On Poverty Porn

Had I seen the documentary “Born into Brothels” a few years ago, I probably would have liked it.  The chaotic scenes of Calcutta’s red light district, the snippets of Hindi I can halfway understand, and the starkly hopeless portrayal of the film’s childlike subjects make for a very compelling film. 

But these days…it looks like poverty porn.  I have no doubt that the filmmakers made the documentary with the best of intentions and that the white woman who helped the children had nothing but love and good intentions for the kids.  And while it’s necessary to be exposed to the harsh realities of life in other parts of the world, it’s so much easier to zoom in your Nokia lens on the eyes of a child whose skin color is different and who doesn’t live in your own backyard.

Let’s turn the camera around for a moment to really examine the crassness of such an action.  Let’s say a young African backpacker rode up into your town one day and started taking pictures and filming your children.  You know that when he goes home, he will speak of our quaintness, our backwards ways, and our strange jobs.  He will post pictures of our children online without our permission and he will take pictures of us doing our jobs to post on a cheeky Instagram entitled “These are real jobs in America.”  He will not learn our names, and he will promise to send us the pictures.  Maybe he will even promise to pay our children’s school fees.  But he won’t. 

I used to bring backpackers into my community.  I would get frustrated when, on my weekly night in town, they would sit around the bar of the hostel and talk about how developed and rich people are here.  (Swaziland, like many countries, hides its poverty well off the main tourist route).  So I would offer to show them “the real” Swaziland….Or at least the Swaziland that 70% of the people live in.  It is a Swaziland with dirty naked babies, strangely colorful religious rituals, and lots of opportunities for that perfect “African” Instagram photo to share with your friends back home. 

So I would take them to my community, and they would have a very moving experience as people welcomed them with open arms.  They would take lots of photos and promise to email them to me so that I could print them for my friends who had welcomed them so kindly.  And despite my follow-up requests…not a single backpacker has ever emailed me the photos. 

Like the film “Born into Brothels,” the experiences of backpackers are less about the people whose lives they are documenting and more about their experiences as amateur photographers on the road in wild and savage lands.  My least favorite had to have been the French-Canadian photographer who refused to cover up his tattoo when I asked him.  His goal was to go to every country in the world.  Swaziland was 140-something and he threw a tantrum when I told him he wouldn’t be able to exchange his money at the bank on a Sunday. 

I sometimes feel that I may be guilty of perpetuating the “poor African” stereotype, if only to a lesser extent.  But then I remind myself that I would never point a camera at my host brother and make a world-famous documentary about him.  Because the documentary wouldn’t really be about him, but what he represents as just another AIDS orphan in Africa.  Because that’s how it would come across.  A movie wouldn’t show how he does in school, his favorite movie, his favorite thing to draw, and that he loves to play ball.  A movie would only show him as that poor African child who has a white woman interested in saving him.  I shudder to think that any artist with a video camera come here and record the lives of the people I love as if they were noble savages or something.  But it happens every day.  And is this blog not also a kind of testament to “my adventures in Swaziland”? (Mission trips are the worst in terms of the noble savage imagery, but at least their hearts are less selfish than those of backpackers). 

So here’s my etiquette list for backpackers, artistic types, missionaries, and anyone else traveling to any neck of the woods anywhere, ever:

1.       Don’t talk about a country you’ve been in for two seconds (or less than 6 months) negatively.

2.       Let locals help, but don’t expect their kindness to be free.  Tip any man or woman who helps you a few bucks.  If they refuse, great.  If not, know that they probably needed it a lot more than you.

3.       10% gratuity is polite in restaurants in southern Africa.  Don’t take advantage.  Tips are usually shared collectively and supplement a meager income.

4.       Lifts are also not free unless they refuse your cash.

5.       Don’t complain about your hectic time trying to arrange local transport.  This is called daily life, and your privilege reeks when you do it.

6.       Don’t say “I’m glad I paid a bribe.  I just wanted to have the experience.”  (A backpacker actually said this to me recently).  Bribes are embarrassing for your hosts.

7.       Don’t over-barter unless you know you’re getting ripped off.  You clearly have enough money to travel abroad and are undervaluing craftsmen’s work when you force them to earn mere pennies off of a sale. 

8.       Do NOT take pictures without the permission of the subjects.  (This one annoys me SO MUCH!) Furthermore, tell them how you will use those photos. 

9.       Don’t make promises you can’t keep. “Yes, I will sponsor a child,” is easy in the heat of the moment and the warmth of their smiles.  It’s a lot harder to commit to on the other side.

10.   Learn the names of the maids at the hostels you stay at, not just the names of the white bartenders.

Sorry for the rant…I guess I’m just frustrated from my interactions with travelers who don’t really even care about this place other than to check off another country on their list before moving on to their next Instagram moment.

Any Given Saturday

“When I talk to people at home about the pandemic, I get the sense that they feel a dying African is somehow different from a dying Canadian, American or German- that Africans have lower expectations or place less value on their lives.  That to be an orphaned fifteen-year-old thrust into caring for four bewildered siblings, or a teacher thrown out of her house after she tells her husband she is infected- that somehow this would be less terrifying or strange for a person in Zambia or Mozambique than it would be for someone in the United States or Britain.”

---Stephanie Nolen, 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa

It’s been a long time since I went to a funeral. 

A neighbor and relative of my host family died of TB.  No one says AIDS.  He leaves behind many sweet children who are now double orphans.  Two of his daughters are my artists- they come almost every day after school to carefully color in the lines in my coloring books. 

I wake up on Saturday around 5:30.  I bucket bathe and make an omelet for breakfast.  My host mom knocks on my door around 7:30.  “Zanele, I am going to cut some maize, and then I am going.” 

“Ok, I’ll be ready in 5 minutes,” I tell her.  I have a 10kg bag of rice we’re taking to the family.  I bought it months ago and no one but a mouse has nibbled on it since then.  I want to help the family, who I know to be extremely poor.     

Women are already well into the throws of cooking when we arrive.  The men are throwing tarps over the houses to create a space for the night vigil.  A girl who lives on the homestead walks around with a face mask hanging around her neck.  I am worried that the homestead has more than one case of active TB.

I follow my host mom around like a puppy and my puppy follows me.  At one point, my host mom goes home with an old lady, so I follow.  She points out an herb that lowers blood pressure, so we help the old lady collect some.  Then we tear off the leaves to put in a pot to boil.   

We go back to the homestead of the funeral, which is only a 5 minute walk away.  One of my artists proudly shows me how she can draw perfectly symmetrical circles on the sand.  All of his kids look like they’re doing fine.  They are tired and kept busy, but they seem fine. 

Then my host mom takes me to a rondhovel that’s a bit separated from the homestead.  The smell of fermenting maize washes over me as I duck through the low doorway.  In a giant water barrel, the fermenting maize is making a bubbling and popping sound.  It is uncombodze, the traditional Swazi alcoholic beverage of choice.  It takes 3 days to ferment and a white Swazi once told me that sometimes an old battery is dropped into the mix to speed the process.  If a whole barrel seems like a lot for a funeral, keep in mind that the drink has a really low alcohol percentage- usually between 1 and 3%.  I’ve tried it before, and know that I’d need to drink at least a gallon before I would even start to taste the alcohol in it. 

We spend the next hour or so straining the solid bits of maize out of the brew by dumping it in buckets over mesh bags.  It smells pretty good and our hands and fronts become soaked and sticky with the chunky pieces of maize.  When we are finished, the brew begins frothing and overflowing out of the smaller water barrels we’d transferred it to.        

After that, the day is a blur of washing dishes and chopping liselwa- a Swazi indigenous squash that is rather tasteless.  I am offered food repeatedly, which I keep refusing as politely as possible even as I become hungrier and hungrier.  I know that I am snubbing their food, but I also know that I will be violently ill if I eat it, especially eating with my hands and with no clean water or soap to wash with.

The body arrives around 4.  There is some hushed panic on the homestead, as they don’t have the requisite number of pallbearers.  Any man standing around quickly runs to the coffin to help.  Only 5 adult men can be found, so one old woman is the 6^th pallbearer as they carry the blanket covered coffin from the truck to the tent.  The neighbor women follow the coffin singing a subdued hymn in low tones. 

Suddenly, the women who had been laughing and working alongside me all day break down.  Other women are quick to soothe them.  But the worst is the children.  The sweet, sweet girls who are my artists break into wails calling for their papa.  They are quickly taken inside and held by their female relatives, but their wailing continues over the hymns. 

I stand outside staring at my toes.  I try and concentrate on anything but the noise of their grief.  I am standing with the girls’ school friends.  They, too, are uncharacteristically quiet.  We are all staring at various spots on the ground, trying to build walls around our ears with our minds.

I leave then to feed Scruff-T and I don’t go back.  This is a small funeral.  There will be no distracting myself or distancing myself from the bereaved around me.  So I decide to get some sleep and wake up very early the next morning to go to the end of the funeral.    

I wake at 5 in the morning and throw a scarf over my hair.  I leave with a flashlight, but the sun is already rising by the time I get to the road.  As I get to the road, I see the funeral procession coming towards me, so I turn and begin walking with a friend of mine.

He asks about funeral customs in America and my relationship to the deceased.  He is heartily amused by my explanation of an Irish-American wake and also intrigued when I explain that funerals are attended by only those close to the deceased and bereaved.  As we walk, the number of mourners behind us swells to about 200.  All of the closest neighbors have come to the burial.  With over 200 mourners, it is the smallest Swazi funeral I’ve ever attended. 

We walk the kilometer or so to the unofficial graveyard of the community.  The only way you can tell it is a graveyard is the humps of earth and the occasional arrangement of stones over some of the humps.  An old man asks me for my dog in exchange for a cow.

“No, I will give you my dog for 20 cows.  You must pay lobola.”

All of the men around me crack up.  “Zanele- this is not a wife!” One laughs, pointing at Scruff-T. 

“Ahh, but she is my baby, so he must pay lobola.” 

By now we have arrived at the grave and we spend the next 20 minutes singing songs as the body is lowered into the ground.  I realize that everyone has divided at the gravesite by gender and that I am on the male side.  I slide discreetly towards the back of the crowd and join the women.  My host family grieves close to the grave with the family. 

I begin to slowly become distressed as I realize that I forgot to bring small coins for the collection.  Around this point in the funeral, a collection is taken up to help pay for funeral expenses.  As the only white person in attendance, I feel scrutinized and judged already.  Luckily, one of the women walking back summons me to go with her to help dish up the take-away containers.  The portion sizes are small, but there is somehow enough for everyone.  I quickly scarf down a meager portion of rice and gristle between washing dishes.  Later, a woman offers me a large plate piled high with side dishes, a sign of respect for my status and close familial relationship to the deceased.  I am touched, but tell her I have already eaten.    

When I get home after dishing and washing dishes, I get a whatsapp (like texting but cheaper) from one of our GLOW counselors informing me that one of our own GLOW counselors has also passed and was also buried last night.  She leaves behind a 4,6, and 8 year old.  As I sit on my phone sending out messages to the GLOW community informing them of her passing, my little bhuti comes in and wants to watch his favorite movie.  He rests his head in my lap as I nod off to sleep.  Funerals for me will forever be associated with the sensations of sleeplessness.