Cheers, everyone!!

I write to you from the Abu Dhabi airport where luxury is all about (seriously, if you haven’t flown through Abu Dhabi, you should plan to soon– it’s just beautiful!). As I was patiently waiting for my next flight which is still a long three hours away, I figured I would let you all know how our class finished being that blogging kind of went downhill once we left the sweet comfort of the light of Swaziland (side note: by “light of Swaziland” I mean Sibane – this reference was commonly used as a joke because ironically, while the hotel was AMAZING, it didn’t have the best lighting in our rooms, so “light of Swaziland” (the hotel’s slogan) was not the most accurate :))

Alright, where do I start? Wow, I feel like the past few days have been a complete whirlwind, full of outstanding adventures, really really really sad goodbyes and everything in between.

I’ll start with our last day at Sibane: Thursday. Ohhhhh, Thursday. See, Thursday was the day of the exam, one that we had been studying for for the past three days and I’m sure all nervous about. Thankfully, we got through it – even though some of us (myself included) struggled to get it done before the three hours allocated. Soon after we left the testing room, there was a surprise waiting outside for us: Mrs. Mkoko came to visit us! We all decided that we would celebrate our achievements with a class lunch at the Corner Plaza (joined by Mrs. Mkoko of course) and then soonafter, we all set out for different adventures to enjoy Swaziland one last time before we had to go. Some of us went to Mantenga Village to enjoy the waterfall while others visited the beautiful Yebo!, an art gallery owned by our friend Dane (the guy we had dinner with at House of Fire a few weeks ago). Here are some pics from that day:

That night, we all came back for an awesome last night at Sibane. During dinner, we calculated that during our entire stay, we had spent a whopping 44 hours sitting at the dinner table (fun fact for y’all, even though you probably did not want to know that). Of course, right after dinner, some of us stayed and bonded like every night, although this night was especially nice. <3

My favorite part of the night however, was late after dinner when Shalila and I got bored and went to visit Jess and Britt. Luckily, Jared was there as well and we started bonding. I can’t remember why but at one point, I suggested we start a contest to see which of us could throw a blanket up and have it reach the ceiling (the roofs at Sibane were made of thatch and were really high for some reason). Because we were playing with a blanket, Jess suggested playing hide and seek with the hide-and-seeker under the blanket to add an element of fun. Then, we added in that we had to play it in the dark. About 20 minutes in, we were soooo loud that Jonathan had to come over and check on the commotion. Instead of quieting down, we quickly convinced him to be the seeker. Soon, Katrina and Sanjana (also hearing the noise) came over and joined on this crazy party. It truly was the perfect end to our adventure at Sibane.

The next day, Jared, Britt and I woke up at an early 6am to go to Manzini in search of some Swazi crafts (a lot of people we met had told us about some amazing Swazi weavers who set up shop early in the mornings on Wednesday, Thursday and Fridays, so we went to check it out!). Although we didn’t find the women weavers, we did get to buy some last minute souvenirs we had forgotten about and to walk around Manzini for a last time.

We soon hurried back to Sibane and all boarded the bus that would be taking us back to Joburg. 🙁 We said goodbye to our friends at Sibane, bid farewell to Ezulwini and soon started out for our journey. Luckily, this time the border was not as crowded and disorganized as last time, and we got to cross fairly quickly. Fun fact: We have crossed the Swaziland – South Africa border so many times that in total, we each have 10 new stamps in each of our passports! The bus ride was super fun — as soon as we noticed that there was a working microphone on the bus, we soon began what ended up being a 3-hour karaoke jam on the bus (added to by some of Jess’ amazing dance moves and to our surprise, Sanjana’s amazing singing of the hit, Thrift Shop.) Gosh, we have an amazing group.

We soon reached our Joburg hotel and all began busily working on the last part of our class: our Fledgling Fund Grant.  One by one, we each turned it in and followed it with a loud series of clapping and screaming down the hotel hallway. And with that, we were done with the class (I think that  although we were happy to finished with the work, we were truly sad to be ending up our journey)! The end of the night was marked by another celebration: the 4th of July!! Additionally, for Shalila and I, it was a truly exciting night because of the Colombia – Brazil game. We bonded for a long time, watching the game and talking for a while afterwards. We were a little sad, however. Even though it had been such a fun day: tomorrow (Saturday) two of our classmates would be journeying onto their next destination. 🙁 Here are some pics of the day:

The next day, we all grabbed a bite to eat (the breakfast was awesome, by the way!) and soon planned out our day. Sanjana, the first one of us leaving, had to catch the shuttle at 9 so we all got together to bid farewell and wish her the best! (We love you, Sanj!!) Soonafter, we decided on renting a car and going bunjee jumping off of the Soweto towers as well as visit the Mandela house – two activities that had been on our list for a while.

First, we had to say goodbye to Liz, the next one to leave, who was catching the shuttle at 11:30. Now, we were down to six (sad faces everywhere!!). All of this sadness made us hungry so we decided to go to the nearby supermaket to pick up some lunch. We came back to wait on Jonathan who was picking up the rental car, and also engaged in one last pillow fight (something we just all loved to do during our time here). Soon, we had our car and set off for the next part of the day in Soweto.

We visited the Mandela house which was soooo amazing as well as Vilakazi street, a hugely important street in South African history, and then headed out for the towers. The car ride over was marked by much enthusiasm and nervousness: Jess and I were like excitedly screaming the whole way over, while some others were talking about adverse (you can guess what) outcomes that would come about after bunjee jumping off a 100m building.

We soon arrived to the location and sadly discovered that due to the collapse of a building nearby, bunjee jumping had been closed until next weekend (just our luck). Although we were extremely sad, we set out to find a new adventure. For a pit stop (and for Jonathan and Allen to grab a bite to eat), we stopped at KFC to plan. Jess soon came up with the fantastic idea of having a scavenger hunt in a nearby mall; we crafted up a huge list of goals to meet and set out for the shopping mall. Soon, we ready to begin: we were in one of the nicest malls of Joburg and ready to conquer this list. We had a limit of an hour. We had about 20 goals.

Who would the winner? (Don’t worry folks, I’ll tell you later.)

After the scavenger hunt, we decided to have dinner at one the Joburg casinos, Emperor’s Palace, in a restaurant called News Cafe and had a blast listening to Jonathan, Allen and Dell (our on-site class coordinator – thank you for having dinner with us!) decide who the winner would be. After about an hour long of deliberation, the team of judges came to a consensus: it was a TIE!

Although the judges offered to organize a tie-breaker, we decided it was the perfect ending to an amazing trip: a class that was united by amazing, hilarious adventures and crazy stories to tell.

We ended off the night with a lot of dancing, some arcade playing, more dancing and lots and lots of laughing!

Wow, I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people than for you guys. To Brittany, Sanjana, Jessica, Liz, Shalila and Jared: I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. You guys made these past 5 weeks the most fun I could have ever asked for. Thank you for putting up with the constant loudness and laughter. To Tara: MOMMMMM thank you thank you thank you for being the best supporter ever. We love you and will miss you so much. Thanks for bonding with us so much (even though sometimes we forced you to!). Allen: thanks for being there to teach us about your awesome ways (oh! and for Tyrone and Zoli). Haha, we love you! To Jonathan: the biggest thank you for putting up with our thousands of requests, loud loud loud laughs, crazy quirkiness and soo much else. You were the best professor we could have asked for. Can’t wait to see you soon!

Another big thanks to everyone for following our class blog. I can definitely say on behalf of the class that this has been an awesome tool of reflection and fun!

tl;dr: If this post was way too long and you just want a summary: we had a fantastic last few days. Thank you for following us throughout all of our crazy adventures and awesome experiences.