mcc service worker progress report

i was recently required by mcc to fill out a progress report, and i found it to be a really good chance to reflect on my swazi experience thus far. i'm posting some excerpts. i realize this is really long, and it's probably more than you want to know. but it's an honest account of my present situation, so for those of you who are interested, read on:

1. For each group you have worked with, what activities have you carried out? What has resulted from those activities?


At Faith Bible School, I work with three main projects: Peer Education, Home-Based Care and the Health Team.


During my time here, we have held two trainings for our peer educators. The first was a week-long workshop covering the topics of abuse and HIV and AIDS. The second half of this workshop will take place in January; it will focus on counseling. The second training was one conducted by Reach 4 Life (R4L). R4L is a version of the New Testament targeted at young Africans, specifically dealing with HIV and AIDS and trying to relate these issues to what the Bible has to say. R4L staff came and conducted a two-day training for our peer educators, and also provided them with free R4L bibles to give out when they go out into churches and schools to teach. We are currently working on a Training of Trainers program (TOT), where some educators are being trained to teach Sunday School, in drama and in livelihood skills. All of the trainers have now been trained, and we are working to put in place a framework so that they can begin training their peers. We will be partnering with ten churches in this program, and are currently gathering information so we can begin training.


We have 16 active home-based care givers. I have accompanied the home-based care (HBC) coordinator when she goes on home visits, to assess the situation before the patient is admitted into the program. I also do quite a bit of administration work in this department, filing the home visit forms and keeping track of the supplies distributed. This program runs on a monthly basis. Every month we hold a meeting for the caregivers, where they come to discuss business, collect supplies, and collect food parcels for their patients. We also have a garden project with the caregivers, which gives them vegetables for their families and something to bring along when they visit patients. We recently distributed extra seedlings to expand the gardens, and they seem to be doing well.


The Health Team is a group of young adults who go out to churches once a month and do presentations. The goal is to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS and encourage discussion of these topics in churches. During a church presentation, the health team members sing as a choir, give the message, present dramas on topics such as abstinence, faithfulness, home-based care and STIs, and facilitate a discussion with the congregation after the dramas. Since I have been here, I have been along on three presentations, where I sing in the choir and sometimes participate in a minor role in the dramas. The presentations are very well received and they’re very popular. This group is also often asked to present dramas at gatherings such as workshops and youth camps.


2. Is your work progressing as planned?


When I arrived at Faith Bible School (FBS) I expected my position to be similar to the former SALTer’s assignment as the Home-Based Care Coordinator. However, in the time since the last SALTer (Grace Trabulsi) left, FBS has hired a part-time retired nurse to fill the position. So I help her with administration and occasionally get to accompany her on visits, but she is the one coordinating the program.


My job description at FBS is actually a lot of bits and pieces – assist the HBC coordinator, assist the peer education officer, assist with planning the health team presentations, assist with center upkeep. This has been great in terms of getting to know FBS as an organization and finding out what all they are involved in. However, because my job description is so scattered, it’s been difficult to figure out exactly where I fit into things. I haven’t really found a niche yet in terms of where I want to be involved, or how exactly my skills and experience fit in with what FBS is doing. So this is something that I continue to struggle with.


3. Review a highlight or significant learning in this reporting period.


A definite highlight at work has been getting to accompany Make Ndzimandze, the HBC coordinator, when she does home visits. It’s a wonderful chance to get out of the office and meet the patients who are the reason for the supplies I distribute and the forms I file. It’s also a learning experience to find out what HIV and AIDS looks like on the ground. The subject is one that I’ve read about, but as always, there are things that can only be learned by actually being there on the ground. Sitting and talking with people who are HIV+ has put a human face on the virus and made it real in a way that no amount of statistics or medical reports could. It has also made me realize that they are no different than I am, and that HIV isn’t a curse that automatically ends your life as soon as you get it. Although I have seen the skeleton AIDS patients wasting away in bed, barely able to speak, the majority of the patients I’ve visited have been people who are carrying on with their lives, albeit in different ways than before they found out their status. Most of all I enjoy home visits because I enjoy people, interacting with them and hearing their stories. I feel so privileged to be able to be a witness to these people’s struggle with HIV, even though it is painful and frustrating at times, to hear heart-wrenching stories and not know how to help or what to do. The food and supplies we offer seem so insignificant in the face of what these people are dealing with, and yet they are so grateful for them, and also for the company, because it shows them that someone is willing to listen and someone cares about them.


4. Regarding your self-development/learning goals for this year, how are you progressing? What have you learned that surprised you?


I’ve learned a lot about Swazi culture and the workings of a small faith-based organization and the realities of the struggle with HIV and AIDS. But I’ve learned even more about myself.


I came on SALT partly because I wanted a break from school, partly because I love to travel and like cross-cultural experiences, and partly because I wanted to find out if development work was something that I was interested in for the long-term.


So far, I’ve learned that school is very different from work on the ground. Although it can definitely help to prepare you to work in a certain area, there is just no substitute for field experience. I’ve learned that cross-cultural exchange is not as romantic as everyone makes it sound. It’s difficult and messy and lonely and confusing. But the rewards come from having relationships between people who are as different as it is possible to be, and yet still get along, and can work together and enjoy each other’s company. The rewards come from accomplishing little things, things that you knew how to do back home, that were so easy you didn’t need to give them a second thought, that in this new context you are completely incompetent at. It’s so frustrating to have difficulties getting home from work, or buying bananas, or doing your laundry. You think, “Why is this so hard?” But then you receive a very large sense of accomplishment once you figure out how to do this very small thing. I had this feeling the day I figured out how to let the driver of the kombi (public transport van) know when I needed to get off. I had this feeling the day I learned how to ask the market woman “How much?” in Siswati. And I had this feeling the first time I did my laundry, after spending two and a half hours fetching water, scrubbing my clothes by hand, wringing them out and hanging them up to dry.


At this point, I’ve made no decisions about my future as far as development work is concerned. All I’ve realized so far is that if I do decide to work in development somewhere, I want to commit myself for a significant period of time. Enough time to become familiar with and operational within the culture, enough time to learn the language, enough time to establish real relationships. I’m already realizing that by the time I finally figure out what’s going on in Swaziland and accumulate enough Siswati vocab to hold a conversation, it’ll be time to go home. And I’ve gotten comments from people saying exactly the same thing, “Why do you leave as soon as we get used to you and you get used to us?” And it’s a question I don’t have an answer for.


6. What have you struggled with and how are you responding to that?


I had a big struggle adjusting to life in Swaziland and it was difficult to feel comfortable here. And this is not something in the past, that’s over, but it’s still continuing now. I think in large part this difficulty to adapt came from my expectations about this assignment.


Since I was born and lived in West Africa for thirteen years, I somehow thought that coming to South Africa would be easy, because I’ve already had so much experience in Africa. I felt like it would be coming back “home,” especially because I had a really wonderful homecoming when went back to Benin for three months last summer. With this experience fresh in my mind, I unconsciously assumed that coming to Swaziland would be a repeat of this wonderful African homecoming.


However, the situation was very different. Unlike my home in Benin, Swaziland is somewhere completely new – the culture is different, I don’t know anybody here, I don’t know the language, there are no familiar places, I have no mentors to help me along. This of course, sounds very obvious now, because I’m coming to a completely new place, but somehow I had placed these expectations on myself. I expected that I would come here, and know what was going on, and fit in as well as I did in Benin. Now I can see how ridiculous and unrealistic these expectations are. But at the time, I didn’t even really know that this is what I had been expecting. I just knew that I didn’t really like Swaziland at all and I didn’t really know why.


After figuring this all out and realizing what was going on, I realized that I had to release myself from the expectations that I had unknowingly, accidentally, unconsciously placed on myself. I have to tell myself that it’s okay if I don’t always know what’s going on. I have to tell myself that sometimes, in fact a great deal of the time, I will feel out of place here. I have to be patient with myself in my painstakingly slow attempts to converse in Siswati. I have to tell myself that it’s okay to be who I am, even when those around me can’t sympathize with me or don’t understand me or even laugh at me. Of course this is all an ongoing process, but I’m slowly learning to figure out how to appreciate this country and this situation for what it is, and love it as it is. And also how to appreciate and love myself as I am.


7. How do you encounter God in your assignment?

Attending a Zionist (African-Initiated) Church with my host family has been a great cultural learning experience, but hasn’t proved to be a very good way for me to connect with God. The entire service is in Siswati, so I understand only a few bits and pieces of what is going on. So mostly I just sit quietly or read my Bible or look out the window as the three hours drag by.


The last couple years at university I didn’t have much time to read my Bible at all, and had gotten out of practice. So it was difficult to start again, especially in the first months here in Swaziland when I felt very confused and like I was just kind of drifting. I had no desire to read my Bible, or really to talk with God. I felt abandoned and very much on my own. I knew that God could help me through this rough time but didn’t really know how to reconnect our relationship.


However, I’ve started reading the Bible in the evenings and have been discovering, or maybe re-discovering, what it holds. I think this year will be a good opportunity for me to develop a quiet devotion time to study the Bible and reflect on it, something which I had been missing in the business of my studies.


Another thing, that I discovered upon my arrival here and continue to marvel at, is the peace and contentment that I experience living amongst the majestic mountains of this country. I love the fact that I can step outside my door and be met by this breathtaking view every morning. I love that to get to church I get to hike over and through them. I love that they’re always so close by, even when you’re in the city. They really bring alive the Psalm about raising your eyes to the hills and wondering where your help will come from. No matter what has happened in my day, the mountains are always there for me and they’ve become something I can count on.


I also really love the spectacular show that takes place when there is a thunderstorm among these mountains. The peaks are backlit by flashes of lightening and sometimes the whole mountains is lost in a huge cloud. The thunder rumbles throughout the whole valley, and there are hurricane-force winds that shake my whole hut. However, as much as I try to explain to my host family how I love to watch thunderstorms because I see God’s power and majesty in them, they just shake their heads at me and tell me to back away from the window unless I want to get electrocuted by a lightening bolt conducted through the burglar bars that cover the glass.


10. What is your experience with your host family or current living situation? What are the joys and challenges?


I love my host family and couldn’t have asked for a better one. I live with a grandmother (my gogo), her niece (my make), two of the nieces daughters (my sisters or bosisi), both in their late 20s, and four children. Two of the children belong to one of my sisters, and two of them are from extended family members who couldn’t care for them due to health and financial reasons. I love being in a big family, so there’s always someone around, and I’m definitely never lonely.


Except for my sisters, my family only understands bits and pieces of English, and since I only understand bits and pieces of Siswati, communication is always an adventure. But using what we know of both languages, along with sign language, and sometimes my sisters as interpreters, we get along just fine. It’s really wonderful to have my sisters who speak English. I’ve really bonded with one of them, and she’s been a real support to me and kind of a go-to person with any questions or problems I have. We also have a lot of fun together and I learn a lot from her. She’s so kind and patient with me, and I’m really grateful to have her as a host sister.


The living situation is great. I live in a cement hut with a thatch roof, which got wired for electricity about two months after I moved in, which was a good surprise. It’s separate from the main house, but only about five steps away. When it’s hot, I shower outside from a bucket – I love showering under the huge blue sky! And when it’s cold, I heat water and bathe in a basin in my hut.


I’m really grateful for my private hut. The main challenge with my family is just that there are so many people around always, all the time. This is wonderful, but I don’t always feel like being around so many people, and the concepts of personal time and privacy aren’t as dear to Swazis as they are to many North Americans. So it’s really a blessing to have this space which is my own, where I can go when I need time to be by myself and think.


Another adjustment has been the responsibilities involved in living with a family again, after being independent at university for the past couple years. Something in me rebels when my gogo worries that I’m not eating enough, or tells me to bring along a sweater because it will be cold today. And it’s an adjustment to remember to tell them where I’m going and when I’ll be back every time I leave the house. And I don’t like asking every time I want to do something. But I guess this is part of the package, and I know that their concern arises because they genuinely care about my well-being, so I just keep reminding myself of this.