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 22nd?! 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 40th 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 2nd 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.
