WHACK THE MOLE AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT
In the last newsletter I mentioned Mfundo Khanyile, who had is questions about how scientists know the sun stands 150 million kilometers distant. More recently Mfundo's class began investigating mirrors. We talked about how the image in a mirror is the same shape as the object, how the image is laterally inverted (the left side of the object looks like the right side in the mirror), etc. I also gave them a fun mirror game: during a lunch break on a sunny day, take a palm-sized piece of mirror in hand and stand a long distance away from a group of students. Then, surreptitiously open your hand and reflect a brilliantly-bright spot into the eyes of a fellow student. The unwitting student "standing in the limelight" will cover their eyes and look for the source of the light. Then, close your palm again and look away. After a minute, choose another target and repeat. I learned this trick from students in Mississippi.

I had a bathroom mirror with me this day, and after the lesson passed by this classroom on the outside. The sun shone brightly, and so I "practiced what I preached" by reflecting a not-palm-sized light into that class. Of course some students saw the bright spot on the wall and stood up to see where it came from. They got it in the eyes. When they sat down with stinging eyes, other students wanted to know what was going on, so they stood up (this was between classes, so I didn't disturb any colleagues' teaching) and looked out the window. I directed my spot at them next. We continued our game for about half a minute. It reminded me of my mom's favorite amusement park game, where mechanical moles randomly pop out of 5 or 6 holes on the playing surface and the player gets points for whacking them with a big foam mallet. The difference was my students were flashing their wonderful smiles and laughing all the time. I laughed too.

WHAT'S IN A NAME, THE SEQUEL
My desk sits beside Stan Mamba's, the SiSwati teacher. He recently showed me a student's test paper. "Hey, Sg'coko (my nickname), look at this. This question asked the students to name a word from another language which has been adapted into SiSwati. This student wrote 'poglishi'". How about that; we will have left a language legacy here in Dlangeni. I wonder what "poglishi" means to the students.

LIVE WIRE
A couple Friday's ago, the same Stan Mamba and I set out to splice an electrical cable which a student had inadvertently chopped while tilling some soil. We could not locate the key to the room to make sure the power was turned off, so we gingerly touched the cut ends together to see if they sparked. No spark, no problem, so we drew out my decade-old electrical tools and proceeded with the splice. After the repair we tucked the wire away beneath a line of concrete blocks so that it won't get cut again.

Later, Stan told me that students found the switch controlling power to that cord in the "on" position. Either another problem exists along that line, or we were just lucky not to get a 220 volt zap on this job.

EASTER TRIDUUM
Last Friday, April 6th, we boarded Shining Star bus to Mbabane to celebrate the Easter weekend ("Triduum" refers to Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday). We had the treat of having Yenzile with us on this trip, as she would otherwise have been at the school with no other children around (most people go to their home or church for Easter weekend; Yenzie's family was not going anywhere, so we asked her parents if we could take her with us, and they agreed). We had a great few days. The nuns in Mbabane let us stay in the small accommodation beneath the chapel, so lodging was free and close to the church. The girls got to spend 6 hours in 2 days at the park, a place where they love to play but which they almost never visit for that length of time due to logistical constraints on most trips to the capital. And the girls got three consecutive slumber parties with Yenzie, a treat beyond compare.

The high point for me was Saturday night, the occasion of the 4-hour Easter vigil. We put all the girls to sleep before the 8PM Mass began, and I checked on them once during the service. I found them all asleep when I looked in on them. Ruth and I enjoyed the alternately solemn and exuberant service summarizing salvation history, from Creation to the Resurrection. When Ruth and I came back around midnight, they were all up. "We've been partying!" shouted a smiling Kit. Turns out Grace got violently ill after I checked on them, and Jabu got to shouting for some reason. The girls were excited to tell us how it all happened, and after an hour they were all happily sleeping again. Easter Sunday at the park was, however, a lot calmer than the day before; they were some tired girls after their "party".

SET 'EM UP, KNOCK 'EM DOWN-HOW TO DISPATCH CROP PESTS
This week the water went out. It's been a long time, and I must admit I was excited "to go to the mountain" (as Mamba puts it) to set things right. Mbuyiseni Gama, the school groundskeeper, came along. The fix was routine and easy; within a few hours we had water in the taps again.

Such occasions provide opportunities to share stories from our respective lives. Mbuyiseni described how to dispatch monkeys raiding a corn field. Turns out monkeys are smarter than your average crop pest; they will set a "lookout man" to make sure the coast is clear, while the other simians steal the crop. Mbuyiseni said that if you manage to shoot, with your first shot, that lookout monkey, the others will return to their recently-deceased colleague for some reason. You then get to dispatch the rest of the troupe, like ducks in a shooting gallery. We all laughed and wondered aloud what would happen if Mbuyiseni had one of the rapid-fire shotguns the security guys transporting large amounts of cash in Mbabane carry. He quickly explained that he does not roam the countryside looking for animals to kill, but only shoots to protect his produce. Fair enough.

AJ PLAYS DLANGENI
On this same trip Mamba's truck radio was set to the Swaziland Broadcasting Service; we caught the mid-morning show, which carries American country-western music. It's been nearly a decade since I heard Alan Jackson's song "Chattahootchie" (my apologies to CW fans if I misspelled that), but I heard it today. Fixing the water on a sunny day in the country with AJ on the soundtrack was a perfect fit. I learned a country line-dance to this song in early 1994, just after I returned to the States from Swaziland after my Peace Corps experience. Which brings us to our next subject.

TRANSITION (by Ruth)
Dear Friends and Family,

We have an important decision to share with you. We moved to Swaziland in January 2003; January 2013 will see us moving back to the US. This has been a challenging decision to make. Rudy has lived in Swaziland longer than any other place in his life. This is the only life that our girls have known. The weather here is probably some of the best on the planet. We are surrounded by a lovely natural environment. We will be leaving good friends. We will be leaving a lifestyle that has been supportive of good family relations and a non-materialistic focus.

When we first came, we planned for Rudy to teach for 3-5 years and then move into something else. Rudy's heart hasn't been in teaching for awhile. In this context, a classroom education has very little value for most of the young people at our school. If one Nsukumbili graduate gets into the university it is a good year for the school. For the rest, knowing how a blast furnace operates and how to test for the presence of carbon dioxide is not too relevant. At one point we seriously considered trying to switch to working for an NGO doing agricultural work in this area. We were wisely counseled to start doing something small while employed, to test the waters and to wait until our children were older. We tested the waters and realized that most people in this community are primarily focused on other tasks and only do agriculture when other more important tasks are finished. Agriculture ranks even with washing the dishes on the interest scale, and for good reasons. Good agriculture demands good fencing, water, labor, and inputs. Those things are in short supply at most homesteads. People would much rather look for paid employment than try to make a living off their land, and for many people that makes good economic sense.

In the meantime, my health has deteriorated. I am extremely allergic to things and have developed asthma (which is common for people who move here). Our GP, Doctor Wasswa, has said that because of the irritation to my lungs from the asthma, I need to go on antibiotics every time I catch a cold to keep from developing persistent and difficult-to-treat sinus infections. These conditions clear up when we go back to the US for visits.

The girls like the house, their friends, and living at the teacher housing, but they are tired of being stared at like circus animals (from other girls) and the marriage proposals (from the guys) whenever we go out into the community or to town. I was so used to immigrant children in the US picking up English in a year that I did not envision how difficult it would be for children to learn the local language in a place where English is the second language, where education is done in English, and where the children are homeschooled. As the girls have gotten older, this has increasingly become an issue; it hinders their relationships and their ability to enjoy life here.

As we considered our situation, we decided that it was time to return to the US and for Rudy to move into work more suitable to his personality and interests. He spent a lot of time in the early part of this year looking at what he really enjoys and is good at doing. He now has a one page summary of his
interests and abilities. Rudy likes spending a significant amount of time outdoors. He enjoys doing concrete tasks and physical work. He prefers to be part of a team and enjoys interacting with both co-workers and strangers. His interests include Catholic and general
Christian apologetics/theology, pro-life issues, hiking and biking, and marriage and family life. We were repeatedly advised that Rudy would be very well suited to work at a Christian camp. We are looking into that possibility.

My family lives in Orlando, and my sister's family bought a house just down the street from their previous house. They have generously offered to let us stay in their "old" house during our transition time. This will allow the cousins to spend a significant amount of time together and allow our girls to adjust to life in the US in an easy environment. I am really looking forward to that time too. Rudy would spend that time picking up some training and getting some experience that would be helpful for our next step.

The current plan is that after a year in Orlando we would move to a place with a more interesting physical environment where Rudy could work at a camp, a park, or in another natural resources-type job. Rudy really enjoyed Colorado in college. We are considering Wyoming or the other Rocky Mountain States too. Our children have been singing, "Yippie-ay-yai-a, get along little dogies for you know that Wyoming will be your new home". A friend wants us to move to Alaska. We will see what happens.

We will keep you appraised as we make this transition. If you know people who work in parks, camps, or other jobs with a significant outdoor component, especially in the Rocky Mountain States, we would be very interested to get in contact with them to get a better feel for those fields.

Thank you for your love and support. We will keep sending newsletters until our time in Swaziland is very short.

Sincerely,
Ruth

PS-Rudy here again. After we fixed the water, I told Mamba that this is increasingly looking like our last year. We had a brief but difficult discussion; it seemed to me (though maybe I'm reading into this) that his body language indicated he was disappointed that we may really leave. Our first contact was when I loaned him a hacksaw to modify a desk frame to make a barbeque stand; I will really miss our various handyman jobs together. We still have almost 8 months here, and I will try to avoid "marking the days". I told Mamba, maybe we should sabotage the water system every night and go out and fix it every day. We laughed.