I had been traveling with a fellow Peace Corps volunteer on the break between semesters, and we had had a long (3 weeks) and enjoyable trip, and were heading back to Swaziland from Zimbabwe.

We had started by catching a train from Johannesburg that would take us up along the edge of the Kalahari Desert, through the eastern edge of Botswana, heading to Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, where we caught another train north to Victoria Falls. By dinnertime, we had stopped momentarily at Gaborone, Botswana. We decided to head up to the dining car and get some dinner. It was hot, and the train windows were open to let the night time air into the dining car. Even at the speed of the train, rushing into the darkness, the occasional flying insect would come in, flying around. I was used to bugs. There were plenty back at my school in Swaziland, and I was used to ignoring them, or if they got too bothersome, smacking them with my hand.

As I sat, eating an ok but not gourmet dinner, I was beset by a bug that looked like a lightning bug, and was landing on the back of my neck. After waving my hand several times to get it to leave me alone, I finally reached the end of my patience, and reached up and back to smack him and end his bothersomeness. As I started to swing my hand to smash him, my wrist was grabbed in mid swing by a man seated behind me. It startled me, and I turned to the man to ask him what he was doing.

The man: I apologize for grabbing you, but I saw that you were about to smack that bug, and I could not let you.

Me: Why not?

The man: It is an insect called a blister beetle, and if you had smacked it, it would have left a large blister on your neck, which would be very painful for a day or two.

Me: Thank you father. I would not have liked that.

I was more circumspect after that, about insects.

We camped at Victoria Falls, and had a great time exploring one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and walking across the bridge high above the Zambezi river, to wander through the markets in Zambia. Later that afternoon, I was sitting under a tree in the campground while my companion was off walking the paths along the southern face of the canyon opposite the falls, enjoying the rain forest created by the spray from the falls, and I was writing in my journal. The campground was deserted, everyone off exploring, and it was very quiet, except, of course, for the constant noise of the gigantic falls nearby.

As I sat there writing in the shade, a troop of baboons came out of nowhere. There were half a dozen babies, a couple moms, and one old grizzled bull baboon, who proceeded to stop opposite me, and squatted there watching me carefully. He was kind of scary, with his big fangs, so I sat quietly so that he would not see me as a threat. The baby baboons were having a great time, running and jumping on the tents, and sliding back down the sides back to the ground, and chattering. The moms were checking the tents, and entering any that were not zipped up tight, and rooting through the things inside, looking for candy bars or other food. The old bull just sat there, staring at me, daring me to mess with his family. I sat quietly, watching them cruise across the campground, until they faded off into the bush at the other end.

Two weeks later, we headed back towards Swaziland. Our last campsite was in Nelspruit, South Africa, just across some small mountains from the north entry gate to Swaziland. On the map, the pass across the mountains was about half an inch long, and I figured that even if we did not catch a ride, we could walk it in a couple hours.

Walking down the road that led to the pass, as we came to the outskirts of Nelspruit, there was a store, and I had Tana watch the packs while I went in, to rustle up something for breakfast. There wasn’t much, but near the checkout counter was a display case of real honest to goodness donuts. Donuts! I had not seen a donut since I had left the USA, so I picked out a couple, and the lady put them in a bag for me. I walked over to the cooler and picked up two small cartons of milk to go with the donuts.

Back outside, I gathered up Tana, and we walked a block to where there was a bench in the shade, and sat down to eat our morning repast. We were both excited to be eating a donut. I took mine out of the bag, and gave the other to her. It felt kind of squishy, but I took a large bite of it. Well, it was not exactly a donut. It was, in fact, a grease soaked dough log, and as I bit into it, grease squirted out and ran down my chin. It was awful. I spat the bite out immediately, and in reflex, threw the rest of the donut away from me, hitting the side of a passing car with a thump, leaving a grease spot on his fender, and causing the driver to shout “HEY!” My mouth was greasy, and I drank the milk, trying to wash the horrible taste out of my mouth. Tana eschewed eating hers after seeing me spit mine out.

We headed off along the road that led to the pass through the mountains, hitching any cars that came along. They were all already full of people, so none stopped to pick us up. After about a mile, we entered a forest of eucalyptus trees. It was a man-made forest, and they harvested the trees which they ground up, and made into toilet paper, which they sold to Israel, or so my guidebook told me.

Eucalyptus is a natural insecticide. People in Swaziland, where eucalyptus also grew, would crush the leaves and sprinkle them around their houses, to keep the insects at bay. As we walked farther into the forest, and up the mountain toward the pass, the forest was completely silent. There were no insects, so, no birds to eat them. It was like a sterile forest.

After about 3 hours of hiking along the gravel road, reaching the peak of the first mountain, we were tired, and stopped to rest. No cars had passed us in quite a while. As we rested, we heard a large truck coming up the hill toward us. It came into view, and was a large semi truck loaded with logs. We stood to hitch it. The truck was moving very slowly, and as it passed, the driver shouted at us.

“I can not stop, but if you want to jump on, you can ride to near the border with me.”

We started running alongside, and I grabbed Tana, and boosted her up, where she grabbed the chain holding the logs on, and I shoved her up, and she scrambled up on the logs. The truck was over the crest and started gaining speed. I tore my backpack off, and boosted it up to Tana, who grabbed it and threw it on top of the pile of logs. By then, I was running at top speed and about to start falling behind the truck. Tana was shouting, “Come on, Sam, jump!” Just as the back end of the trailer of logs was passing me, I jumped with the last of my strength, and caught a chain, and dragged myself up, breathing hard. We settled in on top of the mountain of logs, and watched the forest pass as we climbed up one mountain, and down the other side, and up the next mountain. It was a great vantage point. The little half inch pass on the map took us 4 hours to get near the border gate. Up and down and around curves. I was glad that we had not had to walk it. The driver called back to us that he was going to turn off before the border, and that we should jump off when he slowed to turn, and the border gate was about 3 or 4 miles beyond that.

We jumped off, and continued walking. It was getting late, and the border gate was about to close for the night, and if we didn’t get through it, we would have to camp there in the forest until morning when it opened again. Our backpacks were heavy, but we were hustling as fast as we could go. We came out of the forest, and down the hill was the border gate, and the guard was just starting to slide the gate closed. I started shouting “Wait! Wait!” and we rushed pell-mell down the slope towards him. He looked up, surprised, and stopped closing the gate. As we got closer, the man was looking behind us at the forest, to see what we could be running from. We got to the gate, and got our passports stamped, and the man closed the gate. Whew!

As we walked on, the road wandered down the mountain. I knew from the map that the town of Bulembu was about a mile ahead. The road was covered with an odd greenish gray gravel, and I picked up a piece and looked at it. I had never seen a stone like that before. Kind of soft, and powdery, and I couldn’t guess what kind of rock it was made from. Our footsteps were stirring up little puffs of dust.

We came around a curve, and there ahead of us, on the hillside opposite the road, were a bunch of different colored tiny houses, like factory worker housing, and below us, the town of Bulembu. It was at the bottom of the valley, and one end of the valley was closed off by a huge pile of stones of the same color of stone as the road.

I started thinking about what I had heard about Bulembu during our training a couple years ago. Let’s see, Bulembu, Bulembu…, the major employer was Havelock Asbestos Mines. Oh great! That was what the stones of the road were, asbestos. The pile of stones blocking the valley was made of mined asbestos.

Me: Tana, how long can you hold your breath?

Tana: Me? About a minute and a half. Why?

Me: Because we should not be breathing this dust. It is asbestos.

Well, we couldn’t do anything about it, so we walked into town breathing shallowly, and caught the first van heading out to Piggs Peak.

Sometimes life just brings you stuff that you just have to accept.

Even so, Life is a hoot, and is way better than the alternative.