic, high school, hostel, offices, etc.) but you do get a feel for the place.
I am sitting on the couch in what will be our new Swazi residence come July. It is a humble duplex-style place: tile floors, two bedrooms, a small kitchen, and a bathroom with a shower stall. Nothing fancy and maybe 700 square feet (at the most). But, it is comfortable and I already feel at home here. I am scheduled to fly back to the states later today after a bit over a week of working with Cabrini Ministries doing some long-range planning, problem solving and networking. And while it was great to get some work done and to prepare a few things for our move, the most important part of my time has been the feeling.
If nothing else, spending a week at Cabrini, working in the bush of Swaziland, has given me a feel for what to expect. Obviously it is just a glimpse and I am sure there will be many “surprises” in store for us. But, just experiencing these things helps us to plan for the transition. This week I experienced:
While in my current life in the States, I may experience one or two of those things in a year, having them all come at once didn’t bother me. All of the difficulties were overshadowed by the other things I experienced:
We certainly have a lot to learn and the transition is going to be tough; but, after spending a week here I am more confident in our decision than ever before. July will come quick and I am certainly looking forward to it.
I was able to get most of my "firsts" taken care of during our last trip to Swaziland: first time to Africa, first time driving on left side of the road, seeing my first zebra and croc, first time eating impala and warthog, etc. Even still, there have been plenty of new "firsts" for me this trip:
First Black Mamba Sighting – The Black Mamba is the fastest snake and can kill a full grown human in less than hour. Thankfully the one I saw was from the safety of the car and it was a small one. Mambas are the most common snake in Swaziland – luckily they tend to avoid confrontation.
First Swazi Funeral – Unfortunately one of our staff members had his mother pass away this week. We didn’t stay for the whole funeral, but we did attend part of it (similar to visitation/wake in the States). Very humbling.
First time picking Tabasco chilies – Cabrini raises chili peppers that are then sold to Tabasco. On Saturday morning we headed out early with the children at the hostel to help with the harvest.
First siSwati Mass – On Sunday, we went to the traditional service at the mission. It is entirely in siSwati, but was still very meaningful. The dome structure of the church makes for excellent acoustics. The sound of the singing will stick with me for a long time.
First housing contract that included the phrase "Concubines are strictly discouraged." – While it may seem very unusual to us, this is actually an issue in Swaziland where many people still practice polygamy.
First food delivery in the bush – On Tuesday we had some gogos (grandmothers) come asking for assistance. These women could hardly walk, but made it all the way to the mission (probably a 15km trip). We took them back home along with some World Food Program provisions.
First time watching cricket match (on TV) – Not only did I watch, but I actually learned to enjoy it. In case you didn’t know, cricket is a pretty big deal in a large part of the world. This week the ICC World Cup is taking place (it only occurs every 4 years). The Aussie volunteer I was staying with is a huge fan and took the time to explain the basics to me.
First time hanging clothes to dry – Here at Cabrini they have washers, but not dryers. With the heat and dryness here most of the year, clothes dry extremely quickly. Surprisingly, I have never really had to hang dry my clothes until this trip.
First Swazi thunderstorm / power outage – On Tuesday night, after a week of hot dry weather, we had a heck of a storm roll through. We got at least 3 hours of heavy rain and an amazing light show for a good hour. We also lost power. Things are pretty simply here so lack of power is not a big deal – people manage – but it did mean no fans and no water.
The next day I got stuck in an afternoon storm and ended up spending about 45 minutes in the local marketplace. After the rain subsided, there was a beautiful rainbow over the mission.
First time watching Al Jezeera – After Al Jezeera released tapes for Osama Bin Laden in 2001, I had always assumed they were a radical fringe new agency. Not the case at all. Of all the news outlets available here (CNN, FOX, BBC, SKY, etc.), Al Jezeera is the most professional and provides the best "hard" news coverage.
It is early Friday morning here in Swaziland. I am still a bit jetlagged from the trip over here and figured rather than fighting sleep, I would get up and be productive by writing a quick update.
Being back in Swaziland is a unique feeling because even though it is very foreign compared in my daily life in the US (especially here in the bush), it feels very familiar.
My travels over here were thankfully uneventful. My plane got delayed in Nashville, but I had a long layover in DC and it didn’t cause a problem. The flight from DC to Johannesburg (via Dakar) seemed to go by quicker this time, even though we had a backup plane without all the in-flight entertainment systems. I had a reserved a seat with extra leg room, but because of the plane change, it didn’t work out. Luckily, the seat next to me was vacant so I could spread out a bit more.
Once I got to Jo-burg I spent the evening in a guesthouse right near the airport and it worked out great. Unfortunately, even though I had a 13 hour layover, I still was only able to catch a few hours of sleep because of the jetlag and an early morning flight. I was surprised how easy it was to get through customs and airport security in Africa compared to the states. One of the security agents actually got frustrated with me because I was taking off my belt and watch – he insisted I just go on through. The flight from Jo-burg to Manzini was incredibly short (35 minutes in the air) and has me rethinking whether its worth it to drive that last leg when we come in July or if we should just bite the bullet and fly.
When I arrived in Swaziland the customs agent gave me a hard time for bringing in 50 pounds of children’s underwear. They wanted to charge me duty on it, but luckily after I filled out the forms they just waived me through and forgot about the whole thing. I was then met by a nurse who is currently volunteering at Cabrini. Besides just coming into town to pick me up (its a 1.5 hour drive to Manzini and 2 hours to Mbabane), she also had to get her visa renewed. So, we went to one of the government building to see an immigration agent. All I can say is that if you think there is crazy bureaucracy and inefficiencies in American government… you haven’t seen anything. After waiting nearly an hour, the nurse I was with was told she couldn’t have her visa renewed in town, and instead would have to cross the border and return to get it updated.
Because I didn’t want to risk having my luggage go through customs again and because I didn’t want to have more pages in my passport taken up, I asked to be dropped off. Luckily I was able to reconnect with Jon Skinner, one of the guys we met with last trip, and he went out of his way to give me a place to hang out while the nurse crossed the border.
On the way back to St. Phillips we picked up one of the ladies who works in the office and took care of a few errands. Then, on the last stretch of dirt road we ran into Sister Barbara who was heading into town. She is one of the nuns in charge of Cabrini Ministries, and I had actually yet to meet her. Unfortunately she was in a hurry and needed the vehicle we were driving. So, after a few quick greetings, we exchanged the plush SUV we were in for a small truck. Because of space limitations, I ended up riding in the back.
The whole journey from Bowling Green to Cabrini encompassed about 48 hours of travel! Thankfully we had a pretty open schedule when I arrived because jetlag hit me hard. I ended up going about 56 hours straight on less than 4 hours of sleep. The only major thing we had besides a quick orientation was a 2 hour discussion with one of the community elders about the history of Cabrini, Swaziland and local customs. It was very fascinating, but I felt horrible because it was all I could do to not nod off. That night we ate an excellent curry meal and I retired to bed early.
Thursday was my first full day at Cabrini and up until that point I still didn’t have a great idea of what exactly I was doing in Swaziland. It is not because things are disorganized, instead it is that so much is going on, there isn’t always time to explain everything. Turns out my big task here this week is to figure out how we are going to handle the finances of Cabrini once our accountant leaves. Looks like we will have two office workers handling the day-to-day transactions and another professional accountant in Australia who will handle the technical stuff. I will probably end up serving as the liaison and keeping an eye on the big picture – but, we won’t know the specifics until later in the week.
Most of my day on Thursday was actually spent working on an upcoming grant application through Health and Human Services and the Center for Disease Control. Basically we have less than a week to turn around this application for $50,000. The rest of the office staff had a board meeting to attend to, so they left me and the accountant from Australlia to figure out the grant on our own. It was certainly a "baptism by fire" sort of thing as we wrote up a narrative and budget for a program that neither of us fully understand. We will find out today how far off we were. Either was helpful because it forced us to work through many old proposals that gave us a good feel for what was currently going on and for the direction we are trying to expand into.
Today we will heading into the two largest cities (Mbabane and Manzini) to meet with some of our supporters. Should be a good trip. I am looking forward to meeting up with Todd Malone from PACT again. Todd is actually the guy who convinced us to go visit Cabrini and had lots of solid advice on working through our move. Saturday is set aside as more of relaxing day and I am not sure what Sunday has for us. Starting Monday, we will really hit the finances hard and work on a transition plan.
As I am wrapping up this post, I wanted to give you a quick note about communication. Right now I have my swazi cell phone (268 7683 3330), but service has been intermitted. Beth has only been able to reach me on my phone once out of probably 20 attempts and text messages are not going through. I can call out, but it costs me about $1.00 a minute. Also, my plans to limited access to internet have fallen through. The 3G USB modem I have works fine, but I have not been able to get my SIM card approved for data usage. Hopefully that will get worked out soon, but for now I don’t have access to internet. (I am writing this post in advance hoping we find some wireless that I can use and post it).
I will try and keep you posted as things unfold, but realistically, my communication abilities are much more limited than I expected.
Cheers,
-bk
Election night in America has come and gone and while all the results are not yet in, the picture is pretty obvious. The GOP handily captured the House while the Dems barely kept the Senate.
I am not angry, frustrated, disappointed or surprised. It is what it is. While my politics generally lean towards the progressive side of things on most issues, I have been just as frustrated with congress as many of my conservative friends have been. I even support many tea-party back ideals: more personal freedom, less involvement in international conflicts, balanced budgets, term limits, etc. Of course there are still many ideals I hold that would make a tea-partier cringe: strict oversight of corporations, universal healthcare, social welfare programs, international aid, etc.
The peaceful transition of government through national elections is one aspect of American life that I am deeply proud of. That is why I am not angry about the results. The American people have spoken, and our government will change because of it.
What worries me is that if were gridlocked with a single party in control, then what is going to happen with a split congress? I certainly hope that it forces us to re-engage in meaningful political discourse and compromise. However, I fear it is just as likely to launch us into increased (and more bitter) partisan wrangling, hyperbole and demonization of "the other guys." Only time will tell which direction we go as a nation.
It has been interesting to go through this polarized political season while also preparing to move to Swaziland. You see, in Swaziland political parties are outlawed. The idea is that if people were allowed to organize into political parties then they would refuse to work with people in competing parties. 5 years ago I would have called that position completely irrational. Our history has shown that in most cases people of competing political ideologies can co-exist, work together, and even be friends. (In my own life I have close personal friends that are Republicans, Democrats, socialists, libertarians, neo-cons, anarchists, communists and even monarchists and my life is better because of it). However, I think that as a nation we have regressed in the last two years when it comes to political discourse; it is harder and harder for people to be understood on their own terms without their political affiliation short-circuiting things to assumptions and hyperbole. I am not going to point fingers, but it is disappointing.
In many ways I am really looking forward to moving to a country where political parties don’t officially exist, where there is no 24-hour news cycle, and where pundits aren’t making a living mixing politics / entertainment / ratings / stereotypes / etc. Of course every system has its issue, but it might be refreshing to deal with a King for a while instead of this crap we have endured this election cycle.
It is what it is…
Last week I shared with you that after nearly 3 years of research and planning, Beth and I accepted a position at Cabrini Ministries in Swaziland. While we are very confident in our decision, we would remiss if we did not mention that there are countless other great organizations in Swaziland all doing great work. I wanted to list a few of them in hopes that our research can be helpful to others who may make a similar journey:
In addition to the groups we visited there are several other organizations that are active and highly regarded in Swaziland:
There are probably another 20-30 organizations that we either researched or communicated with in preparation for our trip. Just because they are not listed here does not mean they are not doing good work; many did work outside our skill set or were unreachable by email.
If you found this blog post while researching organizations in Swaziland, please feel free to contact me if you have any questions: ben.kickert@gmail.com