It was 4:30am, and I was sitting at the “bus stop”, which is, in fact, a large boulder at the side of the road about a 10 minute walk from my house. The moon was bright enough for me to write in my notebook, where I was working on a lesson plan, and the sun was still an hour from rising. I knew that I was at the correct boulder because it was the one that says “Jesus is Coming” on the side. When I first saw the message glowing dimly in the moonlight, I wondered if Jesus would get here before the bus, and if so, how much He would charge for a lift to Manzini.There was not a soul in sight, and only the crowing of a rooster drowned out the whispers of the wind in the lone pine tree across the road. The boulder was uncomfortable to sit on while trying to write. I could see about a mile down the road, where the bus would be coming from. Suddenly, I heard voices nearby, and then, faintly, the growling sound of the bus, grinding through the gears as it labored up the hill just out of sight. I saw its two glowing eyes as it crested the hill. About 15 people arrived to board it. I could see the cloud of dust following the bus in the moonlight, looking like a long sinuous snake. It rattled to a stop by us, and as we boarded, the dust caught up and enveloped us.
The ride into town was bumpy and dusty. Whenever the bus stopped, the dust caught up, and whooshed in the open windows. Someone had tied a goat on top, and it bleated constantly. The large lady sitting next to me was clutching a chicken wrapped in a plastic grocery bag with its head sticking out. Every once in a while, it would cluck loudly, and struggle to escape the bag, flapping and squawking for a minute  before it settled down again. The woman paid no attention to it.
Upon arriving in Mbabane, the capitol city of Swaziland, I went to the bank, and got my pay, and did some quick shopping, and arrived at the Peace Corps office at about 9:45am. My transport driver was waiting. It was Bongmusa, the same driver who had taken me out to my school after training. We got into the Peace Corps pickup truck and drove to Piggs Peak, and from there, to Mondi Timber. I had written a letter to the manager of Mondi Timber explaining that I was a woodworking teacher, and that it was difficult to teach woodworking without wood, and asked if he would be so kind as to donate any scraps, or unsaleable wood that he might have sitting around. I would be thankful for anything that he might give me.
The drive from Mbabane to Piggs Peak was about 60 km. It was a beautifully scenic route. I had started the day at sea level, in the bush veldt, in a scrub desert climate, and traveled through the middle veldt, where fruit trees and major grain crops were grown, and 5 hours later, I was at 3,500 feet above sea level, driving through towering Eucalyptus and Pine forests. It was much cooler in the mountains, and the streams were clear, fast flowing  tumbling water, instead of the muddy and sluggish trickles that I was used to seeing.
Mondi Timber was a huge lumber operation with a large sawmill. I found the yard manager, and followed him to his office, where I saw my letter sitting on the corner of his desk. I introduced myself and explained my situation. He led me back outside and pointed out some piles of slightly weather-beaten planks, and told me to help myself, and take as much as I wanted. I thanked him warmly, and got Bongmusa to bring the truck around. He dropped the tailgate, and we started loading planks, stacking them neatly in the bed of the truck. When the load reached the level of the top of the sides, I was ready to call a halt. It seemed a heavy enough load. Bongmusa disagreed. He explained that since I could only get use of the pickup truck from Peace Corps once a school year, I should get as much wood as I could. Bongmusa wedged some boards vertically along the sides of the bed, and we continued stacking wood. It was about a foot higher than the top of the cab when he called a halt. The truck was squatting down in the back, and looked as if it was ready to leap into flight. I had never seen a truck so overloaded. And we took about a mile and a half of rope, and tied the load down. I asked Bongmusa if he was sure the truck would make it all the way to Elulakeni without breaking down. He assured me that he had carried heavy loads like this before.
As we drove to the gate of the lumberyard, the truck wallowed side to side like a pregnant hippo. We drove slowly down the road on the way back to my school, and I felt like Jed Clampett of the Beverly Hillbillies. So strong was the feeling, that I broke into song.
“Well, lemme tell ya a story bout a man named JedPoor mountaineer barely kep his family fedAn then one day he was shootin at some food…”
Bongmusa listened carefully, and when I finished the song, he asked…
Bongmusa: Is that a traditional song in America, Sam?Me: Yes, my brother, it is a song that we sing when we have a very large load on our truck.
How else was I going to explain it?
Bongmusa: Was the man named Jed your King? And do your mountains have ears? I don’t understand.
I spent a half hour trying to explain the premise of the TV show, but I fear it only confused him. Only the first 80 miles of the ride back to Elulakeni were paved road, and we waddled along slowly but surely. But as soon as the road turned into a dirt road, some of the wood slid off the truck. We stopped, and reloaded the wood, and re-tied the rope. The rough road made the overloaded truck sway from side to side, and more than once I thought we were going to tip over completely. We had to stop and reload six more times before we finally swayed into the school road, and behind my shop, about 9pm. It was pitch black by then, and there was no electricity at my school, so we unloaded the wood in the darkness, just pitching the wood thru the big bay door on the back of my shop, in a huge jumble. That, I thought, will be my first lesson tomorrow… how to untangle a pile of planks and stack them neatly in the wood storage closet.
I took Bongmusa up to  my house, and made him a couple of peanut butter samwiches, and gave him a warm coke, to eat on the 4 hour drive back to the Peace Corps office. I thanked him fervently, and he drove off into the darkness.
I was extremely happy. There was enough wood for a year or more for all my classes. The first thing we were going to build, were stools for my classroom, so the boys would have the luxury of sitting.
What a very useful thing wood is, for a woodworking program. But so far, I only had the means to teach “Wood Looking”. Now all I needed was some tools.
<3 Hard working Bongmusa
Wood Matters   <3