swazi mimi

I'm Leaving on a Jetplane...

2008-04-16T05:43:00.000-07:00

No, really, I am. Tomorrow night (Thursday) my flight leaves Joburg. Swazi Airlink is being liquidated, so the only other carrier between Manzini and Johannesburg, South African Airways, is swamped with passengers. So this leaves me with just one little detail to take care of: exactly how I'm going to get from Manzini to Joburg, a four-hour road trip. I'm still working on that one. Worst case scenario: I have to take a kombi and risk being late for my flight, and have to figure out how to get from the bus rank to the airport in Joburg. We'll see.

You might be in shock right now. I know I am. "How did it get this bad?" you ask. I'm asking myself the same thing at this very moment. The only thing I know is that this has been building for a very, very long time. I haven't written about everything on my blog, but suffice it to say that this has been the hardest year of my life and then some. I kept thinking that I could tough it out, which I've also been thinking for a very long time.

Then, yesterday morning during my run, which is when many of my epiphanies come, I had a thought. I asked myself, "Why are you fighting so hard? What are you fighting for?" Because that's what it has become: a struggle. Being here everyday has become an agonizing trial, a test, every second and minute are difficult and must be struggled through. And in this awful fight, it's me against the world.

And I'm losing. I think I've known this for awhile, but yesterday was when I was finally able to admit it to myself. After I asked myself what I'm actually fighting for, I realized that my remaining in Swaziland for a long time now has been about not being a quitter. Not giving up. Finishing what you started. Keeping up appearances. Trying to pretend like everything is okay. And it's been that way for so long that I can't really remember if it was ever about anything else.

I've never felt like I belonged here. Never felt like I had a purpose here. I never really knew what I was doing here, until it turned into just trying to make it until July when this would all be over and I could go home. And recently it just got to the point where I realized that it wasn't fair to other people if I remained here. Instead of simply putting on a pleasant face when interacting with people, like I've been doing for a long time, I started to not be able to muster up any enthusiasm or a smile, even a fake one. I'd been pretending for too long and I was sick of it.

So I've been ignoring people on the street, giving curt, barely polite, greetings, or not at all, and being really distant with my host family. And I realized that it's not acceptable for me to treat people like that. It's not who I am, it's not what they deserve, it's no way to treat a fellow human being. There is something very, very wrong.

So it was only by realizing my problems interacting with others that I was able to finally admit to myself that I'm not okay. I really am my own worst enemy. I knew that things were not right, but I also knew that I'm a strong person who can make it through a lot. So I just kept ignoring problems, and pushing and pushing myself through one day, and then the next. And the next, and the next and the next... I even knew that I was close to the edge, but I didn't know how close. Until now, when I'm leaving tomorrow morning and my chest constricts and there's a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I think about how to make it until then.

So I'm ashamed. Ashamed that I'm running off and not saying a proper goodbye to all the people who have been so kind to me. I feel like a failure. I've failed to hold up my part of the contract that I entered into for this year. I feel mean, because I know how many people I'm hurting by just leaving all of a sudden. I feel weak, because I couldn't make it.

Telling my host family that I'm leaving took every bit of that tiny little scrap of courage that I could muster up. Worst is that I can't even really explain clearly why on earth I decided to do such a crazy thing as get on a plane tomorrow and leave them. After all, it's taken how many paragraphs here, and you're probably still wondering what's going on. And your mother tongue is English. When I told my three-year-old sister that I was going to "eMelika" she asked if I would be coming back tomorrow. My response was to burst into tears.

Frankly and honestly, I'm a mess. And I partially blame myself for letting the situation get so completely out of control that this evacuation is necessary. A lot of it, obviously, is due to circumstances and others' actions which are outside my control. But I'm not even going to go there.

Finally, I apologize to you. I'm sorry for disappointing you. I'm sorry for shattering whatever illusions you may have held about me. I'm sorry for not being honest with you throughout.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry...

The Marvelous Properties of Freshly-Baked Bread

2008-03-14T07:20:00.001-07:00

It’s funny where the little moments of redemption come in. Last night on my way home I was on a mission. Zinhle had called earlier in the afternoon as I was leaving work and asked me to pick up three loaves of bread at Shoprite. When I stepped inside the store, the checkout lines were much shorter and quieter than usual, and I was relieved that this Shoprite excursion wouldn’t involve the endless waiting and congestion and noise and jostling and harassment from random males standing in the queue behind me that I had come to expect of my typical Shoprite experience. But I was wrong.

There was an actual mob by the deli counter, stretching back into an endless queue as far as the refrigerated dairy products corner in the back. With a sinking feeling in my stomach I identified the empty bags being waved about as bread bags as people shoved and shouted. I decided that there was nothing for it but to dive in, because hey, my family needed that bread as much as anybody else waiting here. What would my siblings eat with their tea in the morning if I didn’t return with the bread?

So I took a deep breath and burrowed into the mass of warm bodies, heading for the empty rack where I saw the bags. I was going against the current and several times had tried to squeeze under someone’s elbow only to find someone else popping out from that exact spot, their fragrant, warm prizes tucked under their arms. I was finally able to snatch up three bags, and found myself in the line. As I had a moment to observe the system within the madness, I noticed that a man wearing thick gloves was ferrying the loaves from where two other employees were popping them out of the hot pans, straight from the oven, into the waiting hands of the consumers. I also observed that these things were going to be hot, so I grabbed a basket sitting on the floor. Immediately the woman behind me put up a fuss, and from the repeated use of the word “Wami!” (Mine!) and her grabbing at the basket, it didn’t take long to see that this basket had a prior claim on it. So I let it go, since by now I was at the front of the queue and the bread man was coming at me with three fat loaves. He was reluctant to give me all three, because other people were anxiously waiting for them, and as I scurried off with my piping hot load I could hear the man behind me complaining.

As soon as I emerged from the mob, I threw the loaves into an abandoned basket because they had already blistered my palms a bright, shiny pink. I squatted on the floor, bagging my bread as people pushed past above me. As I stood in line to pay, the delicious aroma of freshly baked bread kept wafting up to my nose, and once I was installed in the backseat of the kombi it only got more intense. I kept shifting the hot bread on my knees as we jounced up the hills, trying to keep my legs from getting burned, my head from hitting the ceiling, my shoulder from banging against the window on one side, and my elbow from jabbing into Nomphumelelo’s side, my neighbor who happened to be a bit too close for comfort on this particular ride. I failed on all accounts, and when I emerged from the kombi it was with blistered spots on my knees and a sore head.

When I stepped into the kitchen at home I immediately (and rudely, without even a greeting) launched into an account of my fight for the bread, regaling Gogo and my sisters with my valiant efforts, the scalding temperature of the bread, and the woman with her shopping basket. They all thought it was hilarious and laughed delightedly at my stream of English jumbled with Siswati. Gogo was chuckling about the “wami” lady long afterwards.

And this small saga changed the course of my day. Before it had been just a slow day at the office, but after the adrenaline rush that fighting for my bread gave me, I was energized. I joked and chatted with my siblings, cuddled with my little sister Tema and helped Make weave grass rope. I swallowed the bitter inkaka greens for supper and gratefully mixed in the scrambled egg my sister had added to my plate, knowing that I didn’t really care for the inkaka. I sang along wholeheartedly with the children’s choruses during prayer time, and when we prayed I found a whole litany of things to be thankful for that day – I had finished typing the marriage enrichment manual at work, my hair-braiding appointment for Saturday was set up, the History of South Africa book I was reading was compelling and inspiring, and Nomcebo had brought in umbila and sinkhwa sembila (corn on the cob and sweet cornbread) to the office as a treat. So as I counted my blessings I marveled at how my day had been transformed by as simple a thing as stopping to buy bread on the way home. And then it came to me in a flash why the incident had been so meaningful.

For a few minutes at Shoprite, I felt like I belonged. Like I was a part of things. Like I was just a person like anyone else here. No one treated me differently because I was a white foreigner. No men harassed me or yelled lewd comments at me. No one made excuses for me or tried to help me or spoke English just for me. No one asked me for money or tried to suck up to me. People pushed me. They shoved me. They stole back baskets from me and didn’t want to give me the bread I needed. But I was thrilled. Because for a few moments I forgot my skin color. I forgot my nationality. I forgot my deficiency in the language that everyone else speaks fluently. I felt like I was just another tired, hungry person eager to catch the kombi home, but willing to fight for food for my family first. I felt a certain bond with these people, even as I fought them for my place in line. I felt like we understood each other, and after all, what is more basic than competition for food? I felt like I belonged here, in this struggle. It felt right.

The Terror Squad

2008-03-06T06:35:00.000-08:00

Lord of Sound. Destination. Seduction. Teddybear. Pavarotti. Ice Baby. Terror Squad. Redemption. Lion's Power. Shakira. Cool Squad. Shark. Who's Your Daddy? Scandal. Twisted. Alaska. First Choice. Da Base Line. Honey Luv. Juicy Fruit.

So, what do these words have in common? This may seem like one of those awful SAT questions, where you can stare at a group of words for hours and not find the common thread. I'm sure you're as puzzled as I remember being when faced with some of those impossible vocab questions. But when I hear this litany of names, I am flooded with emotion. Exhilaration, fear, and apprehension mix with my amusement at the English phrases, so strangely put together and seemingly out of place. These names are my companions, a part of my daily life, essential, and yet they never fail to strike terror in my heart. They are the names of kombis, those incredible custom-built machines that form the backbone of the Swazi public transportation system.

A section of the busrank, relatively quiet at 8 am. Notice Teddy Bear featured in the foreground.

However, these essential, much-needed players in Swazi daily life are also, for me, the terror squad. When I am out on my morning run at 5:30 am, I enjoy breathing in the fresh, still-cool morning air and watching the lights of the valley wink off as the great red sun crests the eastern hill and vaults up into the sky, already blazing. The peace is shattered the moment I hear an ominous rumbling coming down the dirt road. The moment the van comes into view, I swerve to the side of the road and immediately lower my head and hold my breath in preparation for the huge cloud of dust that will linger long after the vehicle has blown past. Numerous times, while lost in thought or concentrating on my running, or simply not quite awake yet, I have been surprised by a kombi, and more times than I can count, I have had to literally leap into the weeds at the side of the road to save my life.

The irony of the situation comes when, an hour or so later, I reappear on the road, scrubbed and breakfasted, ready to travel into Manzini to work. Then, one of these holy terrors will pull up in a cloud of dust, the bus conductor grinning as he slides open the door for me, and the driver cheerfully greeting me. And I can’t help but look at them and think, “Do you not remember that earlier this morning you practically ran me down?! And now you’re grinning at me and asking how I am?! I’m just glad I’m still alive!” But it’s not like they have it in for me personally, since pedestrian rights are virtually non-existent here.

So I accept the terror squad for what they are, a fact of life here. Let me introduce you to the ones on my route, which runs Manzini-St. Michaels-Moyeni. There are two superstars, Cheese Boy and Peace Train. By superstars, I mean that they have built up quite a reputation for themselves, and everyone knows them by name. Cheese Boy is notorious because of its driver’s behaviour. Everybody knows that he was in jail for murder and that now he’s out on bail. His style of driving certainly reinforces his image. Cheese Boy never moves an inch for me when I’m running along, and I’ve had to pause in the weeds to recover my breath more than once after a close encounter with Cheese Boy. I’m scared to ride in it ever since I witnessed the driver jump out and leave the full kombi running to go beat up another driver who wouldn’t move his vehicle aside quickly enough.
In contrast, Peace Train is my favorite kombi. It’s painted a deep greenish-turquoise color and the windows are decorated with decals spelling out its name amidst little red hearts. The driver is always sharply attired in a long-sleeved, collared shirt, and the bus conductor has some of the most beautiful, big brown eyes I’ve ever seen. Everything seems better when I’m riding Peace Train.

Other characters on the route include Ingcamu, whose driver always wears a hat that makes him look like he’s on a safari, and who always greets me by name. Then there’s Centipede, with a big golden picture of its namesake on the door, and Liyandiza Lituba, “the Flying Dove.” Joy and White Heart are less frequent carriers on the route, and their staff aren’t nearly as flamboyant. Then there are the new boys in town, the twin Besuthus. They’re brand new and look exactly the same, so it took me a few days to figure out that there were two of them. They are definitely the pleasantest to ride in: they still have all the shock absorbers so the bumps are less jarring, they haven’t yet installed extra speakers along the ceiling so the music isn’t blaring an inch from your ear, the seats are all well-fastened down and free of poking springs, the windows don’t rattle in their tracks and the door opens and closes securely and quietly. Of course, they still tend to overcrowd, so that a van meant to seat 15 can frequently squeeze in 20.

That is, if there are no police checkpoints. The police like to surprise kombis by controlling traffic at a certain robot (stoplight). They will demand papers, which drivers dig from underneath sun visors and below seats. More importantly, if they see that the kombi is loaded beyond official capacity, the extra people have to get out. Understandably, this causes a conflict, since everyone has already paid their fares by this point and it’s still a good 10-15 minute walk into town. But you all simply sit there, and the policeman waits until someone finally caves in and gives up their place.

Paying bus fare is another adventure. Collecting money is one of the principal activities of the bus conductor, who also opens and closes the door and announces the stops. When he decides it’s time to pay, he will get out his change bag and hold his hand out to the passengers closest to him, which is a signal to everyone else to start digging around for the E 2.50 fare (roughly 35 cents). I frequently end up in the crowded back seat, because I can squeeze into smaller places than most African mamas and because I am frequently disgusted with those who will loiter around the kombi in the bus rank, delaying everyone as they wait for someone else to crawl to the back.

Paying from the back seat is interesting, because the money needs to be passed up through the rows to the conductor, who always sits nearest the door. So frequently the back-seat passengers consolidate their fares, making change amongst themselves, to minimize the times that money has to be passed back and forth. It’s amazing to me how quickly and efficiently the BC collects fares and makes change, remembering who has paid for whom and the amount of change each passenger is waiting for. On a few occasions, the BC has “forgotten” my change. Usually I just say politely, “Bhuti, ngicela ishintje yami.” (Brother, can I please have my change?) Once though, I had to follow a BC through the bus rank to the Spaza phone before I was finally able to claim my money.

Another complication resulting from a back-seat position is that often the BC can’t hear you requesting your station amidst the rattling of loose kombi parts and the blaring of terrible American hiphop, South African house music, or perhaps even a Zionist chant turned up full blast. So when we pass the Emseni Supermarket (which doesn’t really deserve the name, since it stocks about 20 different items which are spread out to take up shelf space) I wait for a slight lull in the rattling or a pause in the music and use the opportune moment to yell out “STASH ESHAWENI” at the top of my lungs. This is the stop about a 5 minute walk from my homestead. It’s called Eshaweni because there’s a concrete building housing showers at the crossroads, which was once used by local residents but has now ceased to function, with no hope of being repaired. So we all continue to enjoy our bucket baths – at least I do! But sometimes even the bellowing-at-the-top-of-my-lungs fails and then I resort to the “telephone” system, tapping the guy in front of me and asking him to pass the message up. Also, since the BCs all know me by now (after all, how many white girls ride on their route?) sometimes they just announce the stop before I ask. But I always ask, just in case. After all, they nearly kill me every morning, can I really count on them to let me off at the right stop?

Despite all this, the kombi system works surprisingly well, most of the time. I’ve always gotten to where I was going, although the amount of time it takes to get there is never guaranteed. Once my kombi broke down trying to scale a steep hill, and we rolled backward down it. Then we just had to sit by the edge of the road for 30 minutes until the next one came along. The kombis run roughly from 5:30 am to 7 pm (dawn until dusk), on no particular schedule, leaving the bus rank when full and collecting as many passengers as possible on the way back to town.

I have frequently observed “kombi wars” for passengers, where two kombis traveling the same route in the same direction will play a kind of relay game. While one is stopped to pick up passengers, the other one will pass it, but then that one will stop a bit further down, and the original frontrunner will regain the lead. Once, riding in a kombi behind the infamous Cheese Boy, we were coming down a narrow mountain road when Cheese Boy stopped suddenly in the middle of the road for no reason at all. It was too narrow to pass, and he sat there stubbornly for 10 minutes, ignoring the hooting (as they call it here) and yelling, until a line of vehicles had formed behind us. Suddenly, he started up again and tore off down the road. The only reason I can see is that he was doing it from sheer spite.

The “kombi wars” extend to the bus rank, where each bus conductor roams about his parked kombi, yelling out the destination to passersby. They often reach out to try to get me into their kombi, and I dodge, thinking “Yes, maybe if you shout at me a little louder, I will change my mind and go to Siphofaneni with you instead of going home to Esiyeni.” If there are two kombis boarding for my route at the same time, the competition is fierce as each BC yells at me to choose his kombi.

At other times, the kombis have way more passengers than there are spaces, and all vehicles are operating at full capacity and breakneck speeds. The major rush hour is in late afternoon when schools get out, and streams of uniformed school-children flood the bus rank. At this time, you can stand in line for 45 minutes waiting your turn to board. Curiously, there are always two lines for the Moyeni route, and it’s always a gamble as to which one will be the shortest wait, because the arriving kombis seem to pick one to load at arbitrarily.

However, there are some unspoken rules governing the madness. I’ve noticed that the kombis park in a certain order in the bus rank, and they’re supposed to fill up and leave in this order, to give every driver an equal chance. Also, if you’re in a kombi still collecting passengers in the morning, headed out toward Moyeni, and you meet one on the road going into town with empty seats, they will stop and allow you to switch kombis so you can get to town faster.

These falling apart, over-crowded, hilariously-christened vehicles, staffed by interesting characters and driven at alarming speeds but with tremendous skill, are an integral part of my life in Swaziland. Kombi rides never fail to provide an adventure, whether I’m ready for one or not. They are also a place for meeting friends and neighbors, attempting conversation in Siswati and, of course, the experiences always generate a wealth of good stories.

Umhlaba Uyahlaba

2008-02-21T06:30:00.000-08:00

Umhlaba Uyahlaba is a Swazi saying meaning literally “The earth is hard,” or “Life is hard.”

I was there when Sibusiso, a patient at Hope House, died this morning. I don’t know what shocked me more, his death, or others’ reactions, or my own.

I wasn’t even supposed to be there. Normally I go on Mondays, but because there was something I needed to do at FBS that Monday, I called and told Sister Elsa (the Catholic nun that coordinates Hope House) that I would be coming on Tuesday instead. Something makes me think that I was meant to be a witness to what happened.

Sibusiso lived in House G, with Bheki, the Zimbabwean volunteer nurse. Bheki came to Swaziland from his home country looking for a job. He came looking at Hope House, and there were no jobs, but now he volunteers to take care of patients who don’t have any family to stay with them. So at least he has a place to live. Anna, a staff nurse at Hope House, and I had been out in the garden planting the seeds from a pumpkin they had eaten yesterday. “Just scatter them anywhere,” she said, laughing at the protests of the garden boy tending his neat rows of maize, pumpkin and squash. On our way back from the garden, we stopped at House G to say hello. Bheki had just finished cooking emabele (sorghum porridge) and was trying to feed it to Sibusiso. Sibusiso ate a few spoonfuls, but then shook his head when Bheki tried to continue. Sibusiso looked sideways at me and gestured, making sounds that I knew were words inside his head, but they weren’t coming out right because he never completely closed his mouth when talking, so it just sounded like “Uhh…uhh…” Finally Bheki decoded the message and laughed. “He says he wants you to push him.” I looked at the frail old man leaning forward in the big leather armchair he was sitting in and smiled. “I’m not that strong,” I told him. Bheki went over and got the wheelchair and helped Sibusiso into it. Sibusiso looked like he didn’t know what to do with his feet, so I bent over and flipped the footrests down and lifted his big, yet surprisingly light feet to rest on them. While he was eating, I had noticed how skinny his arms were – I could see the exact outline of the bone in his forearm. His clothes hung on him like sacks on a stick. Later, I found out he only weighed 45 kg (99 lbs) – and he would be tall, I think, if I could have seen him standing upright.

Bheki wheeled him over to his bed, where Sibusiso collapsed, moaning and coughing. The cough sounded awful, like his lungs were full of junk just sitting in there. Anna was crushing some pills for him to mix with water so he could drink them. But when they tried to pour the liquid down, it just spilled right out of his mouth onto his pants. He groaned and lay back on the bed. Anna and Bheki looked at each other and decided they should take him to the Nazarene Hospital. They got busy making phone calls to a taxi driver and writing the referral letter to the hospital and collecting all his medication to bring in to show the doctor – and it was quite a lot, since he was taking the cocktail of ARVs (anti retrovirals) as well as the TB drugs.

The taxi driver arrived and sat at the kitchen table with me, as we watched Bheki try to change Sibusiso’s pants from where he had spilled on them earlier. But Sibusiso was being most uncooperative and finally the dirty pants remained on. Bheki lifted Sibusiso into the wheelchair and went to discuss something with the driver. As I watched, Sibusiso pitched forward from the wheelchair and threw himself back onto the bed. Bheki laughed at him, “He’s very clever, this one, he doesn’t want to go.” And I could understand why. Last time they were at this hospital, Bheki told me that they had waited for 12 hours, from noon until midnight.

But it was obvious Sibusiso had to go – when he was sat back upright, a line of drool escaped his lips and dribbled down onto his pants again. He seemed to have given up his feeble protests, and was quickly placed back into the wheelchair. I followed them out to the taxi, carrying the referral letter that had been forgotten on the table. Bheki parked the chair by the taxi’s open back door and went to get the drugs and other things and put them on the front seat. I stood there blinking in the bright sunshine, trying to figure out how we were going to lift him into the back seat.

Then Anna said quietly, “This one doesn’t need to go to the hospital anymore.” I was puzzled by her words, and as I stood behind Sibusiso’s chair, I noticed the strange angle of his head – it was tilted all the way back. Bheki came around and quickly wheeled the chair back up the walkway into the house, kicking off his sandals urgently when they got tangled in the wheels. I seemed to be rooted to the spot on the porch where I was standing. I watched them through the open window as they laid Sibusiso back on his bed. I didn’t quite understand what was happening, although in a way I think part of me knew the minute Anna had spoken. The rest of me caught up very quickly when the taxi driver, who was standing beside me, clarified matters: “This man has just passed away,” he said matter-of-factly.

I stood there numbly watching Anna and Bheki through the window as they moved in a flurry of activity that involved sheets and a pillow. The driver and I just stood in silence, watching. Then Bheki and Anna came out and started talking about whether or not the driver should get paid, and if so, how much. Bheki thought E20 (about $3) was enough. Anna looked at me and said, “Don’t you want to go for tea?” I turned my head with extreme effort and looked at her incredulously. I tried to think of how on earth I could respond to that question. After what seemed like a long time I said, “I’ve never seen anyone die before.” And I slid to the ground with my head on my knees and started to cry.

Once I started I couldn’t stop. I was vaguely aware of Anna leaving (to call the family, I found out later) and the two men concluded their haggling. “Ncesi,” (sorry) the driver told me, “Don’t cry.” And he handed me a tissue before he left. Bheki brought me a roll of toilet paper and said kindly, “Just cry. Just let it all out. I have to go, but I’ll be back soon.” I don’t know how long I stayed like that, but eventually I became aware of my surroundings again – the bright sunshine on the green grass, the birds chirping, the sound of wheelbarrows and workmen whistling. I felt like my world had just stopped, and I couldn’t understand how everything and everyone else was just continuing on with their business on a sunny Tuesday morning.

By the time Bheki came back, I had calmed down enough to talk. We sat in a pavilion as he kept repeating over and over, “I’m sorry you had to see that, I’m sorry you had to see that.” Finally I said, “Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. I know it just happens, but it was my first time to see it so close, right there.” I stared out at the mountains and felt the wind drying the tears on my face. “Doesn’t it bother you?” I asked. “It does,” he said. “But you can’t think too much about it. It’s the kind of thing you can never get used to.” I asked if he knew it was going to happen. “No,” he said, “he actually seemed to be improving.” I was struck by the arbitrary nature of life and death. As I talked to Anna later, she said that Sibusiso was a fighter, and she always thought that he would be one of the ones to make it. But his CD4 count was extremely low, and he had just started taking ARVs a couple weeks ago. “Sometimes the body is so depressed that it doesn’t even know which sickness it has. Then, when you start taking the ARVs, it recognizes that it has TB and needs to fight it, and that’s what ends up killing you,” she said.

I sat out on the pavilion for a long time after Bheki left, watching the workmen move back and forth, and gazing at the green peaks above and beyond them. Finally, I went into the bathroom to wash my face. When I cam out, I found someone standing outside the office, and my response to his greeting struck me in a new way. “Ngiyaphila,” I said. I am living.

I felt very tired for the rest of the day. The sisters came in late, and apparently got the report that I was traumatized, because they kept wanting to know if I was OK. I felt very much like a child overreacting to something which adults have learned to take in stride. I felt like I was being unreasonable, judging by the way everyone else carried on without a glitch. Is it not reasonable to mourn the passing of a fellow human being? Isn’t it unreasonable that this is enough a part of daily life that people have learned to handle it so calmly?

Death is a part of life. I knew that with my head before that day- leaves die and grow back. Animals die, like the chickens we sometimes kill for supper or the three little puppies born at our homestead who didn’t make it. People die, and are mourned with night vigils and chanting Zulu songs and early morning burials. I knew all of this. I experienced it. But now I’ve seen just how easily you can pass from one to the other. There’s nothing momentous about it. The barrier, the one we think separates life and death so distinctly, that makes them such opposites, must not be as rigid as we think it is. One minute, Sibusiso is a stubborn old man demanding to be pushed around his room, and the next, there is a small lifeless sheet-covered form curled on the bed, and Sibusiso has moved on, to a place that the rest of us can’t know about right now.

That night, I ate emasi (sour milk) and porridge for supper with my family. After prayer, my sister was talking about all the accidents she had seen on the road. “Three of them, bad ones,” she said, making one of those “life is difficult” noises with her tongue. When I told her that one of the patients at Hope House had died that day, she said, “Oh, well it’s good he died before he got in the taxi.” I stared at her uncomprehendingly. She explained, “It costs a lot of money if you die in a car because then you have to pay to get the whole car cleaned.” While I digested this, my sisters resumed chatting about the surprising lack of kombis because of all the police checkpoints.

I don’t know why Sibusiso died. I don’t understand death, but you don’t have to understand something to realize that it’s a part of life. The sun rises every morning, whether or not you understand the way the earth orbits the sun and makes a complete rotation every 24 hours or so. The rain will fall (or not fall), whether or not you’ve learned about the water cycle and how climate change is affecting weather patterns. The maize plants grow tall from a tiny seed, whether or not you know about germination and photosynthesis and chlorophyll. And people die, but the rest of us go on living, for now.

And we don’t understand why it happens. And it doesn’t make sense. And we want to know why. Why did this have to happen? And we agonize and mourn and feel confused and lost and hopeless.

At least I do. But this is not the end of my questioning. There’s more: Why do my Swazi friends not react as I do to death? What has happened to them inside, that they are able to talk about the price of a taxi or feel hungry for tea the minute after someone has passed away? Why is death so much a part of their daily lives that they can just absorb it and move on? Or maybe they don’t absorb it, maybe it’s just pushed away into a corner. Like Bheki kept repeating to me over and over, “Don’t think about it too much.” Even then, in the midst of my grief, something in me rebelled against this. Even though it hurts, even though I don’t understand it, even though maybe I don’t want to think about it, I have to. To ignore it is to die a little inside. If you don’t process through the experiences and the feelings, that death still lingers with you, and the deaths will just keep building up, and you’ll carry that with you. And it will weigh you down, try as you might not to think about it.

Thankfully, I don’t know this from experience. I just feel that this is what must happen to you eventually. The gash in my heart from Sibusiso’s death has slowly started to scab over, in the week and a half that has passed. The lacerations from hearing about deaths and attending funerals of HBC patients keep my heart sore and tender. I can never forget about death here, where the death notices are there every day in the paper, right before the classifieds, and my coworkers scan them, hoping not to see someone they know. Every night at home after prayer, my family listens to the death notices on the radio. Yes, death is very much a part of life here. Swazis don’t pretend that it doesn’t exist, like many North Americans do. They can’t. With the highest HIV prevalence in the world, poverty, drought, hunger, malnutrition and poor health care, denying death is impossible. However, I don’t know how many people actually realize the extent to which death affects their daily lives. Or maybe they realize it full well, and that is why they refuse to think about it too much, because it’s the only way to go on living.

Holding onto Hope (written Sunday 10 Feb)

2008-02-21T06:22:00.000-08:00

This morning the Faith Bible School Health Team presented at Hope House Assemblies in Motjane, a beautiful area near the South African border. The church is located on a hillside and the first thing you do upon arrival is catch your breath at the beautiful sunlit vista of green-lined fields and lush mountains and valleys that spreads out beneath you. This was my second trip to Hope House Assemblies, the first one being when I went to observe the activities of the NCP that operates out of the church building (see previous blog post). Not only do they provide meals and basic health care to the OVCs in the community, but the pastor and his wife have started an orphanage where they care for 18 children as well as their own. My first visit to Hope House Assemblies was an inspiration to me, and the second time even more so.

Children enjoying a warm meal at the Hope House Assemblies NCP during my first visit there.

When we arrived a little before 11, music was already blaring out of the large concrete church building. The time of praise and worship at the beginning of the service was just what I needed. The music was wonderful, and we sang some familiar English praise songs. The pastor and his wife are from Zambia, and as a result the entire service took place in both English and Siswati, which was very helpful. Faith Bible School was introduced and the team presented their abstinence drama, adjusted slightly to take advantage of the fact that Valentine’s Day is this week. This drama is one of the more popular ones and this time was no exception. The team had the whole congregation, but especially the youth, on the edge of their seats, and sometimes rolling off of them entirely in laughter.

The basic gist of the drama (as far as I can understand, since it’s always presented in Siswati) is this:

Two guys are discussing their plans for Valentine’s Day. Vusi is trying to get his girlfriend, Lindiwe, to spend the night with him at a fancy hotel, and he wants Lindiwe’s friend, Nomsa, to get together with his friend Sabelo. Vusi askes Lindiwe and she agrees, saying that she will send him a message telling him when to expect her.

Later on, Lindiwe is talking to Nomsa about the plan. Nomsa tries to convince Lindiwe to abstain and eventually she agrees. They write a letter to Vusi (the boyfriend) which begins, “Hi Vusi. Abstinence first, love affairs later.”

The boys enter, talking excitedly about their plans. Nomsa comes in, delivers the letter, and leaves. The boys are thrilled, and quickly snatch it up to read it. But their excitement disappears as they realize the choice that Lindiwe has made. They are upset and frustrated. Then one of their friends, Themba, enters. Themba has committed to abstinence, and tries to convince them that it’s the right thing to do. Eventually, they agree with him.

Lindiwe enters, afraid at the response she will get from her boyfriend. But Vusi hugs her and tells her that he agrees that abstinence is the right way. The team hums “Amazing Grace” while a team member gives a short speech directed at the youth of the church, encouraging them to abstain. Then the team exits singing a beautiful gospel song, “I was shaken by God Almighty…I am no longer the same…”

Team members performing the Faithfulness drama at a church in Matsapha last year.

Usually when FBS does a presentation, they are in charge of the whole service, and lead a time of singing, provide an MC, give the Word of God (or sermon), and present two dramas and have a discussion afterwards, encouraging the congregation to share what they’ve learned from the presentation. But Hope House Assemblies had already invited a guest speaker for the service, who turned out to be the chaplain for the Swazi National Police Service. The first thing he said when he came to the pulpit was how inspired he was by the drama and the team’s abstinence commitment. He shared that he and his wife had both abstained until marriage, and that as a result they can now trust each other to remain faithful. He even shared about his personal experience of going for an HIV test, and encouraging his wife to do the same. He didn’t share the results with us, (as he rightly said, “That’s none of your business!”) but even so, it was the first time that I’ve heard someone in a position of authority in the church talking so openly about HIV and AIDS and their personal experience with it. It was so encouraging to hear, and I think his sharing really strengthened the impact of the drama.

He went on to preach about a topic which fit quite nicely with our message as well. He spoke about holiness and his main Scripture was I Peter 1:15 – “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.” He talked about people who lead double lives, who are one person in church on Sunday, but during the week at work or home they are somebody else entirely. He also talked about how holiness is what God desires of us, and that the beauty he wants to see in us is the “beauty of holiness.” He ended his message with a prayer and invited those who recognized that they weren’t living holy lives to come forward and recommit themselves to God.

I thought that his message was right on target. In Swaziland, there is a huge gap between public and private life, especially in the area of girlfriends/boyfriends/lovers. Here is an example related to me by none other than one of the FBS youth: He had been walking along the street in Manzini with a girl he was friends with from school. Down the street, he saw a female member of the health team, walking hand-in-hand with a boy. When she saw my friend, she left the guy she was walking with and bolted across the street, avoiding any eye contact. When the two team members saw each other at prayer meeting later that evening, things were awkward between them and neither one brought up their previous encounter. To really bring the point home, my friend who was telling me the story pointed to the pictures of the health team youth on the wall of the FBS office. “How many of them have told you about their girlfriends and boyfriends?” he asked me. I scanned the faces and replied, “None.” He smiled and asked me if I really thought that they were all single. “It’s just not something we talk about,” he said. “I don’t know why.”

This reluctance to talk openly about anything related to sex is a huge factor in the spread of HIV and AIDS in Swaziland. Most children don’t learn any facts about sex from their parents, so what they do know is gathered mostly from their (usually equally ignorant) friends. Is it then a surprise that part of the reason some youth, especially girls, start having sex so early (sometimes at 14 or 15 years) is that they were simply curious and wanted to know what it was like? (Of course, a large factor is economic dependence as well. It’s common for young girls to have “sugar daddies,” someone who they sleep with in exchange for clothes and a cell phone, or at a more desperate level, money for food.) One of the myths circulating about HIV and AIDS is that it’s something Americans made up because they didn’t want Africans to enjoy sex. Another one I’ve heard, even more disturbing, is that HIV was invented by the white people to kill off the blacks.

This lack of information and, in some cases, misinformation is combined with the traditional Swazi custom of polygamy. Although this practice is becoming less widespread, it is still fairly common in the more rural areas. I know that even some of the team members’ fathers had (or still have) multiple wives. So when, as a nation, you have this kind of cultural background, when combined with the secrecy around sex, the situation that results should perhaps not be surprising. It is quite normal for young women to be unmarried, with several children by different fathers, and still entertaining multiple boyfriends. Similarly, it is a matter of pride for men to see how many women they can sleep with.

When you bring in the matter of condoms, this becomes quite tricky. First of all, there are more myths and misconceptions floating around about these: “They spray the condoms with the virus and that’s how it spreads”, “If you use a condom, it means you don’t trust your partner”, and my personal favorite, which is spread widely among the youth – “How can you enjoy a sweet with the wrapper on?”

Trickiest of all is the matter of condoms in the context of the church. Traditionally, the stance the church takes is that the youth are abstaining, so they don’t need condoms. They seem to be, for the most part, quite oblivious to all the teenage pregnancies and kitchen-table abortions that are all too common. (Illegal abortion is another subject entirely, but a while back there was a gruesome story in the paper about a rural midwife who had been discovered to have dumped 80+ aborted fetuses in the pond behind her house.)

FBS does not promote condoms, toeing the line the church has laid down: Our youth are abstaining. They shouldn’t need condoms. Imagine what people would think if they found a condom in your pocket or purse! At our annual youth camp in December, two doctors from the Baylor Clinic in Mbabane came in to do a presentation on the basic facts about HIV and AIDS. Normally during the talk, they demonstrate how to use a condom properly, and then they distribute condoms at the end of the session. However, FBS asked them not to. The reasoning behind this was, and this is a direct quote as clearly as I can remember it, “What would happen if they went home and told their parents that they got condoms at the FBS camp?” Although it was a rhetorical question, I can answer it: It would look like we are encouraging them to have sex.

So the reality is that many youth are NOT abstaining and many marriage partners are NOT remaining faithful. But because of complicated intersections of ignorance and myths and stigma and the tremendous appeal of sticking to the status quo, it’s difficult to do anything about this. Fighting HIV and AIDS is all about “behaviour change,” which is a phrase those working in the field like to bat around a lot. Whether it’s a change from having unprotected sex to using a condom, or from five girlfriends to one, or from promiscuity to abstinence, or from being scared to find out your status to going for an HIV test, or simply from being ignorant to educating yourself, fighting the pandemic takes a decision. It takes change. And this is especially difficult in a context where people are content to do things as they’ve always been done and where unquestioning obedience to authority is the norm. Especially problematic is when there is a lack of strong, knowledgeable leaders of integrity to guide their people.

So, this complicated matter of “behaviour change” lies at the heart of the scourge of HIV and AIDS in Swaziland. It never fails to depress and frustrate me, because you can talk at people all you want, educate them and give them the tools they need to help themselves, but until they decide to make a change, nothing is going to happen. Sometimes this makes me want to scream and cry in frustration. Like the other day at Hope House (the rehab center where I’ve been volunteering, not the church, see previous blog post) when one of our patients had been sent to the hospital to collect the drugs to begin ARV treatment. He came back empty-handed, and the minder who had accompanied him explained that the doctor had been telling him what the drugs were and what they do in the body and when you need to take which ones, when the patient got up and walked out and flatly refused to accept the drugs. The nurse who told me this story just laughed in a hopeless way, as if saying, “What can you do?” But I wanted to scream. I wanted to run to the patient and shake him and yell, “Don’t you understand? Not taking those drugs is like lying on your deathbed and refusing someone standing in front of you offering you life on a golden platter!”

So that’s one side of this behaviour change. The other side is that all it takes to step toward life is to make that choice yourself. As the pastor said today in preparation for the altar call, “Making a decision is power.” So as I watched the 30+ young people up on the stage this morning, rededicating themselves in their efforts to live a holy life, I could only pray that they will gain the strength to follow through on their convictions.

Bye-Bye Mangoza

2008-02-11T06:21:00.000-08:00

My beautiful host siblings, Njabuliso and Notsopi, next to some beautiful peach mangoes in the yard of our homestead.

Saturday morning after tea, my sister decided that she wanted to say bye-bye to the mangoza. So one of the children was ordered out with a basin to glean the last fruits from the trees, now almost completely devoid of their former glory. When Wandile returned with the bowl full of mishapen, half-rotten and spotty mangoes, I wondered what kind of farewell this would be. I almost felt like one of those people who don't want to see a dear friend in a casket, because they'd rather remember them as they were in their best moments of life. Did I really want my last taste of this magnificent fruit to be these inferior specimens? I had almost decided to stick with all my magical mango memories (especially since I was already full from cups of heavily-sugared rooibos tea and slices of thick brown bread spread generously with peanut butter). But then the sweet scent and the sight of the golden mango flesh that my sister was already enjoying across the room pushed me to rise and rummage in the basin for some firm fish mangoes.

The first rule of navigating the Swazi mango season (roughly beginning of December - beginning of February, with its glorious peak in January) is to know your types. I'll order them according to my personal preference:

1. Paraffin These medium-sized mangoes fit well into your hand, because of their size and shape - rounded at the base with a little nub at the other end. They have thick green skin, which doesn't change colour until it's pretty mushy, so the only way to tell if it's ripe is to give it a little squeeze before you pluck it from the tree. They get really overly-sweet when too ripe, and I prefer them a little on the green side. I've eaten some so green that the flesh was a pale, pastel yellow and it had the crunchy texture of an apple. That was only on days when I was really, really desperate for my mango fix. A paraffin mango when at the pinnacle of its perfection has a rich, smooth, firm texture. The flesh is a bright, golden yellow. The taste is sweet, but paraffin mangoes have another level of flavour: a unique tang, a little tartness, that makes them my favourite.

2. Peach Peach mangoes are usually about half the size of paraffin mangoes, about the size of a tennis ball, but oddly and asymmetrically-shaped. When ripe they will blush an adorable shade of deep pink, which makes me think of them as shy little girls embarrased about their strange shapes. They have a lovely smooth texture, like the paraffin mango, but the taste differentiates them. Think of crossing a peach with a mango and you've pretty much got it: a sweet, smooth, rich flavour that trickles easily down your tongue and makes these little fruits addictive.

3. Red Giants I don't know what the real name for these monsters is, but the one I made up suits them perfectly. I've been told that they're another species of paraffin but I have trouble believing this. They're enormous - I bet they can easily weigh a pound. They don't grow in this region, so I've only had a few, purchased at the market or received as gifts from those dwelling in the lowveld. In the market they cost E 5 or 6, which is the price of a large bag of carrots or tomatoes, or three heads of lettuce! I had one really delicious one that reminded me of the kind of mangoes we used to get in Benin. But most of the ones I've had weren't that great, slightly green with a diluted taste, as if they only had enough flavour for a normal-sized mango, but then they just kept growing.

4. Fish I had to laugh when I first heard someone talking about fish mangoes - but that's because I hadn't seen one yet. A few days later, I spied a tree and instantly knew wha tthe fruit was, because the name describes them so perfectly. They're probably about 4-6 inches long, and a green colour that shades to deep red in patches when ripe. But their curvy, S-shape does make them look rather like small green fishies hanging upside down from the branches. There's nothing special about the taste however, they're just sweet and will do if there's no other mango available.

5. Mango These mangoes apparantly don't even get a special name, being at the bottom of the hierarchy. They're the smallest kind, even smaller than peach mangoes, and they're a crazy mix of green, yellow, and red, with black spots where they've started to rot. The principle reason why they have such a low ranking is their strings! Their texture is made up of lots and lots of little fibres, which get stuck in every crevice of your teeth and sometimes make their way down your throat, making you cough and gag. As far as I'm concerned, the only reason to eat them at all is because they seem to have the longest growing season: they were the first to appear in December and now they're pretty much all that's still left, along with the odd fish mango.

So, now that you're somewhat familiar with the world of mangoes, we can move on to acquiring them from the tree. I shocked my family at home by scaling a tree once, desperate for peach mangoes. "Uyati gibela!" ("You know how to climb trees!) shrieked my siblings in astonishment. I take it that this isn't something adults normally do here. And indeed, at home the task of mango collection falls to my two little brothers, the tingobiyane(monkeys) of the family. It really is amazing the high branches they can scurry along, finding the prizes and dropping them into our waiting hands as me and my sisters make a game out of who can catch the most. At the office, we have two magnificent paraffin trees, huge and very fertile. They must have each produced hundreds of mangoes. I'm the only one at work who will actually climb the trees (the others prefer to whack down the fruit with a long section of pipe laying around the yard). I spent many happy moments on mango quests, often taking time just to sit in the branches and lose myself in daydreams of becoming a monkey and spending the rest of my life in this enormous tree, eating mangoes all day. Some days this seemed like a very attractive option! But I always came down sooner or later, despite my coworkers' fears of me falling and breaking my neck.

And now the best part - we have the mangoes and now we can eat them! Just two basic rules:

1. Wash the mango first. Some people just eat them like an apple, biting into it skin and all. I tried this, and the skin can make a nice crunchy addition to the smoothness of the flesh. But mostly people choose to use a knife and slice away the skin, then cut the flesh off the pit in sections, and then finally sucking on the pit to get every last scrap of mango off. I'm famous at home for "washing" my mango pits because I suck them so clean!

2. You can't eat just one mango. I've never had less than two in one sitting, unless it's after a full supper. But usually, if you're just eating them as a snack on their own, you have at least three or four. Sometimes there will be mango-eating marathons, when a group of people just whiles away the afternoon with talk and a large bucket of mangoes. I know for a fact by counting the pits that a sister of mine (who shall remain nameless) once had 10 peach mangoes in one sitting! My personal record for one sitting is seven. And then I felt sick. But I didn't overeat mangoes as often as you might guess. Once, early on in my time here, I was ill for two days with bad diarhea from eating too much of an overripe papaya. Since then, I can't even look at a popo without feeling stomach cramps coming on. And my love for the mango runs too deep to allow myself to have a similar experience with my favourite fruit. So mostly I managed to restrain myself to five or six throughout the course of a day.

And now, this source of daily joy in my life has faded away, gone for another year. I already know how depressed I will be next year at this time, in the deepest dark of the Canadian winter, dreaming for a little taste of sweet golden sunshine on my tongue... My host family has already pointed out to me that I won't be here next year for the mango season. (They've seen how devoted I am to my fruit. Yes, I said MY fruit - Mango Mimi, that's my name. Before mangoes arrived, when I was drooling with anticipation, my sister Zinhle warned me that "in the middle of mango season when we're harvesting buckets of them, there will come a time when you say 'I don't want mangoes! I've had enough!'" And I replied 'Ngeke!' ('Never!') with great feeling, and I've kept my word - I never turned down a mango.) So when I whined "Ngitokhala!" ("I'm going to cry!") at the prospect of no more mangoes, they were quick to console me with the promise of what is yet to come: I'm already seeing the small green likotapeni (avocadoes) on the trees, and yesterday I knawed through my first green guava.

work

2008-02-05T07:24:00.000-08:00

a number of people have emailed me, curious for more details about my work. so i thought i'd give a little update about the highlights since FBS reopened after the holidays.

the 18th of every month is the day when our caregivers come into the office. every other month there is a meeting where they discuss issues that arise and share how their work is going. january wasn't a month for a meeting, so the gathering consisted of them turning in their forms, which keep track of the patients they visited and the supplies they distributed. they also collect an E 100 (about $15) voucher for shoprite, a grocery store. this is their thank-you for the work that they do. and they collect fresh supplies from our storeroom.

on a side note: most of our home-based care supplies come from the mcc aids care kits, which are unpacked and the individual items are given out on an as-needed basis. it was fun to see christmas pictures of my brother femi showing off a bottle of gold bond body powder that he'd gotten in his stocking as part of my family's efforts to make up an AIDS care kit, and then distribute an identical bottle to a caregiver the very next day. thank you to everyone who is participating in making the care kits - they are really useful and the recipients are always grateful to receive even a little token of care.

since i've arrived in swaziland, i've attended numerous workshops and trainings and witnessed our peer educators attending even more. many NGOs and church groups here use workshops as a way to disseminate information and skills, especially to youth who are no longer in school but unemployed. FBS is a channel to connect some of the youth we work with to trainings which are interesting and useful to them. recently, we've launched a TOT (training of trainers) program. five of our peer educators have spent the past months being trained in drama, life skills, sunday school teaching, livelihood skills (crafts) and HIV and AIDS awareness.

my own host sister, zinhle, has been learning how to weave with grass from a place called gone rural, which sells handicrafts made by local women. she is quite good at it and on a typical afternoon you can find much of our household involved in the process. make is braiding the loose grass into rope, i or one of the children is using scissors to trim the rope smooth, zinhle is sewing the rope into a table mat or coaster or whatever she is making that day, and my other sister nonhlanhla is trimming the finished product or perhaps ironing it flat. it's a good source of income for her, and now she is beginning to share her skills with others.

so recently this groups of TOTs has been visiting the 10 zionist churches that FBS partners with. the trainers give short presentations on their topic and then the youth in the church decide which skills they would like to be trained in. we're trying to set up a training schedule so that the trainers can begin spreading what they've learned to our constituency. i got to visit maranatha church in zion a couple weeks ago, and it was exciting to hear the trainers speaking about what they've been learning, and also to see the youth in the church respond as to what topics they would like to learn about. it was also fun when i stood up to introduce the program and explain what we would be presenting to them, when i first introduced myself and explained what i was doing at FBS in siswati. the youth just stared back at me with blank looks on their faces, and so i was afraid my siswati was so convoluted that they weren't understanding a thing. but afterwards i asked one of our trainers if i had been coherent, and he assured me that i was and said that the blank looks were due to the shock everyone felt when i began speaking in siswati.

i've also recently begun volunteering once a week at hope house, which is a half-way home for terminally ill patients. 99% of them are HIV+, and hope house provides a place for them to stay after they're discharged from the hospital but before returning to their home area. the initial admission period is a month, although this can be extended on a case-by-case basis. this provides a time for them to get rested up and strong. the two nurses at hope house are there around the clock to monitor the patients and teach them how to take their medications. many patients are also started on ARVs during this time, and the cocktail of pills and the strict schedule that must be followed takes a lot of getting used to. many patients do not understand ARVs and what they do and how to take them, so an important role for the nurses is to counsel the patients, educate them about ARVs, and monitor them to make sure the drugs are being taken correctly.

hope house has 11 units occupied at the moment. the houses are really wonderful, comfortable with beds for the patient and a family member or friend to act as a "minder" - to cook and clean and take care of them and keep them company. they also have a small kitchenette area, a table and chairs, couches, and an indoor bathroom (what luxury!) hope house is run by two indian nuns, and then there is the housekeeper, make thandi, and the two nurses, bridget and cynthia. i've only been there twice so far, but i think it will be a good opportunity for building relationships and finding out more about the medical care and treatment side of HIV and AIDS. so far i've learned how to take blood pressure (the old-school way, with a stethescope and contraption with rising and falling mercury to indicate the levels), dispensed pills, helped with odd jobs like moving furniture. mostly i just follow the nurses around, and we spend a great deal of time just hanging out with the patients and their visitors. they're always so happy to have visitors, especially the ones who are too weak to leave their beds, and there are a few who don't have minders with them and must spend their lonely days by themselves in their houses. it doesn't matter if you talk in english or siswati, if you make sense or not, if you look at a magazine together or comment on the music video on tv, even if you talk or not. they're just happy you're there.

Greetings

2008-01-25T06:23:00.000-08:00

- Sawubona.

- Yebo.

- Unjani?

- Ngiyaphila. Unjani wena?

- Ngiyaphila nami.

Translated literally, this greeting is:

- We see you (Hello).

- Yes.

- How are you?

- I'm living (I'm fine). How are you?

- I'm also living.

(An alternate response if you're not feeling especially great that day is "Ngikhona" which merely means "I'm present/here")

This short conversation is of tremendous importance in Swaziland, and these words are probably some of the most-used in the Siswati vocabulary. Greetings are a part of life here, essential and inescapable. Greetings are a way of starting a conversation, of showing respect, of finding out how someone is doing, or at the most basic level, an acknowledgement of the person you pass on the street as a fellow human being.

I've often been curious about how often I go through this routine everyday, so yesterday I began to keep count to entertain myself during my morning run. And then paying attention to the people I greeted every day as a matter of routine was so interesting that I kept track throughout the day.

So here is a summary of my greeting exchanges for Thursday, January 24. It will also tell you something about my typical day - if any day can be called typical, since there are always surprises!

6:20 am (recorded after getting back from my run)- 5 family members (Tema*, Make, Gogo, Notsopi, Njabuliso)
- 15 people I met during my run (either on the road or working the adjacent fields)

*My three-year-old sister Tema wins the prize for the most noteworthy greeting of the early morning. It consisted of us yelling back and forth from her door to mine while I was stretching. Not only did she enquire as to how I was doing, but wanted to know the location and well-being of my father, mother, brother, sister and grandmother. This is not unusual for her. She's always particularly interested in knowing where my father is. I can't figure out if this is maybe because I told her he might be coming to visit and she's wondering when this will happen. Or maybe because her own father is a police officer who sends money and clothes and toys for her but has only been to visit her once in the last six months (that I know of).

8:45 am (recorded upon getting to work)- my sister Zinhle
- 2 neighbors in their maize field
- 2 people on the kombi
- Nonhlanhla*
- the post office clerk who I bought stamps from
- the guard at the post office
- Fiston**
- guy with dreads riding on the back of a truck
- Nhlonipho (a co-worker)

*Nonhlahla was the first surprise of the morning. She was a girl on the street that came up to me about a month and a half ago asking for money. I'm always uncomfortable in this situation, because there are always a number of questions I have that can't be answered: Who knows if the person actually needs it or is just trying to take advantage of the umlungu (white person)? Are they actually going to use it to buy food or for bus fare to get home like they're telling me? If I give them money, will I just reinforce the stereotype of the umlungu as an ATM? If I don't give her money, will she go hungry tonight because of my stinginess? etc. But on that day, I gave Nonhlanhla the bus fare she asked for, and then told her I would accompany her to the bus rank since I was on the way there myself. I thought, since her ride home is on me, the least she can do is let me practice my bad Siswati with her. And I thought, this may be a way of establishing a relationship, however short, so she can see me as more than a white person giving handouts. So we walked to the bus station together, and I found out about her family and how far she had gone in school and I told her what I was doing here. And when we parted ways at the busrank, I felt satisfied that hopefully I had led her to challenge some of the ideas she had held about white people. And apparantly the establishing a relationship worked, because yesterday morning I felt a tap on my shoulder and there was Nonhlanhla, who uttered a shy greeting before slipping back into the market crowd.

**Fiston was the second surprise of the morning. I was trotting down the hill to work, already late because of my stop at the post office, when a short guy walking past me said "Bonjour!" and continued walking. He had already passed me by the time the French-ness of his greeting registered in my brain, and I spun around and yelled "Comment ca va?" after him. This resulted in a conversation on the street corner where I learned that he's a Congolais who's been studying computers here for three years. It was wonderful to be able to speak a familiar tongue with someone who has been equally thirsting for someone to converse with in his own language. He remarked several times on how good my French was, and how happy he was to be speaking French again. It put a smile on my face for the day, and reminded me that no matter how inadequate I feel in Siswati, I can speak a language other than English fluently!

9:30 am (work)
- Make Ndzimandze (the HBC coordinator)
- 2 children that had come with Make Ndzi
- Nomcebo (the Peer Education Officer at FBS)
- a woman on the phone

2:10 pm- Sidney and his assistant (computer technicians networking the computers in the Centre, which involved the excitement of crawling around in the ceiling to wire cables through)
- Trevor (fellow SALTer who sometimes drops by FBS at lunchtime)

3:50 pm (before leaving work)- Lungile (the cleaning lady)
- Shane (FBS is ordering T-shirts from his company)

6:03 pm (on arrival at home)
- Primrose (my friend at the internet cafe)
- a random guy trying to pick me up on the street
- Nomsa (a neigbor and cousin)
- 2 women on the road
- my sister Nonhlanhla (who I hadn't seen in the morning because she was already in the fields when I left)

8:07 pm (after supper and prayer)
- Wandile (my brother who just got home from helping the neighborhood herd boy bring the cows in for the night)

So that's 48 individual greetings. I didn't count people I greeted more than once throughout the day. For example, some of my family members I greeted in the morning, then again when I got home from work, and for a third time after evening prayer, when we always go and shake hands and hug everyone at the end, like they do at the end of a Zionist church service. I initiated most of the greetings, but some of them recorded here I merely returned (for example the guy trying to pick me up - it's actually unusual that in this day there was only one. I'll have to do another post sometime on hilarious pick-up lines that I've heard.) I did count people I greeted in the plural "Sanibonani" as whatever number the group consisted of, since the greeting included all of them, and in most cases they all responded.

So now you know the number one rule of PR in Swaziland, and a daily ritual in my life. Just for the record, this morning on my run I counted again, and the number just from people seen on my running route was 24. I think it's because today was sunny and clear, as opposed to yesterday where the weather was kind of yucky and cloudy. So if I had kept going today, I might broken yesterday's record! But if I ever wonder if I'm having an impact in Swaziland, this is at least one small way where I can show friendliness and humanity and a willingness to enter into the "Swazi way". To close to 50 people a day, just by saying "Hello, I see you."

a south african christmas and swazi new year

2008-01-04T01:38:00.001-08:00

my christmas vacation started the day after youth camp ended. camp, by the way, was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. ie - i'm glad i lived through it, and i don't feel a strong urge to repeat the experience anytime soon. it consisted of 311 "youth" (by which i mean people aged 2 - 34) spending 7 days together at a boarding school. these figures are to be trusted, by the way, since i happened to have the title "office admin" which meant i spent the better part of the week in our makeshift office, registering the participants as they continued coming throughout the week and selling snacks from the tuck shop to children who seemed to have an insatiable appetite for junk food despite three square meals a day provided by our excellent caterers. i also served as the nurse, which basically meant giving spoonfuls of stomach medicine and tablets of pain killer to kids who complained of feeling sick, but really what i think they wanted was a quiet place to lie down and sleep. which was completely understandable, considering that the usual sleep schedule was about from 12:30 to 5:30. which is why, when i think back on camp, it is somewhat of a blur.

so, somewhat-rested from this experience, the next day i departed for durban, south africa, by kombi. but it's not quite that simple. i had been advised to get to the bus rank early, because once the first kombi fills up and goes, you have no guarantee of when or if another one will be departing that day. so after finishing up my packing, i left home in good time. however, no sooner had i hopped on the kombi and pulled away from home on the way to manzini, then i had that uh-oh! feeling. and sure enough, i had forgotten my passport. so i jumped off at the next stop, literally ran back home to get my id, but when i finally arrived panting at the bus rank 30 min later, i found out that my delay had cost me my spot in the first kombi. which had literally left minutes before i arrived. so then i sat in the kombi for four hours, baking in the sun and observing the bustling activity of the bus rank - which is a fascinating place, by the way. i'm sure most of swaziland has passed through there at one point or another. when we still had two empty spots at 12:30, and my fellow passengers started murmurs of dissention ("this is taking so long, i'm going to leave and come back tomorrow!"), the driver finally decided to start the motor. the rest of the trip was wonderfully uneventful, and i spent most of it catching up on my sleep debt from camp.

phil and christine picked me up in durban and we drove the 45 minutes to their home in pietermaritzburg, south africa. the lindell-detweilers are like family to me, because they were in benin when my family was there, so them and their children nathan, annika and lydia were part of my growing up years and many previous christmases. so it was really wonderful to get to spend a week with them, reminiscing about benin and also getting to discuss and process some of my south african experience thus far.

that evening we headed straight to a presbyterian church near their home for a service of lessons and carols by candlelight, which was lovely, and got me into the christmas mood. the next day all of us, along with christine's parents, carl & faith, who were also visiting, visited tala, advertised as durban's finest game reserve. it really is amazing that this park exists so close to the city. at some points when we driving through the hills, you could see the city suburbs stretched out in the distance.

although the park doesn't have the famous big five, we got really lucky with the animals we got to see. it helped that i was driving with christine, who could have been a big game hunter with her ability to spot animals in the distance, and her parents, who are avid birders who were always willing to stop and take a closer look with the binoculars. this was my first game park in this land famous for them, and i wasn't disappointed. we saw rhino, hippos, zebra, impala, blesbok (another type of antelope), ostrich, giraffes, buffalo, wildebeest, warthogs, and countless types of birds that really excited the birdwatchers but i couldn't really tell apart. except for the bright-orange birds which were so neon in color that they looked artificial. some highlights of the day were seeing a papa ostrich (which i never knew were so tall, he was over 6 ft!) tending a nursery of 10 little baby ostriches, and seeing a mama rhino with her little baby, whose folds of skin and funny nose were so ugly they made him cute.

we also got to see two blesbok down on their knees, locking horns in some kind of mating show-offery, and a pair of zebras in love, touching noses. and i was so proud of myself for spotting the giraffes, which we were hunting for. christine said "just look for their heads above the acacia trees" and i was scanning the distance, thinking, "what on earth does a giraffe head look like anyway" when i saw one!

so after a christmas eve that exciting, christmas day could have been a letdown, but it wasn't at all. we went to a morning service at breakthru international, where the l-ds attend. very charismatic, the people jumping up and down while singing praise songs and the posters on the wall proclaiming their goals of how many new members and new churches to be planted by 2010 were worlds away from the rural zionist church i've been attending. but the sermon, about loving even when we don't understand, really spoke to me and afterwards i had a chance to meet the pastor and his family, who are wonderful people. the rest of christmas day involved a huge feast of delicious food, including, ironically enough, a jenni-o turkey from minnesota purchased at the local pick'n'pay. dan and yvonne, another missionary couple in pmb, and auntie norah, a friend from breakthru, completed the guest list, and we spent a wonderful day together singing carols, acting out the christmas story, decorating cookies, opening presents, and eating, eating, eating...

another highlight from the week was the day before i left, when we headed into durban, a top surf destination, for a day at the beach. the lovely temperature and clear waters of the indian ocean delighted me. i've missed the beach so much, so even though the waves were awful and i only caught about three decent ones on my boogy board, just getting to be there was enough. an interesting thing about the durban beachfront is that you can see a naked beyonce sunning herself on a huge double bed, or a dog being swalled by an enourmous snake, or an intricately-detailed mosque, or a monstrous crocodile. these awesome sights are created with lots of sand, some water and a few utensils such as a broken plastic spoon by aspiring artists who then sit next to their creations all day, to chat with passers-by and ask for small donations.

i was really sad to leave pmb. it was good for my soul to get to talk about my experience with phil and christine, and to swim and play take two and watch movies with kids that felt like my own sibings. and yet, maybe it was the right amount of time, because we felt like family but hadn't started getting on each other's nerves yet...

i got home the day before new year's eve, which i wanted to spend with my swazi family since i missed out on christmas with them. new year's eve was busy: i woke up at 5:30 to run before the heat of the day set in. however, when i got back, i spent 3hours weeding the corn field with my family in blistering heat. thank goodness for that ridiculous straw hat they made me wear, which protected me from major sunburn. after a well-deserved tea break, i washed sheets and towels - which is quite a workout when you're doing it by hand! then we went to bring my other sister home for the holidays. she's been working for the past few months at a butcher's shop in eteni, about 30 min away. on the way home, we stopped to pick up ingredients for the new year's feast.

my part in this extravaganza was to bake three cakes and a tin of cupcakes. ever since my family discovered the delights of the hollinger-janzen wacky cake (see previous blog posting about wandile's birthday), they've been asking for more. so the wood stove got going at about 5:30, and when the firecrackers started going off at midnight, i was still writing "happy new year 2008" with icing squeezed from a plastic bag. the extended time frame was mostly due to the fact that we had one cake pan and three cakes to make, so there was a bit of a relay effect where we had to wait for cakes to cool and be evicted from the pan before the next one could go into the oven. still, it was good i had something to occupy myself with, because otherwise i might not have made it to midnight!

so in the first moments of 2008, the kids and i rushed outside to ooh and ahh over the bursts and sparkles decorating the hillside. then we welcomed in the new year with a midnight prayer service. the big even of new year's day was a huge feast, involving fried chicken, porridge, 5 kinds of salad, and trifle for dessert. i was so happy to see veggies that i filled up my plate with salad, while my astonished family couldn't believe that wasn't having any porridge. according to a swazi, you haven't really eaten if you haven't had liphalishi!

i also had a chance to do some journaling and reflecting on new year's day, which was very appropriate. this feels like a significant marker in my time here, and it's an opportunity for an emotional and mental turning point. it was good to kind of assess the situation and begin to figure out how to make the most of my remaining months here.

so: there you have my holiday season. coming soon... pictures to illustrate the festivities!

Victoria Falls

2007-12-26T07:56:00.000-08:00

vic falls. in this case, a picture really is worth a thousand words, so here you are. it's not quite the roaring curtain of white water depicted on most of the postcards, and at first we were disappointed that we had come just at the beginning of the rainy season when the water level wasn't at its highest volume. but very soon we became immensely glad that we came when we did.

we got the privilege of visiting this wonder of the world because we were en route to southern africa mcc retreat in lusaka, zambia, and decided to seize the opportunity and spend a weekend at vic falls before going on to work. (which wasn't really work at all, by the way, since the retreat was delightful and refreshing and a wonderful time to reconnect and meet new people... but that's also the topic of another blog post.)

we flew into the livingstone airport and i immediately felt at home. we'd spent the previous night in joburg, and driving around the city kind of threw me for a loop. in the downtown area, surrounded by huge skyscrapers and bustling shoppers and commuters, i became disoriented, because this same scene could have easily been taking place in new york or chicago. and walking around in massive shopping centers that were nicer than any mall i have ever been to in north america, i felt strangely like i had been unwittingly transported to another continent. or maybe just another africa. because this too, is africa, but one entirely different than i am familiar with.

so after the shock to my system that joburg was, coming into zambia felt like coming home. this is the africa i know, i thought to myself, as we bounced down the road to the backpacker hostel we were staying at in a ridiculously overloaded kombi. there were red dirt roads, and friendly people hanging around in a downtown that was about the size of that huge shopping complex in joburg. that afternoon we got to visit the livingstone museum, which has a fascinating display of kabwe, "broken hill man", an early skeleton that i had studied casts of in my archaeology lab last term. it also had a whole exhibit devoted to telling the story of david livingstone, so i got to learn more about this missionary and explorer, best known as the first (white) man to lay eyes on Mosi oa Tunya (the smoke that thunders).

and the sight is really incredible. but as i said before, because the water volume was lower, we had the chance to go on a (definitely unofficial) tour where we walked across the top of the falls. we had to crab-walk along the top of a concrete damn, holding hands for balance, and pick our way across dangerously mossy rocks, where the strong current flowing around them threatened to pick you up and toss you over the edge waiting only a few meters behind. arnold, our guide, assured us that no one had ever been carried over the falls, although he did tell us that sometimes in rainy season when the zambezi is swollen full, you can see hippos that have been swept up by the current falling the 1600 meter drop to the rocks below. that did not inspire any confidence, but we pressed on.

our perilous journey was well worth it, because at the end awaited angel's airchair, a deep pool on top of the falls. we got to jump off rock formations 6 m above the pool, and have our toes nibbled by the fish that shared the water with us. and it was so unbelievable that we were swimming on top of victoria falls. we also got some sweet photo opportunities.

we ended up our action-packed adventure with a sunset cruise on the zambezi that evening, where the excitement level, although not quite at the peak of walking on top of victoria falls, was still high as we got to see herds of hippos in the water and crocodiles that slid down the banks quickly as our boat approached, leaving slithering stomach-trails in the sand. after a classic south african braai on the boat, we headed back to shore and much-deserved sleep.

december plans

2007-12-04T07:14:00.000-08:00

on thursday (dec. 6) i'm leaving for zambia. the mcc swaziland team is attending the mcc south african retreat there, with a two-day side trip to see victoria falls first. we will arive back in swaziland on december 15, to jump right into preparations for the fbs youth camp, which begins the next day (dec 16). the youth camp will run until december 22. the fbs office will then be closed for a two-week christmas holiday. then i've been invited to spend christmas with some friends in pietermaritzburg, south africa.

so i'm really excited for this chance to travel, to discover more of southern africa, and to be renewed (retreat) and then exhausted (youth camp). in the midst of all this excitement, i'm not sure what my internet access will be like. but i'll be in touch as much as possible. blessings on your own december activities.

mcc service worker progress report

2007-12-04T07:05:00.000-08:00

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.

serial killer

2007-11-22T07:55:00.000-08:00

i have become a serial killer. last saturday i cut ten throats and was an accomplice in many other murders, holding the victim down so my associate could perform the dirty deed. one hundred innocent victims gave up their lives that day...

so, to put another spin on things: on saturday we were butchering chickens to prepare for the fbs youth camp. apparantly it's cheaper to do these things yourself. so that morning, a truck pulled up and delivered 100 feathery white birds to our yard. so then the gang of about 10 fbs members and salters swung into action: butchering, plucking, gutting, packaging.

at first i went to work plucking, which definitely has a high learning curve. my first bird took me about 45 minutes but then after that i was just cranking them out. these things get easier with practice. the same goes for butchering. it was a huge step to hold a chicken's feet and wings while its neck was severed. the spasms that run through the body after it's killed can be pretty violent. but as the day wore on, i grew used to it, running them down and capturing them.

i don't think i would have taken the step to doing the actual "slaughter" (as my fellow salter jesse put it) if it hadn't been for percy. but he was determined that i should learn, and put the knife in my hand and held the chicken down and then just looked at me. and he wouldn't let me get away with doing just the one, but gave me the "assignment" of 10 chickens. he was also the one that showed me how to gut the chicken, reach in and pull out everything inside, and cut off the undesirable parts.

the undesirable parts are actually fewer than you would think. we got the whole chicken experience as for lunch that day we ate grilled intestines, livers, and boiled chicken feet. waste not, want not! i tried everything for the experience, but i don't think i'll be fighting my gogo and make at home for their preferred delicacy of chicken feet.

so, as you can guess, this whole experience was quite a stretching one for a former vegetarian. but as someone said that day, if you're willing to help eat the chicken, then you should be willing to help kill the chicken. and after all, i'm strangely proud of the fact that i now know how to turn a pecking, clucking bird into something that you could buy packaged in the freezer section of the supermarket. you never know when these things will come in handy...

so, the adventures continue. think of this as you're all eating your thanksgiving turkeys - someone spent an hour plucking that bird! unless someone invented a machine that does that, which i sincerely hope they did.

happy birthday wandile

2007-11-16T07:12:00.000-08:00

on wednesday my little brother wandile turned 10. my responsibility for the celebrations was was to bake a birthday cake. usually my family just buys birthday cakes, which are expensive, and not nearly as good as homemade cakes anyway.

so when i got home from work on wednesday, i could see the black column of smoke rising from the stove pipe as i walked down the lane towards the house. it was ridiculously hot - the temperature was such that starting up a wood stove went against all instincts of self-preservation. nevertheless, there was a task ahead, so it had to be done.

the first minor panic came when i realized that the baggers at shoprite had neglected to include the small packet of baking soda in my grocery bag the previous day. but never fear, the birthday boy was dispatched at a run to the neighborhood store to buy "cooking soda" (after we established that this term did, indeed, refer to a fine white powder that made things fizz). the second, more severe panic, came when i discovered the lack of measuring cups. and then the distress only intensified when i realized that we did in fact have a measuring cup, only it was in milliliters. how to convert? thanks to my handy-dandy agenda (those lists of weights and measures in the back are actually useful in some instances, like baking a cake in swaziland!) i discovered that one cup = 240 ml, and after some quick mental math, i was able to proceed.

so i mixed the ingredients without further ado and then the real test came: how to bake a cake in an oven without temperature settings? as i realized, it's simple. this is what you do: start the pan on the bottom shelf for "a little while" (translated into numbers this means about 10 minutes) and then move it to the top, and simply keep checking and sticking a match in the middle until it comes out clean. no problem! both the cake and the cupcakes turned out beautifully.

while the cakes were cooling, my sister zinhle whipped up some liphalishi on the stove - usually in hot weather we cook in the outside kitchen over an open fire. we also fried up some boervos (afrikaans for spicy sausage - delicious and a staple at any braai, or barbeque). by the time our birthday feast was ready, it was 8:30 pm!

we sang happy birthday and took lots of pictures and just had a really fun time celebrating together. the funnest part was the process though, with all the kids in the kitchen peering over my shoulder as i baked and eagerly waiting to lick out bowls - which is the best part of baking, by the way. it just felt like such a special day and i was struck by the importance of taking time to celebrate the important things in life.

during our nightly prayer, as got down on our knees and all spoke our prayers out loud at the same time, i thanked god for this special time of celebration with my family and asked him to bless wandile and this next year of his life, as he continues growing, learning and loving.

judea church in zion

2007-11-12T07:35:00.001-08:00

i'm singing in the choir. this was our "christmas for the elders" sunday, where all of the gogos in the congregation got recognized with a gift of a bag of sugar, a bag of rice, and a bar of soap. i'm well dressed for the occasion thanks to my gogo, who sews uniforms for all of the church members.

sibebe rocks

2007-11-12T07:19:00.000-08:00

a saturday hiking trip at gorgeous sibebe rocks, close to mbabane.

reed dance

2007-11-12T06:56:00.000-08:00

mimi and a swazi princess

2007-11-10T05:52:00.000-08:00

this is me and sane, a fellow fbs intern, and a princess at the umhlanga (reed dance). the red feathers in the princess' hair tell you that she's royalty, and sane and i are wearing emahiya, traditional swazi attire. stay posted for my pictures of king mswati the second...

home visits

2007-11-10T04:40:00.000-08:00

so, my job at fbs is not very defined. this fact has resulted in confusion, frustration and boredom at times. however, it also allows me more freedom to choose how i want to spend my time. this last week was really exciting as i got to accompany the home based care coordinator, make ndzimandze, on home visits.

i really love getting out of the office, and getting to see what the every day experience of living with hiv/aids is like. it's such a privilege to be able to enter someone's home, sit down at their bedside or on their couch or outside on the grass, and listen to their story. i've probably been on about 15 visits so far, and there's been such a range of everything: ages, severity of symptoms, level of wealth, friendliness, family situations... it's just helping me to realize that the hiv virus is just a sickness, like any other disease. people live for years with it, and many people are still going about their daily lives as before, keeping their status a secret - if they even know it themselves. most of the patients we saw were unable to work though, and stay at home, some of them confined to bed and too weak to even walk.

i've learned some of the warning signs, so that i'm beginning to be able to guess who is positive before they reveal it. the open sores on the legs and feet, that attract buzzing flies that the patient is so accustomed to that they don't even bother to swat them away anymore. the white tongue, a symptom of thrush, which coats the whole digestive tract, weakening the taste buds on the tongue to suppress the appetite, and lessening the ability of the intestines to extract needed nutrients from food.

many of the patients have another condition as well as being positive. one of the most common opportunistic infections to accompany hiv is tb. the amount of drugs patients need to take for this is ridiculous. at one patient's house, a soft-spoken, bed-ridden young man, he reached to his bedside table for a box containing 10 different packets of pills. managing this cocktail of drugs when you barely eat in a day is a challenge. there's an equally staggering number of drugs in the combination of antibiotics and vitamins given to prepare the patient to receive anti-retroviral drugs (arv's). many of the people we visited were at this stage. this treatment is supposed to get rid of any infections and strengthen the body before beginning the arv treatment, which is very harsh on the body.

however, the sad thing is that many people get to this stage, their bodies get stronger and they feel much better, and since they don't feel sick, they don't go back to the hospital to get the arv's. then after a while, their bodies will get run down again, giving hiv more of a chance to reproduce and get stronger. the arv's function to keep the virus at bay, allowing the disease to exist in the body but stopping it from reproducing, which allows the body to gain back strength and function as normally as possible.

there are also people that know they are positive, and so they go to get tested for their CD4 cell count. these are white blood cells that fight hiv - here they're called emasolja (soldiers). but then they never go back to get the results of the test, and without knowing your CD4 cell count, you can't begin treatment for arv's. the government will give you arv's once your count drops below 200. a healthy count is roughly 1500 - 2000.

so i've learned a lot from these visits, as you can see. all of these details of hiv are things that i probably read at some point in a textbook or magazine article, but could never manage to remember. how easy it is to recall them now that i've visited person after person whose futures depend on these numbers! my teacher has been make ndzimandze, a retired government nurse who is now the hbc coordinator at fbs. her wealth of knowledge about hiv, nutrition and basic healthcare combined with her huge network of relatives and acquaintances and her friendly and caring personality make her the perfect person for this daunting job. i feel so lucky to be able to have such a wonderful companion on these difficult visits.

the visits are mostly to homesteads in rural areas, and are conducted entirely in siswati. this has been excellent for developing my siswati. it's so rewarding that i am now able to follow the general gist of a conversation. then afterwards, as we head to the next patient, i get the details and explanations from make. at times my language "handicap" is also an advantage. we visted one middle-aged man who greeted us from bed as his relatives showed us into his room. however, as soon as the interview started, his family and even another care-giver who were accompanying us were required to get up and leave the room. he was positive, but had not come out to his family yet, and so the meeting had to be confidential. i tried not to let on how much i understood of the conversation, looking around instead at the magazine pictures that plastered the walls.

out of all the patients i've seen so far though, ncobile (i changed her name) stands out in my mind. she welcomed us into her one-room apartment that she shares with her 12-year old son and her grandbaby. she looked far too young to have a grandchild. she had received a food parcel from fbs last month, and expressed her warm gratitude for the gift. as she began talking though, her beautiful big eyes filled with tears and her thin frame bent over with sorrow as she told us her story. her first child is a daughter, who at 12 years old had been raped by an uncle. because of this, they left their family home and went to live with some friends in a nearby town. here, the daughter fell in love and had her child with one of the young men from the family they were staying with. however, she then left him for his twin brother, which caused hard feelings in the family and they had to move again, to where they live now. the family also denied any responsibility for the child. the mother, ncobile's daughter, now works in another town, living with another man, and her mother only ever sees her when she's drunk and needs money. however, ncobile has nothing to give her, and can't afford to send her son to school, rent her flat and feed the three of them. she hates the thought of it, but is looking for an orphanage for her granddaughter, since the child's mother doesn't take any responsibility for her. ncobile used to take in sewing, but she is hiv positive now and has been unable to work for a long time. last week when she went looking for work, she found she had lost all of her old customers. they hadn't eaten anything yet on the day we visted, at 2 in the afternoon.

i caught this story in bits and pieces, and sat there in silence, watching her cry as she held her granddaughter on her lap, who was also crying. make and i listened to her story, which spilled out as if it had been bottled up for a long time. at the end, when make asked me to pray for ncobile, i didn't even know what to pray for. i don't remember what i said, and i couldn't think of anything to say to ncobile as we walked out the door. i could only think to give her a hug, but couldn't even express my full sympathy and love in this way because she felt too frail to squeeze very hard. back at the truck, make and i dug into our purses for enough money for a meal, and when we left this with ncobile, she smiled and waved as we pulled out onto the road.

in the truck, i had no questions for make this time, and i thought that maybe she would be used to the emotional stress of home visits by now. but make, normally very chatty, was subdued, and said only, "this is why i hate home visits." we talked about providing help for school fees for ncobile's son through a partner organization, and make said she knew of a good christian orphanage that she would look into. this was the first home visit of the day, and i very much just wanted to curl up into a ball on the seat and not face the world for a little while.

however, we still had a list of patients, and so we pulled up in front of edward's (name changed) house. this was the third time we had come; the previous two times he wasn't there, and we'd been informed by a neighbor that he was visiting the neighborhood beer hall. but he was perched on a stool under a tree with his brother. edward was a tiny, wrinkled, little man, who had a sparkle in his eye as make lectured him on eating spinach and peanut butter to give him good protein. edward gave me hope again though, because on the last visit he had been very thin and weak due to malnutrition. fbs had given him a food parcel, and you could clearly see the result, this little man sitting quietly, but showing definite sparks of life. as i sat there under the tree, looking out at the vibrant green bean field stretching down the hill side, i felt like i wanted to continue to hear people's stories, even the difficult ones. even though they don't all turn out like edward.

ncp

2007-11-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

last saturday i had the priveledge of getting to visit a neighborhood care point, or ncp. these are stations set up around the country to help care for orphaned and vulnerable children (ovc). this particular ncp was at hope house, an assemblies of god church. the pastor also runs an orphanage where they care for 36 children.

we got to meet his wife and relax in their home and enjoy tea and biscuits and watch finding nemo with two of their adorable children, deborah and abigail. this is because we showed up at 11, thinking that there was a service before the children began arriving at 2. unfortunately, there was a miscommunication, so we were left standing out on the hillside until someone spotted us and directed us to the pastor's home. but the wait was lovely, as it was a gorgeous sunny day and we had hiked halfway up a mountain to get there, so the view was just spectacular.

it was also interesting to talk with the pastors wife about the orphanage and the challenges that they face. it was also a good connection, since when she found out where i was from, she invited the fbs health team to come and do a presentation at their church.

the church women who do the cooking arrived around one, and started a fire under the huge black three-legged pot donated by unicef. the pot contained 8 packets of protein-fortified dehydrated vegetable blend, and ahuge quantity of water. looking at the flakes in the boxes donated by usaid, i was skeptical. but as the pot began to bubble, the contents started smelling rather delicious.

the kids began arriving and were herded into a half-finished concrete structure, which will become the new ncp kitchen when it is completed. (for now, they just cook outside.) for half an hour, i enjoyed singing praise songs and listening to the children memorize bible verses. the atmosphere was really fun and upbeat. it was also encouraging because i could sing along to most of the songs, thanks to our nightly prayer times at home which always include a lot of singing.

then the food was ready, and the children lined up with tin plates and spoons to receive a ladle of veggie blend. as they settled down to eat, i peeked into the pot and saw that there was quite a bit left. i scrounged up a cup and the ladies laughingly dished some out for me. i was pleasantly surprised, since the mixture turned out to taste like mashed potatoes with carrots and beef added. which is exactly what it was, fortified with a bunch of b vitamins. apparantly the kids really like it too, because quite a few of them headed back for seconds.

besides getting a solid meal, the ncp also keeps track of vital health stats for the children, and these statistics determine how much food the ncp receives. if a lot of the kids are malnourished, for example, the ncp will receive more food next month. my fellow salter trevor/themba works with the church forum on hiv/aids, coordinating the monitoring of ncps. so after this experience, i'm totally jealous of his job!

so after spending five hours on a mountainside in motjane (just 10 km from the south african border) i was quite sunburned but also very encouraged. it was wonderful to see such a concrete expression of love and care. joy was evident in every party, from the kind and energetic sunday school teacher to the enthusiasm of the children to the care and concern of the pastor and his wife to the friendliness of the cooks.

ngiyafundza siswati...

2007-10-20T06:27:00.000-07:00

this last week has really been one of starting to feel more comfortable here in swaziland, feeling more at home. which is lovely, considering that for the past two months (i've been here two months?!) i've felt really scattered and like i've been trying to figure out how to be myself here.

this past week our siswati classes ended. trevor, jesse and i had been meeting with babe shongwe every afternoon (mon - thurs) from 4:30 - 6:00 for language study. it was a process that was very frustrating at times, but also brought many unexpected surprises. mostly when babe (pronounced bah - bay, it means father, and is used as a term of respect for any married man) would get sidetracked from whatever he was supposed to be teaching us and get onto some topic like kudega. which is a kind of traditional swazi engagement which is actually more like a forced marriage. here's what happens: your boyfriend invites you over to his house to visit and meet his family. then, in the middle of the night, he slips away and comes back at 4 or 5 am with all of his relatives, who come and bang on the door of the room where you're sleeping. when you come to answer the door, they shout "we've dega-ed you!" (or however you say that in siswati) and from that point on, you're considered engaged. you're then required to sing until dawn, and make a big show of crying because now you're forced to leave your family and come live with your in-laws. so while you're singing with the women of the family, all the men from your inlaws family go to your homestead with weapons and knives and stick them in the ground outside your gate. when your family finds them, this is how they know that you will be getting married and leaving them.

that was only one of the many cultural episodes courtesy of babe shongwe, who also has a great sense of humor. one of the more hilarious lessons was just this past week, when we were learning HIV/AIDS-related vocabulary.

*this blog doesn't have a rating, but just be warned that what's coming up is definitely pg-13*

so we learned that the swazi word for condom literally translated means "a coat for the son-in-law" and that the word for penis is "gogo's cigarette". (just to clarify, gogo means grandma) we were all laughing until we cried and were left wondering WHO on earth comes up with these and WHAT were they thinking...

but these very enlightening lessons are now over and we're left on our own for language learning. so i continue to learn alot from my host family, especially the children, who never get tired of answering my continual question of "yini logu?" (what is this?). and percy (remember percy, the lemon-tree-climber?) has agreed to be my siswati tutor, so i'll start meeting with him next week, twice a week, for a little more structured time of siswati conversation.

i feel like i've learned more than i could ever want to know about siswati pronouns and noun classes and how to form negatives and the immediate and remote tenses of past, present and future... but the lessons have been really good in terms of an introduction to siswati and getting a feel for the language structure and some basic vocab. but i feel like the time of real learning still lies ahead. my goal for siswati is to be able to understand people and communicate with them, and to achieve this, i still have a lot left to learn.

the other thing i'm discovering about siswati is that i can know what every word in a sentence means, but still not have a clue what the sentence is saying. this is because a lot of words have multiple, flexible meanings, and you need to know the context to know what the word means in that context. siswati isn't just a language, it's very closely and intimately intertwined with the culture. which makes is a challenge to learn... but one that i'm enjoying, for the most part. it has its share of frustrations, but the rewards are tremendous.

it was the best feeling on the kombi the other night when i had a conversation entirely in siswati with the two women sitting next to me. i was so proud of myself! granted, it was just the basics, greetings, exchanging names, asking where i live, where i'm working, and hey! you speak siswati. well, a little bit, i'm learning... how much is the kombi... but i was just glowing afterwards because i understood everything they said and it felt like a normal interaction. and it was a little glimpse of how awesome it will be then i can actually converse comfortably with people.

there is some kiss...

2007-10-13T05:45:00.001-07:00

for those of you who appreciate poetry, i came across this poem a little while ago and it really spoke to me, especially the bit about the language door and love window. these are good words to hear when you are constantly faced with a language barrier. and i've found them to be true.

there is some kiss we want with our whole lives, the touch of spirit on the body. seawater begs the pearl to break its shell. and the lily, how passionately it needs some wild darling! at night, i open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine. breathe into me. close the language door and open the love window. the moon won't use the door, only the window.

- rumi

Faith Bible School

2007-10-13T05:16:00.000-07:00

some of you have been curious about my work situation, so i'll give you a little information about who fbs is and what we're up to right now.

fbs was started in 1976 by zionist bishop isaac dlamini and mennonite missionary darrell hostetter. their goal was to provide biblical training to zionist pastors. the zionists are indigenous, african-initiated churches who initially rejected missionaries' interpretations of christianity and instead blended biblical teachings with traditional practices. a youth wing of fbs started in the 80s, and then the HIV/AIDS project began in 2001, emerging from a group of youth who were inspired by an HIV/AIDS workshop at a youth camp run by fbs. the initial mandate of bible training stopped, and now fbs's main activities are marriage enrichment, peer education in life skills, livelihood skills and HIV/AIDS, home-based care for those suffering from HIV/AIDS and their families, a youth health team that sings and does drama presentations about abstinence and faithfulness in local churches, and an annual youth camp. they still focus on the zionist community, but work with many other churches as well.

so since the focus of fbs has changed so much since it began, they are wanting to conduct a review to figure out what direction fbs wants to take in the future, and whether or not we should change the name to more accurately reflect the work being done. so we've had meetings to develop a questionnaire that we will distribute to those who are active in fbs right now, and to those who were a part of it in the past (eg. when it was still training pastors) to determine what services are needed in the community. so this week i finalized the form, and i think next week we will begin distributing it as well as going to interview some people.

the second big project is the youth camp, which will take place from december 16 - 21. about 250 youth from local churches attend. the executive committee at fbs has been busy planning the theme and the contents of the various workshops and the schedule. so this past week i have also spent time drafting letters inviting speakers, letters to churches inviting the youth to attend, and letters to businesses asking for donations for the camp. the theme is "make a difference" and we'll be focusing on the lives of four biblical heroes (mary, esther, gideon, timothy) who were able to make a difference, even though they were young. we're trying to empower the youth and show them that they can achieve their goals, and have a positive impact on the world. we'll be doing workshops on gender, relationships, HIV/AIDS and spiritual gifts. and also having sports and crafts time and we're planning the last day as a conference day where we'll invite the public and have speakers and the youth will present debates about what they've learned during the week. it already looks like it will be a really good experience and i'm looking forward to it.

after seven weeks eSwatini...

2007-10-13T04:44:00.000-07:00

so there aren't ten this time, but i figured i'd just write about things as i experience them so they're fresher, rather than saving them up until i have ten new things. (because after all, who wants to hear about stale experiences?)

1. oh, the marvels of electricity! my family's main house always had power, but since i have my own little thatched-roof hut, i had been using a propane lamp at night. but a couple weeks ago their uncle who works for the swaziland electricity board came and rigged up my little hut, and now i have a lightbulb and a electrical socket! so i can read as late as i want at night and now can heat water for my bath with the electric kettle.

2. THUNDERSTORM! last sunday i experience my first swazi thunderstorm, and it was amazing. so far we've had quite a bit of rain, but it's been the it's-grey-and-chilly-and-drizzling-all-day type. this was entirely different. the day was hot and sunny but with really strong winds, and then then entire sky clouded over in a matter of minutes. then there were hurricane-force winds which actually ripped the tin roofing off a few houses in our area, as i saw the next morning. and the power was out so we ate supper by candlelight, and all went to bed early. but i watched the storm from my window for a long time. the lightening was regular, in a pattern. it would backlight the mountains in the distance and then a few seconds later strike right overhead. and the thunder would shake the valley. it was awesome to behold.

3. emaasi. is something very dear to swazi hearts. in fact, my whole family was thrilled that we were having it for supper. they poured thick rivers of the rich sour milk over the moutains of liphalishi (maize porridge) on their plates. and i was up for trying something new. but as i began eating, no matter how much i kept telling myself that this was really no different than yogurt, it still tasted like barf. after it became evident that i wasn't going to be able to level the pile on my plate, zinhle took pity on me and made me and three year old tema (who likes emaasi about as much as i do) peanut butter sandwiches.

4. two weekends ago, i was lucky enough to be able to attend a traditional swazi wedding. first of all, i got about five marriage proposals right off the bat from men who were already well into the celebrations (by which i mean incredibly drunk for the middle of the afternoon). then the dancing troupe started heading towards me, and i knew i was in for it. they swept me up and we moved en masse to grace various people with our rhythmic stomping. and i was front and center, of course. it was a really interesting experience though. the atmosphere was really fun and positive, and some of the dancing was amazing. there was one point in the ceremony where dancers went one by one into the center of the chanting semi-circle of emahiya*-clad women, and they did these terrific high kicks. if a girl was especially energetic or talented, a warrior clad in skins and carrying a shield would run up and kneel down before her in appreciation, or sometimes she would get oranges or money tossed at her feet.

*emahiya: traditional swazi women's attire, the classic style is a maroon length of cloth printed with a large floral design, sometimes it is blue and depicts the king's face. it is worn tied over the right shoulder with the left shoulder left bare.

life is like...

2007-10-13T04:20:00.000-07:00

life is like a lot of things. but today i'm thinking that it's like driving in the swazi mountains - you're always either going up or down, and you're never on a flat plain. that's kind of what my emotions have been like so far: i either feel really good about being here, or things are really difficult. and for the past few weeks it's been really difficult.

as i mentioned a bit in one of my previous blogs, i think i had unrealistic expectations about how i would fit in here. people look at me and just see one in a string of many white, american volunteers. they can't tell what kind of experiences i've had, like living for 13 years in benin. and even if they could, why should they care? as i'm learning, west african and south african culture are vastly different. and why shouldn't they be? they're on opposite ends of an enormous continent. but it's been a bit of a rude awakening.

and also, i know what it's like to be on the other side, receiving a string of volunteers and interns. and how they kind of blend into each other as they come and go. so i'm not surprised when my coworkers at the office forget and call me "nomsa" (the swazi name of the previous salter). but it hurts. because it reminds me how separate our lives are. and it reminds of how essential it is for development work that you settle down and really get to know a place. when i think about the relationships and level of understanding of the culture that i have here compared to how i am able to operate in benin, there's such a huge difference. and it makes me cringe to think about all the miscommunication and confusion and damage caused by well-meaning volunteers who come in trying to help, but with no understanding of the context. and so all i can do is acknowledge that i am an outsider here, and then be sensitive and open to learning as i interact with others and learn the ropes here. and this process is exhausting and difficult, but i know it's necessary and well worth the effort.