Debbie has relinquished the computer for a few moments, which caught me by surprise, so I don’t have a blog ready to publish. So let me quickly bring you up to date with the help of the Swazi Times. But before the news items, a brief summary of our status: We both had Very Important Work last week and by the end of the week we were each leaving three tracks, so we had a very quiet and relaxing weekend. Saturday, though, we had no water all day, and Sunday, we had no electricity all day. Today, the whole kingdom was without internet service. Yesterday we had a play date with the pre-schoolers and spent about an hour with around 30 kids. We anticipate this will be a weekly event. And now a few select news items:
School was cancelled in the Hhohho region last week after the heavy rains raised the risk of crocodiles. (Not something you see in the Seattle Times with frequency.)
A January 28 seminar will be postponed (‘news’ from the Feb 8 edition).
A group of students were arrested, fined, and sentenced for chanting a folk song substituting their own lyrics which were not favorable to the king. (Protect your first amendment rights.)
Finally, following a recent post of our blog, Gilbert N. Sullivan wrote, “I pasted all the paper so care-fully, and now I have an office in the li-brary”.
And a few updated statistics from Swaziland:
There are about 130,000 orphaned and vulnerable children here.
38% of children live with mother only; 34% don’t live with either parent; 22% of children live with both parents.
1/3 who start grade one won't complete grade 7.
29% of children under 5 are stunted.
40% OVC don’t have minimum of 1 pair shoes, 2 sets of clothes, or 1 meal a day
One of three girls experiences sexual violence before 18.
47% nationally manifest clinical malnutrition.
These data are the result of poverty, food insecurity, and breakdown in family structure due to HIV/AIDS.
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