On Leaving A Life of Poverty

It is often said in RPCV circles that readjustment is the hardest part of service.  I've wanted to do an entry on readjustment for some time, so here are my reflections after 3 weeks away from Swaziland… 

The weeks leading up to my Close Of Service were very trying.  My health was failing despite constant testing and reassurances from the Medical Officer that everything would straighten out once I left the physical hardships of rural life.  I worried that my projects would fail, that my friends would forget me, or that I would be remembered for the wrong reasons. 

Most of all, I think I was afraid that I would too quickly retreat back to the so-called “first world” and abandon my Swazi friends in thought and abandon them in their need.  I still am afraid of this.

The hardest goodbye came when I left my two sweet host brothers- both orphans who I had fantasized about adopting throughout my service.  We all cried and I hugged them fiercely, whispering “Ngiyakutsandza- ngitawubuya,” in their ears as we parted.  I love you- I will return.  Please let me keep that promise.   

When I actually did leave, it wasn’t for America, but for Namibia.  For the first time in my life, I took a chance on love and moved to Namibia to be with my Namibian boyfriend, Owen.  In the past three weeks, I have been experiencing what everyone experiences when they move- newness, learning, and constant comparison with the last place you lived.  I don’t know if you’d call it “readjustment,” but some differences in my lifestyle then and now have really stuck out independent of host country culture.

At first, I just walked around Owen’s apartment stroking his appliances and wondering if it would be silly to photograph these luxuries.  I could suddenly buy and store meat and cheese and yogurt!  I could make large portions of food that we couldn’t finish and just refrigerate the leftovers to microwave the next day.  I could buy fresh milk and chocolate and enjoy them without having to share with 10 others as we cuddled up and watched movies in the evening on furniture much softer than an overturned bucket.  Groceries were only a quick taxi ride away, not a grueling 7 hour round-trip trek.  I ate three meals a day instead of two because I did not spend lunch with an empty stomach in solidarity with co-workers who can only afford to eat breakfast and dinner.    

I could brush my teeth without walking outside to spit, and I could rinse my toothbrush thoroughly in running water.  I learned to take pleasure in drinking water again that didn’t smell fetid even after boiling.  I didn’t have to ration my water intake on weekends.  I didn’t have to deny myself the pleasure of washing dishes with more than a cup’s worth of water, or showering in more than a tea kettle full.  I did 3 loads of laundry a week in the machine and I didn’t have to wear something multiple times to justify the soap, water, and labor it takes to clean clothes by hand.

My mental and physical health is rapidly improving.  I don’t have to carry heavy buckets or stoop over the soil, so my back feels better every day.  I don’t have a single person knocking on my door asking me for tutoring, my possessions, a job, or money.  I feel light about this.  When someone comes onto me inappropriately, I’ve gained back my fighting spirit to yell at them, not just yank my wrist away and brush it off as a cultural difference.  Owen observes that I am coughing less each morning.  The drug resistant ringworm on my legs is slowly healing.  I exercise almost daily because I have the energy and I feel healthy enough to do so.  I don’t have to eat dinner in solitude, but can cook a balanced meal for two and discuss my day with someone who cares about me beyond what I can do for him.  I am convinced that, had I lived in that extreme poverty for the rest of my life- my life would have been much, much shorter.        

To someone from America, I know that what I said above about life in rural Swaziland sounds difficult and sad.  To someone from a poor background in a developing country, I know that what I said above sounds whiny and privileged.  The past two years were difficult, yes.  But they were only two years.    

If I have learned anything from the past two years of intentional poverty, it is that poverty is the most evil structural violence in the world and that nothing short of a radical redistribution of wealth will uplift the bottom billion.  If I sound like a freshman in college just discovering a cause for the first time- please forgive me.

I believe that poverty (and I refer here to the absolute kind of poverty that I experienced in Swaziland- where those who lived on 2 US dollars a day were the LUCKY ones) is the most difficult experience a human being can experience.  Even open warfare is not experienced as a daily struggle for survival from birth until death in most cases.  Those who make it out of poverty are the rare exception along with those who survive it into old age.         

…I started this entry hoping to write about readjustment, but what a silly thing that is when I think about the lives of the friends I have left behind.  I will be fine.  So will they, because they are strong enough to work for their survival every day.  So I will now close with some quotes on poverty which struck a chord in me.  I hope they are also thought-provoking and meaningful to you…

    “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” 
― Hélder Câmara,

“If you're in trouble, or hurt or need - go to the poor people. They're the only ones that'll help - the only ones.” 
― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.” 
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” 
― Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.”

-Mahatma Ghandi

“Once poverty is gone, we'll need to build museums to display its horrors to future generations. They'll wonder why poverty continued so long in human society - how a few people could live in luxury while billions dwelt in misery, deprivation and despair.” 
― Muhammad Yunus

“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.” 
― Charles Darwin

“When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding the solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution to poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the initiative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences.” 
― Muhammad Yunus

“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” 
― Plutarch

“And that’s when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with the folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity.”

― Shane Claiborne

“The fact that the poor are alive is clear proof of their ability.” 
― Muhammad Yunus

 

Lobola

WARNING: Graphic animal slaughter footage below!  You’ve been warned…

I was the official wedding photographer at my friend’s lobola ceremony a few months ago, and it was SO FUN!  Normally I despise large, traditional activities for the negative attention they bring to me.  (Marry me, give me your dog, give me your clothes, etc….)  But at this wedding, I knew both the bride and grooms’ families, so there was no awkward conversation or marriage proposals.  Being the photographer was also nice, because the bride went around explaining to everyone that I was developing the photos for them, so that let me mix in and out of every age and gender cluster without offending. 

Marriages in Swaziland are a union of two clans, and so the families get to know each other at large, festive celebrations spread out over years.  The ceremonies surrounding them take so long that I have yet to see a single wedding from the bride-snatching “teka” ritual to the finish. 

The part of the ceremony I’ll describe below is the first day of the “lobola” (bride price) portion of the ceremony that I photographed.  This is the second major weekend of festivities following the bride-snatching teka ritual, but could happen years after the teka.  For instance, my friend who is getting married was teka-d by her husband when she was 18.  They have raised four children together, two of whom are already adults themselves.  His family has only just recently collected enough cows to pay lobola, so that in part explains the typical long delay between teka and lobola ceremonies.      

Anyways, the lobola is a two-day ceremony.  On Saturday, the two families reside, cook, and eat on two separate homesteads.  A goat is slaughtered at each and cooked for everyone. 

I stay on my friend’s homestead, and she makes a beautiful blushing bride. 

Everyone cooks, sleeps, and dances around.  The girls and men show off their traditional dancing.  Everyone sings and claps while one individual is given the floor to show off their moves.  Nothing is funnier to them than when I try the traditional high-kicks characteristic of Swazi dancing. 

I lay dozing on a grass mat when I overhear the old men talking about me and wondering if I would like to be teka-d.  One hypothesizes that I would be offended, while others refute this and say that I am a Swazi now.  I startle them by laughing and responding in SiSwati that I don’t want to have a Swazi traditional wedding, but that I can respect the custom. 

Around 2 in the afternoon, the groom’s family assembles and sits on one side of the rondhuvel.  The bride’s family elders also file in and sit facing the groom’s family.  It is an intimate space.  I sit with the female elders on the groom’s side.  The bride and groom also sit with their families.

The bride’s family begins by the elders introducing themselves individually.  The grooms family choruses a response to each greeting; “Sizesazi, sizesazi, sizesazi.”  I don’t understand as it is in Zulu and I’m a bit rusty on my translation.  Thankfully, one of the elders catches my confusion and gives her responses in Swati for my benefit.  “Sitesati, sitesati, sitesati.”  It means “We came, we didn’t know.”  (Later in the week, I ask Peace Corp’s language and culture trainer why they say this and why it’s in Zulu, and he doesn’t know why- just knows that this is the way things are done). 

Then the delicate negotiations begin!  It is a fantastic exercise in Swazi compromise and conflict resolution.  Voices are kept soft and low as elders take turns speaking, eye contact is avoided, and everyone sits still until unanimous agreement can be reached.  Mostly male elders speak, but females are also listened to if they voice an opinion.  If an offer is deemed not serious, the other family guffaws gently and acts mildly offended.  The groom’s family opens with the offer of 5 cows, but there is much to discuss.  About 40 minutes in, the bride’s family leaves to conference in private.   They return with a counter-offer, and the groom’s family agrees.     

The final offer is 7 cows plus 1,000 cash.  The groom’s family has only brought 800 with them, though, so Scruff-T is offered as collateral should they fail to pay the remaining 200.  She sits like a good girl between my legs during the entire lobola negotiations.  At several points she even snorts at the correct moments, which caused the families to chuckle warily at how perceptive she was.

Then the groom’s family veils the bride, who is crying.  They drape the female elders of the bride’s family with blankets and shawls.  They have accepted her into their family and the negotiations are complete. 

After that, everyone files outside and stands outside of the crawl.  Several young men go inside the crawl.  One has a spear and stalks the two cows that are to be slaughtered.  Perhaps sensing their impending doom, the normally docile cattle run back and forth skittishly as the young man walks behind them with his spear.

He strikes a large black cow just behind the front leg, striking the artery.  The cow is in a panic and somehow manages to jump the fence.  The crowd jeers and men quickly go restrain it with a rope.  It soon lays down and dies.

The second cow to be killed is brown.  He strikes this one more cleanly, and it stands patiently until it bleeds out.  The crowd erupts into cheers as it finally falls to its knees.

Quickly, knives and buckets are brought out and men and women expertly beginning skinning and butchering the cows.  

There’s a lot of laughter.  The cows will be eaten tomorrow.  For now, it’s just a party until the wee hours of the morning.