It was the weekend of the big party at Doug and Patricks school in Ntjanini, and I was stoked. There would be a bunch of volunteers making their way out there from the far reaches of the country. Volunteer parties were great! You got to see a different school from your own, and eat potluck dinner and sit around and drink beer, and swap stories about your life Swaziland, with the most amazing and erudite people you could ever come into contact with. 

It was at the school where, back during training, it seemed a million years ago, I had visited for a weekend, so that I could see first hand how a real Peace Corps volunteer lives. And after I got posted to Elulakeni, it turned out to be the closest school to mine, about a 3 1/2 hour bike ride uphill. I left my school about 9am, knowing that the other volunteers, coming on various buses from all over, couldn’t get there before about 3pm, when the only bus that came to Ntjanini, the Tokozani Mabhele bus from Hlatikhulu would arrive there, at the end of the road. It was a nice day to ride a bike, and interesting as I wended my way up into the middle veldt from my low veldt school. The differences between low veldt, and middle veldt, were only a few. The middle veldt had water in the rivers, hills, breezes, growing things, and the color green in the landscape. Other than that, it looked the same. 

I hove into Ntjanini High School teachers quarters about 1 pm, and went into Doug and Patricks house to find that they were still down at the school, teaching. So, in concordance with Peace Corps policy when visiting other volunteers houses for the night, you found an unoccupied bed or a spot on the floor, and threw your backpack down, to stake your claim. I usually tried to stake out a corner of the room, so people were not having to step over me after we all went to bed. As luck would have it, Doug and Patrick had a third bedroom in their house, and it had an unoccupied elevated platform about the size of a double bed. Yay! I immediately threw my pack up on it, and went down to the school, to see what trouble I could get into.

As I walked into the school grounds, there was a ruckus coming from the chicken coop by the agricultural classroom. Students were gathered around the door of the coop, talking loudly. I went over to see what was going on.

“It is a Black Mamba!” one student exclaimed, and the students backed away from the door. The Black Mamba snake, common to Swaziland, is an aggressive, very poisonous hombre, whose neurotoxin venom would stop your heart in less than 5 minutes, if you were bitten. It was so fast acting that there wasn’t even an anti venom for the bite. I had heard many Swazis claim snakes they encountered were Black Mambas, when they were actually other snakes altogether, from harmless little green garden snakes, to pit vipers, or puff adders, or Spitting Cobras, which were themselves nasty venomous snakes, but at least they were survivable. So, being a doubting Thomas, I walked over to take a look. Holy shit! This time it actually was a Black Mamba, and he was pissed off. The chickens had all fluttered against the back wall of the coop because of the students crowding around the door, and the snake was there, slithering back and forth along the base of the wall, under the squawking chickens.

I was pushed to one side as some students rushed in with rocks, and threw them at the Black Mamba, trying to kill it. Which really made it mad, so the snake rared up and started striking at the chickens, and in front of my eyes, I watched bitten chickens flap upward, and go Bawk! Bawk! and fall down dead. The snake killed an even dozen chickens before the students finally killed him. After I assured myself that no students were hurt, I left and walked over to Dougs woodshop, and sat in on his last two classes. He was a great teacher, and his students were well behaved and focused. I always learned new stuff watching Doug.

We walked back to his house after class, and the bus from Hlatikhulu was just arriving with a gaggle of PCV’s, and another bus was due at 6pm, likely with more volunteers aboard. Back at the house volunteers were unloading food and beer, and talking and cutting up vegetables and preparing things for dinner. After the 6pm bus arrived, there must have been 15 or 20 volunteers there. We made a big feast and chowed down, and sat around drinking beer and talking mostly about school. 

About 10 pm, a couple volunteers got ready for bed, and were standing around on the porch brushing their teeth. That caused a stampede, and soon almost everybody was doing it. When you are far from dentistry, you focus more on dental hygiene. Before Peace Corps, the only people I had ever seen brushing their teeth were my two sisters, and a girlfriend, and my wife. But at Peace Corps parties, it was not uncommon to find yourself brushing your teeth with 5 or 10 other people at the same time. I found it fascinating how different other peoples methods of brushing were, some noisy, some quiet, some spraying toothpastey spit everywhere. While I finished helping wash the dishes and clean up the kitchen, people were throwing down their sleeping bags, and going to sleep.I turned out the lights, and headed for the spare room and my own bed.

I walked in the room, and my pack was thrown in the corner, and a woman was in MY bed. It was Jean, the woman most of the male volunteers thought to be THE BABE of Peace Corps Swaziland. She was so beautiful that when I first got to know her I was sometimes tongue tied. Fit and a great smile, and big italian hair, and intelligent, and funny. And she had a bf, another volunteer, absent from the party, Dean, a really nice guy.

Me: Um, Jean, wasn’t my pack up on the bed when you came in here?

Jean: Yes it was. I put it down there to make room. I am sleeping with you, Sam.

My heart sped up, and I felt like I had won the lottery.

I went to the door, and opened it, and said, “Um, Jean, can you say that last part really loud, please?”

Jean: (loudly) I AM SLEEPING WITH YOU TONIGHT, SAM!

Me: (loudly) THANK YOU BABY JESUS! and I closed the door. I put my sleeping bag up on the platform, and climbed up next to Jean.

Me: Um, Jean, I like Dean, and don’t want any problems with him. 

Jean: Oh, Sam, Every woman in Swaziland knows you are safe.

Ulp. I didn’t know how to take that. I mean, I AM a safe guy, and would never resort to unseemly behavior, however, I sort of felt like a eunuch, there for a moment. Safe. Sam Birchall is “Safe.” I had never thought of myself as “safe” before. Um, ok. I guess. And, as it turned out, we laid there for an hour, and had pillow talk. And Jean has a low sexy voice in the dark, and I enjoyed talking with her. And we went to sleep, and I awoke the next morning, and looked over at this stunning woman in my bed, and smiled, and felt like the luckiest boy on earth.

 Jean.

Words matter.