and then there were four...

Dear devoted readers/others who somehow stumbled upon this blog,

As most of you know (at least you would know if you would've read the previous blogs) is Josh already in Swaziland for some time to prepare the necessary things. However, yesterday his struggle in loneliness ended as he got company of three other facilitators (ok... junior facilators, but still..). These are Sofie, Catherina and me (Marius, that is). Even though we're only here now for a bit more than 12 hours we're already having the feeling that the next couple of weeks are going to be awesome (well... at least I have).

Firstly, the campus is extremely nice. Although our first impression of the Waterford Campus was rainy, dark and empty, the beautiful location (on the hill of a mountain looking over Mbabane) made up for everything. A feeling that only got strengthened when we finally managed to get a look at it by daylight. It's spacey, mountainous (coming from the flat fields of the Netherlands, I love mountains) and the facilities are great. So the campus will definitely suffice for the next month!

Also, I'm already having a very good feeling about the team members working on this course. Everything seems very organized, the program looks amazing and no details are being left out (I think...). Everyone is very enthusiastic about this course and looking at the e-mails that are being send around I feel that we're all ready to put all our energy in making of this course a huge success.

Then something about the participants.... Well... what's definitely worth writing is the effort that's done by the team to get all participants here on the spot. Firstly there are always the obvious visa problems (the participants will need a (transit)visa for both South Africa and Swaziland) which took up a lot of time and caused a lot of stress. Then there's transportation... Getting 50 people from Johannesburg to Waterford is logistically speaking not the easiest operation ever. Especially considering the variety of arrival times... Even though we'll have to see if indeed everyone manages to get here, I think the people who took care of this (sorry... but I don't really know who they are...) deserve a very big thanks already! Aah.. then also, we've got our umbrella groups together. The idea is that all participants will be part of one small sub-group in which they can reflect on the past day in a comfortable environment and discuss any concerns and problems. Every group got 2 facilitators 'leading' it. We hope that will be a good thing for the well fare of the participants. The facilitators are supposed to be sending out a welcoming mail pretty soon, so, participants, expect to get to know your groups during the next few days!

Then back to us on campus. Even though we'll do some preparation during the next couple of days, Josh also thought about a whole list of stuff that we could do/see today and tomorrow. We'll be leaving to Mbabane in a bit to do shopping and sightseeing. In the meanwhile we're thinking about what to make for the facilitators welcome dinner that the four of us will be making. We'll do our best, but I won't be able to guarantee any standard :)

Well, as you can maybe imagine, I'm very excited to see a bit more of Swaziland, so that's the reason that I'll have to stop this blog here and say to all participants/team members see you soon and give a big thanks to everyone who read my little piece of writing!

Thanks!

Marius