Back from Swaziland

I know I’ve been extremely silent these days. The reason is that I was in Swaziland. I went there for the Global National Committees Meeting that was held at Waterford Kamhlaba UWCSA during 26-28 Feb 2009, but I ended up staying a whole extra week in order to spend time with old friends.

The GNCM was great, I met many committed people from many parts of the world and did a lot of networking. I was delighted that many, if not most, of us were from Latin America, something that you never see in WK. I think it’s fair to say that, for a couple of days, the school population’s main mother tongue was Spanish :) .

I will write a due report on the GNCM for those interested, and I’ll post it on a different post. Meanwhile, I’ll let you to some pictures of Waterford Kamhlaba, which I found extremely different but as dear and relaxing as ever.

Yippie!

I’m going back to Swaziland!

:)

My linkie (part 1)

I’ve realized that I haven’t mentioned Felix in this blog. And he DEFINITELY deserves to be mentioned!

I find the story of how our whole friendship started pretty amusing, but somehow the people I talk to don’t find it as exotic… :s

In any case, today was one of those days in which I thought about my dear Felix, and I think it’s only fair to dedicate a little space to him.

It all started one 14th of January in 2002. I had just arrived in Johannesburg International Airport, after a long flight via Sao Paulo. I was heading toward Swaziland, where I would live for the following two years while attending Waterford Kamlhaba UWCSA.

I waited at an almost empty gate for the tiny airplane that would take me to my destination. Next to me were three boys who looked my age, only that they looked slightly less clueless. In fact, they looked like they had everything under control… No excitement, no desperate looks trying to find another foreigner destined for the same place in that lost corner of the world. Just three perfectly collected guys, sitting down unperturbed while talking in a language that I did not understand.

I was wearing a poncho, so I was clearly stating my alien status. Indeed, it didn’t take long before the three boys and I were already engaged in chatter. I quickly learned that they were all German (that somehow seemed to explain the lack of despair on their faces and their perfect English pronunciation) and before I knew it, the four of us were sitting on a winged bus headed to the tiny landlocked Kingdom of Swaziland.

While overflying the short distance separating point A from B, I spent most of the time talking to one of the guys, a blond good looking boy of short stature (sorry!!). I probably spoke very precarious English, but we managed to understand each other. At some point, for no particular reason and just out of the blue, I started thinking “this guy probably has his birthday on the same day as mine” (Yeah, I know, totally stupid thought). I think he was still enthusiastically saying something, but I couldn’t take that thought out of my head, so I finally interrupted him and asked (again, waaaay out of the blue!) “when’s your birthday?”.

And there it was, the correct answer… Indeed, he was born on the same day as me, only one year before. Our birthday was due in a few days after our arrival in Swaziland.

Mendoza: Day 2

We arrived at 9am at the bus station in Mendoza. We had to wait some time until we could meet Romi (a friend from there who attended school in India — check UWC for more on this).

[Ok, this is probably the time when I explain a bit about how I know Romi, and so on… Romi and I met in 2001 while applying for a scholarship to attend one of the -at the time- 12 UWCs around the world. We got along from the beginning, and I was happy to find out that we had both gotten a scholarship: Romi went to  Mahindra UWC in India, and I went to Waterford Kamhlaba UWC in Swaziland. Romi and kept in touch ever since, and have met a couple of times after graduation, since we both returned to Argentina to study medicine. Apart from Romi, there are many other UWC graduates in Argentina, and many of them live in Mendoza, so this was a good chance for me to meet up with them.]

So, back to the trip. We had some hours to kill, so we stopped at the tourist information office inside the station, and asked for tips on what places to visit and so on. Two very helpful ladies gave us all sorts of advice, and recommended that we visited Tunuyán (west of Mendoza city), where we’d find a paradise of home-made gastronomic goodies mixed with an oasis of spirituality. We were not fully convinced at first, but after reading a little guidebook that they gave us, we decided to visit Tunuyán on the following day (here’s the chronicle of that trip).

After gathering some touristic information, we left the station and walked towards the city center (blue line, X1 on picture). We walked along Sarmiento, a pedestrian lane, and sat down at a bar to have breakfast and make a plan for the week (we realized that we had taken a bus for 14hs and had no idea of what we’d do in the 7 days we were ment to stay there!)

Once we had sat in one place as long as we possibly could, I got a bit anxious and asked to walk around a bit, just so as to use up some of the energy I had accumulated over the previous weeks, when holidays seemed like a far off dream. We walked to a second tourist office, to find out how to get to the higher mountains (the once with snow, you know… we wanted snow!! :) And soon after we found ourselves on board of a streetcar that drove around the city centre (purple line, X2). Well, a wanna-be streetcar, for it turned out to be a normal bused dressed up as a trolley. Nevertheless, it had its charm (like a bell used to ask for a stop) and not many people use it, so it turned out to be a kind of private ride.

At around midday Romi picked us up and took us to her apartment. She lives in a lovely and quite big apartment that she shares with Pipi, her dog, another two people.

We used the afternoon to go back to the station and get bus tickets to Tunuyán. Then we had a look at the city, visited the Foundational Area and its museum, sat down at the foundational square, listened to folkoric music as we watched a group of people dancing to it…. I learned a bit about the history of the city, which in some way made me feel good. These years of studying medicine have made me forget how much I enjoyed history lessons!

As the sun was setting, we headed back to Romi’s house, where we had supper and a long chat with her. It was a lovely day. We hit the bed early, for a very exciting day in Tunuyán would be waiting for us the next morning!