Friday is a super busy dirty day. Here is where, one of the only negatives of this event comes in.
I am at Ward 2 all day helping clean cobwebs, piles of dirt, scrapping walls clean & organizing multiple others things. But.
4 weeks before I had reserved with Nelly, the AMICAALL Program Manager, the AMICAALL truck which was crucial for the success since we were having lunches delivered, plus Sunday was going to be huge for transportation needs. Well, on Friday at 4pm, I hear from Sabelo, who we have been organizing much bigger events then his together, that Nelly has just left town with the truck, not more than 3 hours earlier I was talking to her about some needs that day for the truck & how the artists, who were coming to town with a bunch of stuff would need transport at 7am Saturday. I was like WHAT. It’s true, she abandoned the project as well as her educational duties she was responsible for by taking the truck and leaving. Talk about PISSED. It was the second time on Friday, something like this had happen.
Khetsewi & I in the morning on Friday plus the pre-school teachers were cleaning the amazingly dirty Ward 2 Center. I had hired a guy I never worked with before to come at 9am to fill 16 holes in the walls, so they could be painted. He didn’t show til 12:45 after a 10:30 call telling me he was waiting for a khumbi. By 11:30, I was calling Titi, who manage the entire construction of Ward 4 to get Muzi who did all of the ceilings & flooring of Ward 4 to Ward 2, he was hired at noon. The guy was not answering his phone anymore, so I sent texts telling him he was fired. Muzi walks from my neighborhood to the Center arrives at 12:45. The guy arrives in a truck with his 2 buddies, which means he lied about his waiting for khumbi at 12:15. I don't even let him through the gate telling him he is fired & lied to me. He isn’t happy but at this point I have been unable to go to town to do what I needed to get done, since filling the holes in the walls that are going to be painted on Sunday is probably the most important thing. So as one Swazi shows their lateness/lazyness that plagues this country, another shows eagerness & faithfulness to come save my project. Thanks Titi & Muzi
Well, as Nelly screws me hugely, I turn to the one person who has supported me from the first day we meet back in my training in 2010, Dennis, my counterpart, at this point he no longer works for AMICAALL, his current job is driving the Town Council tractor, which pays more than his HIV Assistant Program Manager job. So Swaziland proves to me twice in the same day that people let you down, yet there are people here who go above & beyond to help ALSO. If you surround yourself with good hard working people who care then they help pull projects through, Dennis just the month before had bought a car. So I hired him as my exclusive driver for the entire weekend. He ends up driving 87 kilometers (due the math), never being late & since he quit because of Nelly a kind of weird justice. But Dennis is the kind of man, who does great things for his community all the time, I have been lucky to have him as my counterpart. He is the reason behind every success in this entire blog. Thanks Dennis.
But there is still one more disappointment coming.
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