Photos!

Here are some photos I've been meaning to upload! This is the support group working on its garden compost pile. We're searching for worms here.

Now we are depositing the worms into the compost pile. (Thanks to Jack for shooting these; I have almost no photos of me working.)

 This is the sunset over the inland salt lake at St. Lucia.

Here is a make (mother/woman) dancing at a celebration at my homestead.

Jack and I went for a walk near his place and found this interesting burned-out old building. This is an atypical structure for rural Swaziland.

My friend Emma and me! I just found this and wanted to post it because she's already back in the U.S., and I miss her.

More photos from the burned-out house ...

Life chugs along. We just had our Peace Corps Thanksgiving celebration, which our country director graciously hosted. Volunteers and staff members cooked for two days before the celebration. In addition to the traditional stuff, it included impala, which was fun. The night before, Jack and I had our Thanksgiving at his place (he wasn't available to come to the PC celebration). We cooked turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, mac n cheese, green bean casserole, salad, and apple and chocolate-chip pie. I made the pie crusts from scratch, because that's how I roll. And also because you can't buy ready-made pie crust in the SWZ because no one eats pie.

We shared our dinner with his boss/landlord and her family, as well as a friend of ours. It was a pleasure to explain an American holiday to South Africans and to let them experience and enjoy our traditions. 

It was delicious. In the spirit of the holiday, I'm thankful for how smoothly things have gone for us. My Peace Corps service has its definite ups and downs, but Jack has been able to enter the workforce successfully and create a life of his own in another part of the country. We couldn't have asked for a better situation. Swaziland is a lot easier than other posts in terms of creature comforts and the contact volunteers have with one another. Transport is relatively easy (most of the time), and safety is less of an issue here than at other posts. We are certainly lucky.

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We'll be spending this New Year's on the beaches of Mozambique, so I plan to have scores of photos from that. I will probably be able to share four or five of these with you here. You're welcome.

Keep fighting the good fight, all, and happy holidays from the Southern Hemisphere!