The Storm

The Peace Corps sends us a text message warning about a hail storm early on a beautiful Thursday morning. “It’s going to storm,” I tell my host mom when I arrive home from work.

By 5 the winds are howling and everyone scampers to their respective houses. I sit in bed watching a movie on my laptop while Scruff T shakes next to me. There is uncharacteristically little lightening, but I am still worried about getting struck. Swaziland has the highest rate of lightning strikes in the entire world. I recently learned that I live in the vortex where all of this happens. It has something to do with the geology, apparently. It makes sense, too. Just last year, a boy on my soccer team was struck and killed. A few years before that, lightning struck a church here and 9 people died simultaneously. The rains are good for the farmers, but they often cause lots of damage.

By six, my windows are rattling and it looks like a tornado outside. I can still hear a tractor plowing a nearby field. “They must have a death wish,” I think. Tractors are few and far between, and renting a time slot of even an hour is done months in advance. If the tractor owner fell behind by even one customer, hundreds of farmers would be affected. They typically work 16 hour days during planting season. I pray that they stay safe.

At 7, I hear a loud crack, and the next thing I know, there was a gaping hole in my roof and dirt and grass are whirling around my room, coating everything in seconds. Dirt blows into my face, temporarily blinding me. The wind is stronger than the rain, but fearing that it was a lightning strike that might catch my thatch roof on fire, I quickly pack all of my valuables into my backpack and grab my dog. I am going to seek shelter in the main house.

Stepping outside is like stepping into a tornado. I can literally barely stand. It doesn’t help that I have my dog in my arms. She is afraid and disoriented in storms, so the best thing to do is to make sure that she stays with me and doesn’t run off. I try to lock my door for about 5 seconds before giving up, as the wind keeps pushing my hand away from the lock. I’m not worried that anyone would steal in this weather, but that the door would whip open from the wind. I give up and just run with Scruff-T to the main house. I trip on some wires that had fallen down, but finally make it to the main house. I pound on the main door, screaming to be heard over the wind. The curtain is pulled back, and they gesture for me to come in the side entrance. When I get inside, a neighbor boy, my host mom, and the two orphans are sitting in somber silence. The two little boys are sitting quietly on the couch, their eyes wide with fear and unshed tears.

I plop down next to Phumlane and say, “Bhuti, I need a hug.” He launches into my arms and we hold each other tightly for a moment, until I realize that my heart is pounding loudly, and I don’t want him to notice my fear.

“Yah,” make says. “The roof is gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes, gone, over the kitchen and the room of Xolani.”

“Ncesi, my roof is also gone.” It makes sense, then, why they gestured for me to enter in the side door. The front door goes into the kitchen, and that roof was gone.

We sit there quietly for a few more moments. The storm rages on outside. We quickly go to Xolani’s room and cover the furniture with canvas tarps and hold those down with the concrete blocks which had fallen into the room. (Ok, confession, I was still terrified of the storm, so I stood holding the flashlight for the others from the doorway, with one foot inside the room that still had a roof). It settles down quickly enough, though. Once the wind dies down, Phumlane and the neighbor boy are sent with my flashlight to try and find the roof and to assess the damage to my house.

They come back a worrying ten minutes later to report. Apparently, the roof flew off and hit my roof (thus causing the gaping hole in my roof). Then the roof flew over to the latrine, hit the latrine, and finally landed scattered in pieces about 200 meters away in the fields.

When the storm dies down a bit more, I run with the two older boys back to my house to grab what we can. The damage is much less than I thought it was, and the hole is only about 2 feet in diameter. We grab my blankets and I quickly also grab Ellie, my trusty stuffed elephant. Upon returning to the main house, I toss Ellie to the youngest boy, Sihle, who wi still sitting mutely in his chair. He looks up and me and a slow smile brightens his face. There is the boy I know and love. He immediately starts playing with the elephant with more vigor than usual, as he badly needs the distraction.

We sit there quietly for a while, occasionally exclaiming. The storm is gone completely by about 8. Soon enough, the first neighbors start arriving. There are too few chairs, so Sihle climbs into my lap and immediately falls asleep.

The visits are brief and full of disbelief. Relatives and friends are called in the brief moments when we have network coverage. Everyone is alright, a few more roofs were blown off. I call the nearest volunteer and she is fine.

Make blames the storm on the giant magical snake which lives in the Ngwempisi river. I’ve heard many stories about this snake. I even once found an academic paper by an anthropologist who came out to study it in the 1980s. Last year when I got bilharzia from the river, make said it was the snake. Now it is the snake again. What an angry snake.

I sleep on a grass mat wrapped in my blankets on the floor. We are all up at 5. I quickly bathe and walk around the property with make, assessing the damage. Clothes and pieces of building are everywhere.

“I don’t know where to start,” she tells me. It is the first time in this whole ordeal that she has been anything other than sturdy as a rock. “I wanted to get married in December. Now I don’t know. I wanted to plow today.”

“Well, how about I start with sweeping?” She agrees and begins to make a fire outside while I separate the broken glass from the cement in the house. I bring out brick after brick and sweep mountains of sediment outside. When I’m done about two hours later, the floor is clean-walkable. So that way everyone can at least use the kitchen.

Neighbor after neighbor stops by and there is much exclaiming “Nkhosi yami!” (My lord!)

The boys chase chickens around the yard until they catch the two that are to be eaten this week. I let the goats out of their pen.

A man comes by and I help him unfold and patch up the tarp that will be put up in place of a roof until the roof can be fixed. He can see that I’m getting weak from hunger, so he sends me away to eat for a bit. All I have at home that doesn’t require cooking is an orange and 3 crackers. I wolf those down and go back outside much refreshed.

I then excuse myself and head to the clinic for a nursery group meeting. I run into some neighbor women on the way. “Zanele, you are getting--” And the lady puffs out her cheeks.

“Yah, yah,” I smile and keep walking. She's the third person to tell me that this week. Sure, I've put on maybe 5 pounds lately from stress-eating, but wow is it amazing how your waistline is watched!

The clinic is already packed with people, all inquiring after one another and sharing their damage reports. An empty water tank blew over the clinic fence and landed about a mile downriver. The chairman of the support group had his house literally crumble around him-walls and ceiling. It seems as though everyone has lost a roof or something.

After catching up, I finally go check on the nursery with a few of the members. The entire left wall is collapsed. Luckily, it didn’t break our irrigation system, but it is a major setback we can’t afford at the moment (especially considering that not a single seed supplier in the country has any pepper in stock right now, and that’s our biggest seller during this season). We prop it up as best we can. Some of the members go to chase down the runaway water tank, and one member (the lazieeeest of them all) stays with me to plant 2,200 beetroots.

I work like a madman, and sure enough, she just stands there without moving until it’s time to start putting the seeds in their holes (the easiest job). About an hour in, I force her to switch roles because my back is killing me.

The nursery secretary walks in and asks me who we’re planting for. I tell him that I’m just planting what he told me to plant. No, he wanted 4,000 tomatoes, not 4,000 beetroots. I grit my teeth at the setback. We finish soon enough, though, and after a short nursery meeting to discuss damage control , I’m headed home.

I arrive home as make is leaving. My roof is mostly fixed and the tarp is in place. She’s going to inquire about an extra tractor. She hands me the money and tells me to pay the tractor drivers when they finish. When they go, I take a bucket and start collecting the sweet potatoes lost from last year’s harvest that the tractors ground up. I get about a 20 liter bucket and wash them. I think its progress, because a year ago, I know I wouldn’t have been trusted with a lot of these responsibilities.

Sihle arrives home from school and immediately starts helping me wash potatoes after he’s done eating. I tell him to rest, but he wants to help. What a good boy. It’s only 3:30 in the afternoon as I write this, but I’m exhausted from a day of physical labor. Can’t wait to eat my sweet potato for dinner, though.

Pictures of CAMP GLOW

Here are some pictures of last year's Camp GLOW.  Please see the previous entry for information on how YOU can help these wonderful girls.

Here a local artist was teaching the girls how to paint portraits of each other.

Hanging out on the playground during a break. 

We're all excited for the talent show. 

Teamwork

No such thing as tired!

Their portraits

Getting to know each other

Hillarious take on the traditional South African "gumboot dance."

All together now

Busy schedule for Health Day

 New friends

Some dances were modern...

Others were traditional.  Check out that flexibility!!!

Why we need more programs like GLOW and how YOU can help!

Why GLOW Matters

How many times have I seen this scenario play out in the bus rank?

A man in his 20s or 30s approaches a schoolgirl.  He starts out by grabbing her wrist, pinching her rear, or otherwise invading her space.  The schoolgirl always reacts the same way; she instantly startles and raises a fist in defense.  The man is already speaking by this point, soothing her with his voice that he is a friend.  She relaxes a bit and tries once more to be free of him.  If she starts walking, he walks with her with a tight hold on her fist.  If she is standing, he stays standing close to her.  He starts off with a joke and she lets down her guard.  Then he is speaking in low, bedroom tones.  He loves her, he wants her number…she is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.  If he’s very bold- he wants to marry her and make her pregnant with his babies.  He talks steadily at her, never bothering to ask how old she is or to learn her name.  She softens.  Who wouldn’t be thrilled to be the recipient of such crooning and attention?  After about 5 minutes of wearing down her defenses, he claims victory when she gives up her phone number. 

Will the girl make healthy choices with this man who claims to love her before knowing her?  Will he be faithful?  Will she insist on using a condom? 

If a girl felt loved and confident in whom she was, would she succumb to that charming, much older kumbi conductor pressing his fingers into her wrist in the bus rank?  If she was comfortable in her body, would she speak up about her bodily needs? 

That is why the GLOW (Girls Leading Our World) program is so important.  It takes girls who may feel unloved and undervalued and teaches them that they can do anything that they want to.  They are told that they are valuable, taught that they have the right to bodily autonomy and encouraged to have aspirations besides motherhood. 

I know so many girls and women who desperately needed something like GLOW;

-My friend contracted HIV when she was 14 years old from her much older boyfriend.  She told me that if she had felt loved at home, if she knew that she had the right to say no, she would not have consented.    

-Another friend of mine has 7 children, most of whom she didn’t want.  She can’t take birth control pills because her blood pressure is too high.  Her boyfriend won’t wear a condom.  When I train the men's soccer teams on reproductive health, they typically also bawk at the idea of wearing condoms.  When I ask them if they would if their partner insisted, they always say they would.  Perhaps it's just a matter of teaching the girls that they have the right to insist and that they must be vocal about their needs. 

-Just last week, a 16 year old girl at my host brother’s high school committed suicide when she found out she was pregnant and the father denied paternity. 

-A teenage girl I know took a martial arts class after school and loved it.  She stopped going when the teacher kissed her.  In other instances, I have seen male teachers discreetly hand money to attractive female schoolgirls.  I asked some Swazi friends what this could mean, and they all indicated that my terrible suspicion is probably accurate. 

-My young SiSwati tutor is telling me about her “teka” ceremony.  In Swazi culture, it is called “juma” when a woman spends the night at the homestead of her boyfriend.  If the boyfriend’s family wants her to marry him, they might perform the bride-snatching ceremony called “teka”, during which the girl is dragged early in the morning from bed, stripped naked, and made to sit in the cattle kraal until she cries.  There is no such thing as divorce if one marries under Swazi customary law, so the bride has little recourse.  I ask my tutor if she wanted to marry her husband.  She is silent for a moment, then says “I was brilliant in school.  I was always position one or position two.  I was too young.  I had no choice.”  I ask her then if her in-laws are kind to her, as the Swazi wife must obediently live on her husband’s family’s homestead once married.  She is again too silent for such a talkative lady.  Then slowly, “I am used to it now.”  Apparently (in my chiefdoms at least), the bride-snatching ritual changed in 2012.  Now, the girls are first taken to the Umphakatsi, where they must tell the chief or headman if they want to marry the man.  If they say that they don’t want to marry him, then the man is not allowed to perform the teka ceremony on her.  It is fantastic progress, but sadly too late for my friend who was tekad in 2011. 

……. I wish that my SiSwati teacher were the only woman I knew who was tekad against her will.  I wish that the teen pregnancy rate at my rural high school didn't cause 1/3 of all girls to drop out before graduating.  I wish that strong female friendships were encouraged the same way strong male friendships are here. 

Programs like GLOW are badly needed.  At Camp GLOW, girls get a chance to learn to take pride in themselves, their minds, and their bodies. 

The program includes;

-Comprehensive health education (delaying sexual debut, abstinence, male and female condom use, birth control, STIs, HIV, healthy relationships, managing menstruation, individual nurse consultations, male and female role models panel)

 -Career guidance (interviewing, resume writing, how to apply to university, job fair, goal-setting)

-Artistic expression (painting, screen printing, spoken word, singing, talent show, dancing)

-Leadership back home (community service project design, teamwork, founding a club, educating peers)

In the evenings, girls can choose between; self-defense, knitting, homemade sanitary pads, financial literacy, sports, and much more!       

It’s amazing how rapidly the girls bond.  It’s also amazing to see how quickly their self-esteem rises. 

There is no quantifying what impact this program has.  If even one girl decides to wait to have sex, or feels strong enough to ask her partner to wear a condom, then it was all worth it.  Maybe one of these girls will someday become the first female prime minister of Swaziland.  The important part, however, is that every girl there believes that she has the potential to be prime minister someday. 

CLICK HERE TO DONATE TO CAMP GLOW

 We need to raise $9,000 by December.  Because Swazis also recognize how important it is to give these girls the tools they need to succeed, all of the counselors and guest speakers are helping at camp pro-bono.  Your donation will be spent on a counselor training seminar, transporting the 75 girls to the campsite, feeding them, and paying for their lodging.  Because the US dollar goes a long way here, no amount is too small.  Thank you in advance for your generous support. 

Community Day

I don’t put many pictures in here, so I thought this month I’d add a few of a recent community event.  A friend took these photos, and I just love how everyone is having a great time in them.  I especially like that this entire event (although sponsored by American-financed organizations) was put on by Swazis.  As far as I know, I was the only non-Swazi to play any part in it.

The day before the event, an NGO truck rolled into the clinic and unloaded about 50 live chickens and enough food to feed the estimated 1,000 guests.  Community members began arriving and we proceeded to spend the entire afternoon butchering them.  Soooo gross.  I established myself as a cheese girl who didn’t know the proper way to gut a chicken.  (Cheese boys and girls are like city-slickers who faint at the trials of rural life).  By the end of the day, I was a pro at killing and cleaning chickens.  All parts of the chicken were used; intestines, feet, and heads included. 

On the day of the event, I went to the clinic at 6 and helped load the truck to take to the Umphakatsi.  This is the community meeting place located in each chiefdom and known in English as the “royal kraal”.  Usually only married women have to cover their heads at Umphakatsi, but the nurse told both my unmarried friend and I to go to her house to grab some scarves before we left.  I cooked, chopped and washed dishes all day while the NGOs gave community talks.  Different dances and skits revolving around HIV were performed.  The entire community was there, and 71 people got tested for HIV.  Of those, only 8 tested positive.  It is perhaps an encouraging sign that only 8 people tested positive, as it is well below the national average.  The lives of those people and the lives of their families will be forever changed, but that’s 8 more people who are also now empowered to protect their sexual partners.       

These aren’t the kind of photos you’d see on Save the Children infomercials; because they’re not the kind of photos that make you want to crack open your checkbook with guilt.  They don’t focus on the poverty of the subjects, but rather on their happiness and togetherness- two characteristics of Swazis I deeply admire.

A lot of times, Peace Corps volunteers in Swaziland feel frustrated that their work isn’t sustainable or isn’t helping anyone out in the long run.  We worry that we’ll come back to our communities in a decade and nothing will have changed.  We hold long, heated discussions about whether or not we’re perpetuating a cycle of dependency.  Sometimes we even wonder if anyone will miss us for any other reason than that we were mobile ATMs while we were here.

 But on that day, I had no doubts about the resilience and capabilities of my community.  No one called me Umlungu or asked me for money.  We just worked side by side to give our community an amazing day.  When the event ended late in the afternoon, the whole village seemed to be working at breaking down the tents and cleaning up.  They did this all while laughing and singing loudly.    

 

Just another day in paradise

It is Sunday.  I get up around seven to fetch water at the well with two 20 liter buckets in my wheelbarrow.  The neighbor girls are already leaving as I arrive.  They sing in chorus as they smoothly glide back to their homesteads with buckets of water perched on their heads.  The well is lower than I’ve ever seen it, and I have to practically lay on all fours to collect my second bucket. 

The two youngest boys are in and out of my house all morning.  I put on a movie for them to watch on my laptop as I scrub my mountain of dirty clothes clean.  The older two boys stop by my room periodically. 

-“Sister, are you coming to the game?” 

-“Sister, what time are you coming to the game?”

  “I’ll come around 12:30.”

“Can you bring Sihle with you and lock up the main house when you come?”

“No problem.”

The walk to the soccer pitch is about a mile through maize fields and grass as high as my chest.  In some areas the grass is so thick that I navigate from memory alone.  It’s in the middle of the valley, and it feels like you can see for miles in all directions.  We run into a soccer team from a nearby village which is walking to the pitch as well.  Sihle chatters along behind me in a near constant stream of musical, incomprehensible SiSwati.  Suddenly, we hear the du-du-du of a helicopter.  Sure enough, a helicopter is flying all around the valley.  The soccer team, Sihle and I stop in our tracks and jump up and down, waving like maniacs.  After almost a year of not seeing any air traffic, it is a bizarre sight. 

I sit in my usual spot at the soccer pitch.  Someone dug out the ground in one area and made a natural bench that way.  It’s by a corner of the field, but is shielded by tall grass on all sides.  I feel pretty inconspicuous sitting there.

Some of the regulars sit with me on the bench.  One is an old Grandpa with no hair, two teeth, and a comically large mustache.  He always sits and holds his knobkerrie regally in front of him like a king, and when he’s very focused on the game, he’ll pound it on the ground occasionally to emphasize a point.  He watches every team and every game seemingly without a favorite.  He is most interested in chiding the players when they perform poorly.  “What are you doing?  Are you playing for the other team now? What’s wrong with your legs?  Were you passing to the ancestors?”

The young men around him always find his running commentary highly amusing.  “Oh, grandfather!”   They howl at his derision.  They know that grandfather doesn’t have favorites and that as soon as their teams are up, they will be the ones facing his ridicule.  Sure enough, when my host brothers’ team is up, he is merciless in his criticism. 

All play momentarily stops as the helicopter from before flies back into the valley. This time, however, a long rope dangles beneath it carrying a person.  The helicopter begins flying right towards the enormous power lines.  I gasp and stare in horror as the person suspended beneath the helicopter hits the enormous power lines about 500 meters from the soccer pitch.  The rope detaches, and I can just barely make out a body hanging from the wires.  The helicopter swings away to the other side of the valley. 

“What happened?!”  I ask the man sitting next to me.

“Ahh, he is fixing the power line,” he tells me calmly. 

“What?!  It’s not an accident?”  I have to fight every impulse in my being to not run over to what is surely a horrific, toasted mess of a person dangling from the power line.

“No, he is fixing it.  The helicopter will come back for him soon.  It’s a South African company and they are fixing the wires of the electricity which go to Mozambique.”

Everyone quickly resumes observing the soccer match, so I fight the urge to go check on the adrenaline junky victim/electricity repair man.  Sure enough, about 20 minutes later, the helicopter swings back into view and hovers above the man with a rope.  The man on the wire re-attaches himself and the helicopter goes higher.  I can see the man splayed out on the rope as the helicopter gets further and further away.

“Best job ever,” I declare.  I wonder what kind of trade school teaches one to jump out of helicopters and onto potentially live wires.

The man next to me nods thoughtfully.

“But surely there’s a more cost effective way to fix the wires?”  The man next to me just raises his eyebrows and shakes his head at this.  Helicopter jumping it is, then.         

Men and boys I work with on various projects walk by and greet me throughout the games.  A few stop and chat for longer to catch up.  I’m practically bursting with pride to see many of my students behave like adults amidst such a heady testosterone-laden environment.  Then a man I don’t know approaches me, as is the norm at these events.  I hold my breath, waiting for my third marriage proposal of the day to come.  No, he wants sponsors for the soccer league.  I don’t do sponsors, I tell him, but I can give his team HIV lessons if he wants.  He does, and we exchange phone numbers.  His team will be the 6^th in the league that I will conduct lessons with. 

A while later, one of the boys on my host brothers’ team is injured.  I’ve seen these boys walk away with injuries that would bring most grown men to tears, so it’s clearly serious when Mfanafuthi stays laying down for 5 minutes before being assisted off the field.  There’s a lot of heckling, and the poor boy lashes out between sobs.  We apply ice and have him rest.  He’s covered in the red mud of the soccer field and bleeding from various minor injuries, but what really hurts him is his knee.  We let him rest for a few minutes, but he lays on the ground trying not to cry but silently screaming in pain.

Several of the more senior men on the league approach me as I comfort him. Many worried eyes are upon us. 

“Zanele,” Siboniso says quietly.  “You need to arrange transport to take him to the hospital.”

I nod my head, glad someone else made the call that the boy needs professional medical attention.  I try calling the clinic nurse, but her phone is off and I doubt she would come to help anyway.  I know that she often spends her own money to drive critical patients to the hospital, but I doubt a knee injury will qualify. 

I quickly call the volunteer who lives across the street from the hospital and ask for lodging for Mfanafuthi and I for the night.  It’s late on a Sunday, and there’s a good chance there won’t even be a doctor or a nurse in the emergency department by the time we arrive.  At least we can make him comfortable at her house for the night.  She agrees immediately.  That settled, I turn to the men standing around me.  

“The only problem is that all of my money is in my house,” I say.  “Can we get one of the little kids to run back and get it?”  None of the solemn men standing around me moves to make this happen, which is a very Swazi way of disagreeing with what someone says.  My mind quickly catches up to their thought process- it’s too far to go to risk missing what might be the only transport out of the community.

“How much do you need, make?” My friend the storeowner asks.

I shrug my shoulders, not knowing how much the hospital in Mankayane will cost us.  He asks again, and I shrug again.  He hands me a fresh two-hundred bill from his pocket, which is no small amount to him and those around us.  “Thank you so much.  I’ll pay you back tomorrow, I promise.  I have the money; it’s just in my house.”

“Don’t worry, make,” he says.         

I hand my keys off to one of my young host brothers with instructions for him to feed my dog while I’m away. 

Several boys take turns carrying Mfanafuthi to the road, and we wait 10 minutes before spotting a car on the horizon.  We jump up and down and gesture at Mfanafuthi laying there.  We hold our hands out like we are begging and indicate one finger to show that it would be enough if they only took him. 

Four trucks pass which are packed to their brims.  The drivers all punch their fist into the palm of their opposite hand, a signal meaning “it’s full.”

Finally, a car comes to a stop and the boys speak in low voices to negotiate a ride.  The man isn’t going nearly as far as the hospital, but if I can contribute gas money, he’ll take us.  “Of course,” I agree. 

“How much?” He eyes me up and down and I deflate.  My whiteness is going to make this one very expensive ride.  It is, but what’s important is that we make it to the emergency room before everyone goes home for the night.  The nurse who treats Mfanafuthi is nice, translating everything into English for my benefit and assuring me that I did the right thing in coming to the hospital.  It’s not a fracture, just some kind of soft tissue injury, he says.  He gives Mfanafuthi a painkiller shot in the rump and a bandage, but tells us to come back in the morning when the pharmacy opens to pay and pick up a subscription. 

We hobble across the street and bunker down at the generous volunteer’s place for the night.  Mfanafuthi is hesitant to try the American food we give him.  It is corn muffins, chicken noodle soup, cheese and crackers, and grapes for dinner.  Dessert is cake and ice cream.  His reaction to the food is pretty typical of Swazis I’ve fed American food to.  Hesitant, scared, disdainful (although I suppose I’m not much better when being fed tripe or parts of the animal I didn’t even know were edible). The scene repeats itself the next morning for breakfast with waffles, banana bread, juice, and toast.  When the volunteer offers to fry him some eggs, he responds favorably.  I whisper in his ear that it’s very important in American culture to say thank you.  He picks up on it, and graciously thanks our host when she brings out the eggs.  I think it’s important in Swazi culture to say thank you as well, but I’ve lost track of the many demoralizing times I’ve been treated as the benevolent white benefactress and seen other volunteers treated that way as well.

We go back to the hospital around 8, where we wait in various lines for over an hour to pay and get the medicine.  The hospital has open-air triage (TB prevention) like all Doctors Without Borders clinics in Swaziland.  As we are leaving, a young girl calls Mfanafuthi to come help her carry her World Food Programme 40 kg sack of maize.  We run into another young man from the village just then, so the four of us each grab a corner and lug the bag to the corner. 

We walk a kilometer or so to the bus rank, and I have a nice chat with Mfanafuthi on the way.  We talk about condom use, teen pregnancy, and women’s rights. 

“The problem is, Zanele, Swazi culture says a woman is below the man.”

“I don’t think that’s right.  A culture changes over time.  Think about how much Swazi culture has changed since your parents were born.”  He agrees and we talk about how responsible men try and provide for their children.    

 We arrive at the rank, and our kumbi isn’t there.  I run into a few of the conductors that I’m friendly with, and we chat for a while before I sit down to read my book while I wait.  Mfanafuthi sees some of his friends and goes to chat with them.  A young man with a hoody pulled low over his face approaches the bench and politely asks the woman sitting next to me which kumbi goes to M-.

She shrugs, so I respond that I’m waiting for it, too, and that it sits just there.  

He thanks me and sits next to me.  We chat for a few minutes, and he strikes me as a very nice young man.  Such a refreshing change of pace from the usual outlandish behavior at the bus rank.  When the kumbi finally pulls up a good thirty minutes later, it fills quickly, and the nice young man sitting next to me also sits next to me on the kumbi.  The ride is quiet, hot, and bumpy.  Perhaps due to the heat, the young man finally lowers his hoody and I see his face for the first time.  His lips have oozing sores, his hair is orange from malnutrition, and there are tell-tale tumors bulging on his ears and neck.  I gulp and look away.  I’ve seen his face hundreds of times on hundreds of people.  Even the child sitting on its mother’s lap two rows up seems to have that face as well.  The child’s eyes are yellow instead of white, and its skin looks like paper molded across the throbbing veins in its forehead.  The young man gets out of the kumbi at the same stop as me, and I want to take him aside and ask him if he’s seeking treatment or been tested.  But alas, there are many others getting off at the same stop, and I cannot broach the subject in privacy quickly enough.  He wants to know if we can walk together, as he is going across the river.  “No, I’m just going this way.  Have a nice visit with your mom, though!”  I tell him as our paths diverge.  It doesn’t occur to me until much later that I should have just walked with him until we could speak privately.                         

Later that day at the clinic, I am sitting around having a lively chat with the receptionist, TB counselor, and Expert Client.  A patient comes up and asks me for sponsors.  My coworkers immediately leap to my defense before I can respond; saying the line I told them once and they’ve passionately repeated dozens of times to would-be beneficiaries since.  “Not everyone in America is rich!  Wouldn’t you rather work for your money?  If you had asked her for work, she would have given it to you!  But no, you want a hand-out.  What does that teach you other than that you get something for nothing?” 

The woman is angry, as would-be beneficiaries usually are.  These people I view as extremely different from friends or community members asking for small loans or favors, which I am usually probably too generous with.  Rather, would-be beneficiaries are people who have never met me and don’t care even to give a polite greeting or learn my name before demanding money.  They act egregiously insulted if you refuse, and you can see in their eyes that nothing you say or do is going to change their minds that you are wealthy, you are greedy, and you are going against the natural order of the universe by not being more forthright with your stacks of gold.  My coworkers have seen this happen to me enough that they angrily shout at the offending party by now, god bless them.  I have made it clear to each of my coworkers that they are welcome to come to me for anything, and they have taken me up on the offer occasionally.

The woman is deflected, and she begins ranting about World Vision coming and taking pictures of her child, but her not getting any benefit from it.  In her unique way, she is telling us that she feels exploited.  Later in the conversation, we discover that she’s gotten food from World Vision before.  She doesn’t even like TOMS Shoes, which is the “charity” requiring the absolute least amount of reciprocal effort I know.  Yet minutes ago, she was demanding a handout from me.  I find the woman to be a fascinating contradiction and also refreshing, despite our rude first encounter.   

All day, I receive calls and visits from worried villagers inquiring about the boy I took to the hospital.  It is touching to see their concern, and I am pleased to be able to tell them that he’s doing very well. 

In the evening, I try reading children’s books to Sihle.  Getting a child who’s never been read to to pay attention is difficult, but I try to take a cue from my own father and use lively animations.  While my parents visited last week, Sihle became quite attached to my father.  It was touching to watch him cuddle up to my dad and stare up at him in wonder when my dad showed him such loving care.  Tonight, Sihle tires of my narration quite quickly, but I vow to try again tomorrow night. 

Two Days in the Life

A Day in the Life

Thanks for the suggestions, Dad and Erica!  J 

I will do a whole entry on how YOU can help many of the fabulous people and organizations I work with and love at a later time.  I selfishly also don't want you to get charity fatigue right before all of my big projects need funding! ;)

I’m going to write two “Day in the Life” entries, as my day varies drastically depending on if it’s a village day or a town day.

VILLAGE DAYS:

Village days are a sporadic series of meetings, helping with agricultural activities, tutoring, walking, chores, counting pills, and teaching.  As Swazis are wont to say: “As long as there is sun in the sky, what needs to be done will be done.”  This was my day yesterday, and I think it’s pretty typical:

I wake up at around 4 shivering despite my fleece blankets.  Scruff-T snuck up onto my bed after I fell asleep again.  I pull the blankets over my head and let my breath warm me up until I fall asleep again, completely encased in my cocoon.  My alarm goes off at six, and I go outside to collect my bathtub, which I leave out in case there’s any rainwater or condensation to collect.  I heat up some water and bucket bathe quickly, as the morning temperature in the Highveld is frigid.  Breakfast is eggs or bread and butter.  Around 7, the two youngest boys come to knock on my door to tell me they’re leaving for school.       

Before I leave for work at 8, I stop into the main house, where my host mom is usually busy with dishes.  I give her the obligatory Swazi greetings and let her know that I’m off to the clinic.  At the clinic, I greet my coworkers and go water the seedling nursery first thing.  Then, I sit around making lesson plans unless I’m needed to sell seedlings, tickets, or help with small tasks such as pill counting. 

Some kids want to buy seedlings with a 50 Emalangeni note, and there’s no change to be had at the clinic.  It’s a daily annoyance that no one has enough small bills to give change for big bills.  Even the larger supermarkets often beg you to pay with 10 or 20 notes.  I walk home to get some change for the kids, and arrive just in time to see the cows escaping from the kraal and making a beeline for make’s prized guava tree.  I grab a stick and make joins me in herding them in.  “Beat them, Zanele!”  She gives a fierce battle cry, and we spend a good 10 minutes beating them back into the kraal.  Then I get my change and leave again.    

I buy a fat cake from the little clinic market, which typically sells any combination of the following; bananas, apples, oranges, suckers, fat cakes, scones (not delicious- trust me), cheetos, popcorn, and- very rarely- cabbages, beetroots, or tomatoes.

Later, an older man comes to the clinic who hasn’t met me yet.  “Are you a girl or a mother?” he wants to know.

What does that mean?  I can tell that this is not a question of linguistic differences.  In his eyes, one is either a girl or a mother.  If I admit that I am not a mother to him, I lose standing because I have not had children and am therefore still just a child myself.  If I say I’m a mother, I’m a liar.  Fortunately, the lady selling fruits saves me from my existential dilemma.  “She doesn’t have children,” she says.

“Ahhh…So you are a girl.”

I swallow and nod.  I don’t have it in me to correct him.  I think back on the only man in the village who respectfully calls me make (mother).  My age makes me a sisi (sister) to everyone, but I have one friend who has always insistently called me make in front of others despite knowing that I’m not actually a mother.  I’ve always been grateful to him for it, because I can tell he is not only being respectful to me, but also trying to raise the respect shown by those around him.       

Around two, I walk to the other side of the village for a community meeting that I’ve called about upcoming community computer classes.  I’m a little nervous that no one will show, but I’ve had my signs advertising the event in the sitolos (stores) for a week now.  Plus, everyone has been asking me for months to offer a community computer class.  A perfect storm of events caused the head teacher to finally acquiesce, so this is the first informational meeting.  I sit on the grass in the typical community meeting area and wait. 

“There is no hurry in Swaziland. There is no hurry in Swaziland.  There is no hurry in Swaziland.”  I repeat this mantra over and over again to remind myself that perceived rudeness is really just a cultural difference.  Some high school senior boys run up to me and ask me to come back and teach them computer classes.  I am baffled.  Didn’t they see my sign, and aren’t they here for the meeting?  No, they didn’t see the sign, but they arrange a time for me to come and teach them (since the teacher who is supposed to organize our classes completely neglected it this semester).   

Half an hour after the meeting is supposed to happen, I give up.  This probably is too early, but I explicitly wrote on the posters (NOT Swazi Time!), much to the amusement of everyone who I saw reading the signs.  I head back to the store of the man who always respectfully calls me make to chat and forget my disappointment.  When I arrive, there is the usual crowd; unemployed but respectable young men playing the card game Casino.  The shopkeeper brings in a new load of goods from town, so they put down the cards and we all spend the next several minutes re-stocking.               

As we stock, they ask how I am and what I’m doing, and I tell them about the failed attempt at a community meeting.  Several of the boys slap their foreheads.  “Today is the 22^nd?!  Ohhhhh!  I was going to go to that!”

“People have been asking for months, and I have been trying to get permission for months.  Now that it’s here, no one comes!”  We laugh and I feel much better knowing that it will work out if it is meant to. Plus, it wasn’t a total failure- the high school seniors and I were able to arrange a time for lessons which they sorely wanted.

I eye today’s newspaper on the counter, which is a pleasant surprise indeed!  At least once a week, we get a fresh newspaper courteously left on the counter for all to read.  I always am thrilled on days when I read the paper on the correct day.  I lean over the counter and read it cover-to-cover (ok, minus the sports section) before handing it off to the next eager reader. 

Swaziland has two newspapers- the Swazi Times and the Swazi Observer.  The Observer is partially owned by the royal family (although I have yet to fact-check this tidbit), but most Swazis I know purchase the Times when given a choice.  Fun fact- I’ve been photographed in both!  The Swazi Times reads like the Bild Zeiting- flashy, sensationalist, populist.  It has lots of spelling mistakes and religious editorials (“Is Barack Obama the Anti-Christ?”), but it does occasionally have impressive pieces of daring journalism thrown in the mix.  The front page of today’s paper shows horrifically graphic pictures of a fatal kumbi accident.  Five pages in, there’s a brave piece on the spark that lights massive democracy movements.  The editorial is well-written and perfectly timed to coincide with the 40^th anniversary of the suspension of political parties in the country.     

I walk back to my homestead and arrive home around 5.  I cook dinner (noodles and veggies), wash dishes, and watch some shows on my laptop.  I leave my door open so I can greet host family members as they walk by.  It gets dark too early these days to do much in the evenings, so I just close and lock my door around 7….After that, Scruff-T and I just snuggle down and have a quiet night. 

TOWN DAYS:

Town days are full of meetings with Americans/Peace Corps staff, wretched transport, frantically using internet for work-related activities at internet cafes, getting price estimates from businesses for projects you need to do in the village, buying things that your village friends asked you to get them, buying 20 kgs of groceries, spoiling yourself on that cute dress or restaurant food, and eventually partying with some volunteers and plenty of cold beers at a backpackers.

Last Thursday, for example, I woke up at a backpackers with the rest of the Camp GLOW committee.  GLOW (Girls Leading our World) is a world-wide female empowerment organization founded by Peace Corps volunteers.  In a few short days, rural communities with GLOW clubs from around Swaziland will send girls to a week-long summer camp, kind of like girl scouts.  This is only the 2^nd year Swaziland has had a GLOW chapter, and with the camp just weeks away, there is much to be done!  In addition to being the 2014 director, I’m working on this year’s food committee, helping set-up camp, leading sessions, and being camp medical officer.  I will keep you posted on funding opportunities for next year!  With an eye on expansion, we hope to get double the girls next year (aka-needing double the funding….). 

Anyhoo, I was waking up at the backpackers before I digressed into GLOW’s backstory….  I take a warm shower (aaahhhh!) and head outside with a few other girls to flag down a kumbi around 7 am.  This is a tricky spot to catch a kumbi going all the way to the capitol, but we somehow manage it after just 5 minutes of waving our hands at passing kumbis.  We roll in to the Mbabane bus rank and I wave goodbye to the other girls, walking to where I know the kumbis going towards the Peace Corps office sit.  As per usual at this spot, the kumbi conductor tries to put the white girl on the empty kumbi next to the one that just needs one more passenger.  I ignore him and hop on the full kumbi next to him, and we roll out.  The Peace Corps office is in an extremely affluent residential neighborhood in the picturesque mountains surrounding Mbabane.  Needless to say, it’s a 10 minute walk from where I yell “Stesh!” and hop out of the kumbi. 

A day at the Peace Corps office reads like one giant “to do” list…Actually, I’ll just paste my actual “to do” list….It’s faster than and just as boring as narrative form:

  -Check mail/post letters

-Pick up free condoms to hand out in community

-Print schedules for GLOW 2014 committee

-Print meeting agenda/share info with assistant directors

-Share meat order details with food committee

-Attend GLOW 2013 meeting (9-11)

-Briefly meet with food committee

-Hold GLOW 2014 officer elections (11-12)

-Email list serve with election results

-Meet with Country Director re. GLOW funding next year

-Pick up calcium and anti-malarial from medical officer

-Ask med. Officer to lead a session at GLOW/first aid supplies

-Follow up with absent volunteers

….After all these terribly boring office-y tasks, I head to town to find fabric.  I’m trying to do a re-usable pad project with the girls in my community, and need to find a fabric store.  Disposable sanitary pads are exorbitantly expensive for girls in my community.  Most girls just use rags, spend the days they have their periods at home, or run to the latrine to wipe with leaves between classes.  I’ve been told that some girls resort to transactional sex to get the money for pads, and I shudder to think that any of the girls in my community would ever have to make that choice. 

Re-usable pads are an easy, cheap alternative…provided I ever find a fabric store.  I make my way from the bus rank past the street hawkers selling “dead white people clothes” looking for a fabric store.  I have a good feeling that I’m headed the right way.  I spot a hawker selling a plastic tablecloth (a key part of re-usable pads can be made using a tablecloth).  I try getting it cheaply using SiSwati, but he responds in English.  I quickly realize he’s Mozambican like most of the hawkers selling the clothes that Americans and Europeans donated and shipped to Africa.  We haggle for about 5 minutes.  I want to shout at him for thinking I’m a tourist he can pull the wool over on, and just when I’m too frustrated to purchase, he hands me off to the dealer next to him and walks away.  The guy next to him wants even more.  Ugh.  My backpack is heavy, the sun is hot, and I don’t know where I’ll find another plastic tablecloth before Saturday.  Fine.  I pay the asking price of the first guy angrily and walk away, just as the first seller returns to propose his love to me.  “Please, I need a white girlfriend,” he says. 

“And I needed a tablecloth!” I snap back.    

I cross the street and start heading down a more working-class street.  I don’t go two steps before seeing the first fabric store I’ve seen in Swaziland.  I happily bound into the store and order cheap fabric.  As I pay for the fabric at the counter, I look down and see some lovely plastic tablecloths for sale.  They cost half of what I paid 5 minutes ago.  Nice one, karma.    

I stop at the Pick n Pay supermarket to stock up on groceries.  The variety here is incredible, and the store looks cleaner than most American grocery stores.  I buy mostly junk food, having easily fallen into that nasty habit of volunteers who eat incredibly healthy at site only to binge on junk food when in town.  I can’t help but feel that we pick up the Swazi mentality of eating tons when there’s food around because you don’t know where your next meal is coming from.  In town, there’s always good food around, and we go nuts and eat ourselves sick.    

I recently watched the movie The Hunger Games with my best friend in the village, and it prompted me to re-read the books.  I can now appreciate how obsessively the author wrote about the characters’ feelings towards food and hunger- especially when the characters eat themselves sick and then feel ashamed, knowing that their community is hungry.  I can relate to that.     

It’s almost 5 as I lug my grocery bags down to the bus rank and board a kumbi.  It’s too late to make it home tonight before dark, so I’ll have to stay at a backpackers.  Most volunteers are going to the Mbabane backpackers to party, but my head is pounding, so I head down to my favorite backpackers near Matsapha (the industrial town) for a quiet night.  Over my frequent visits, I’ve become good friends with the owners, and they invite me over to their house for a nice family dinner.  We have a lovely evening drinking and eating until 10 or so, but the guilt of eating so well still creeps in a bit when I finally slip into bed.