“Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better” -jack kerouac

Got a letter from my friend Darcy today, and it made my day. The mail came with the PC medical officer’s visit, so after fielding questions about my sex life and intimacy issues and eating habits all afternoon with the PCMO it was nice to sit back, relax and catch up with Darcy’s life in Cali.

I think I’ll start answering people’s questions here because they are good for me to think about (and maybe you’d be interested in some of them too?). Darcy is an old friend from high school. She’s always articulated herself very well, and I think she’ll do well when she gets to law school. Here are two questions she asked that I should ask myself often.

“Do you feel like you’re making a difference? Are your efforts well received by the Swazi people?”

Yeah, I think (hope?) I am making difference, and I’m not even trying to be cheesy. But, importantly, is it quantifiable, and is it lasting? No clue, not yet. I don’t remember who I told this to, but I’ve made the weak joke that at such a high infection rate, it could only get better from here. I was wrong. It can stagnate for a very long time or get a lot worse if people don’t start getting their acts together.

On my way back from a meeting with the chiefdom elders last Thursday, I randomly met some guys who used to run the youth meetings. They said that in 2004, they had gone to workshops and put a lot of effort into getting themselves trained as peer educators. Then they came back to their rural community and tried to host HIV education sessions for their compatriots. It was a miserable failure. The would-be educators were too well-known in the community, and this diminished their credibility. People would say, “You are African, just like us. What can you teach us?” It’s a little sad, this lack of faith in their own people, but I tried to console these guys that maybe it’s not just an African thing but merely a human characteristic to believe that what is foreign or imported is “better” – perfume, leather handbags, exotic fruit… or information.

I told them I don’t mind being objectified (I didn’t say it like that) and wouldn’t mind coming along to lend their outreach events an air of foreign credibility. I’ve already been doing this almost every Thursday with the youth group of the inkundla (that’s like a group of chiefdoms). It sucks that this is the way people see the world and that they pay too much attention to the messenger when it is the message that is important. But knowing that this is the way it is, maybe I ought to put this phenomenon to good use. Perhaps they will think, “hey, this foreigner came all the way from America to help us with this epidemic,” and this raises awareness. It’s a pretty easy job if that’s all it is (and I do think it could have an impact), but I know there’s gonna be more to it. I just don’t know what it is yet, exactly. There’s polygamy, misinformation, apathy, defeatism, child rapes (I’m talking ten-year-olds and even infants). My two-minute speech in broken siSwati about using condoms and abstaining isn’t gonna fix all that. I don’t think there is an NGO that can.
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When I’m walking around, people will sometimes speak fake Chinese to me. You might think it’s racist but it usually doesn’t bother me that much because I know Swazis have a pretty limited worldview and plus they aren't that hung up about political correctness - they got other things to worry about. They probably think I’m a tourist or a Chinese businessman, and maybe have some slight resentment tinged with envy towards these outsiders? Or maybe they are trying to be friendly, and this is the only way they think they can connect with me.

One Friday evening last month, I was coming home from town on public transport when these dudes in the back row (two rows behind me) started to try to mess with me. They had been pounding beers the whole way over the course of this one hour journey. First, they loudly call “Hey, China” and then they say something incoherent in English. I try to keep my responses succinct, but they press on. Finally, to get them to leave me alone, I start to do my siSwati spiel, where I introduce myself and tell them I’m here to help with HIV/AIDS. “Ooh, ahh!” The entire khombi gasps and smiles when I break out my siSwati, minimal and broken though it is. At this point I feel like the other passengers would defend me if these punks kept harassing me. But it’s a nonissue, because the revelers are somewhat subdued when I inform them of my purpose here.

I feel a little bit guilty sometimes when I do this because I feel like I’m getting on my high horse, or at least a ten-foot-high soapbox. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but when I tell them that I’m here for HIV, suddenly I seem to have an exalted position in their eyes because everyone here is likely to have friends or relatives affected by HIV. My host mother attends funerals with the same frequency that we used to go to the movies with, and apparently this is pretty common. So when I say I left America, a sort of “Promised Land” in Swazi eyes that have seen the USA through the lenses of the music videos with its bling-bling and its fast cars/women, to come see how I could help with the Swazi HIV problem, Swazis do seem responsive, if a bit perplexed.

But I promise I don’t do it unless some of these young bucks won’t get off my case. Most people are real friendly anyway, and when I tell them I’m here for HIV sometimes it often starts some interesting conversation from which I get glimpses of how HIV is perceived here. An all-too-common Swazi response is that they don’t know how HIV got started, and they don’t think AIDS will end until everyone is dead (guess who’s glass is half-full?). All they know is that a few years ago a lot of people started dying. The coffin industry is booming (there are adverts everywhere). What I’m trying to get across to yall is that most people seem pretty appreciative of what we’re trying to do here, as they are fresh out of ideas and want to know how to stop burying their loved ones. I tell them that, yeah, we might be from America, but that doesn’t mean we have the cure or a solution to this thing but I’m willing to give my time and energy to try and make things better. That’s all. Now please stop asking me for beer money or money for candy or money for transport.

I hope that kinda answers the questions. I feel like there’s a lot more to say but I don’t want to bore yall… there’s so much more, and it connects much better in my head than if I were to try to put more of it on paper but maybe I’ll try again another day.
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In other news, I learned this morning that when I squash a bug I need to dispose of its carcass immediately. I mushed up a massive spider last night near the doorway, and in the morning that area was crawling with ants, busily dismembering the arachnoid remnants. I like these African ants – industrious, effective little fellas, and plus they clean up the place if I don’t. I just wish they would do their thing outside of my house.

-mw

Different Strokes

These are a some of the things I like in Swaziland.

- The “two-thumbs up” greeting. You walk by dudes on the street, give them the greeting, and say “Sharp! Sharp!” – a “sharp” for each thumb. I hope this catches on elsewhere too.

- The Swazi appetite for melodrama. Everyone, from the grandmother to the little 8-year olds, enjoy the tangled plot lines of “Generations.” This soapie about young, rich South Africans comes on every weeknight. I hate to say it but I’m getting into it too – maybe because I get a kick out of watching the Swazi reactions to the predictable twists. Better yet, the also near-universal fascination with pro-wrestling. There’s just something about foreigners beating each other senseless while wearing tights (or a dress). Sean told me he used to mess with the kids in his training family because they were all reruns and he knew all the plot lines from when he watched pro-wrestling as a kid himself. It reminds me of when my own grandma used to watch MTV’s “Celebrity Deathmatch” with me and chuckle as the claymation celebrities did atrocious violence to each other.

- One show I do really like is “Jika Ma Jika”. It’s like the South African answer to “American Idol” but with dancing. They do a mix between breakdancing and traditional dancing. It’s probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.

- Khumbi names. Khumbis are minibuses (like Stingerette for all yall Georgia Techies – but khumbis travel filled to the brim), and it is THE way to travel around here – it’s cheap transport, if a bit unpredictable sometimes. Anyway, who wouldn’t want to ride a vehicle named “Cheese Boy”, “Tarantino”, or “Lord of Sound”. My personal favorite: “Titanic”.

- Why settle for a regular can of soda or beer if you can have an “AfriCAN”? That’s right, it’s about an inch bigger than all the other cans.

I don’t know if you found that as mildly amusing as I do. Maybe it’s one of those “you had to be there” moments. Anyway, life is swell here. I went to the umphakatsi meeting today – that’s where the elders from the chiefdom meet to discuss chiefdom issues. I sat in a beehive hut until it stopped raining and then they had the meeting near the royal kraal outside. I almost fell asleep though – gotta get better at siSwati so I can at least figure out what people are talking about. I tried to make a good impression at the end though by shaking every single person’s hand (the way I’ve seen people do). If there’s something I ought to try to learn from these people – it’s charisma. The elders sure do pull a lot of weight around here. I’m going back with Jenny (my nearest PCV neighbor) and the bucopho when she comes back from tonsillectomy in a few weeks so we can figure out how to “set catchement areas” – basically define our turfs. I promised to deliver them a copy of my census report when I finish in January, and they seemed excited about that. One of the local Rural Health Motivators has been great in helping me get good census information on the region, even if the news isn’t so good. Seems like almost a third of the kids are orphans.

Border Jumping

“There are many! They all cross the border, and take the jobs that the locals don’t want. The way they live, they are poor. There can be as many as 100 packed into a room this size [pointing to the small living room we are sitting in, which is about 4m x 4m]. I wonder sometimes how they are able to sleep like that at night, so many people squeezed in one room?”

Sound familiar? This was a Swazi woman talking about our Portuguese-speaking friends to the East, the Mozambiqens. It’s only a 6 hour drive to Maputo, the capital city of Mozambique, and I’m told I can do a daytrip from my permanent site. Recently out of a civil war that ended in 1992, they come to Swaziland looking for work. From several conversations, I get a sense that the Swazis look down on them a little. They take “lowly” jobs like herding cattle or, gasp, street-vending in Manzini. Apparently, they need only a week to learn siSwati, and then they can do a brisk business. Other than that, I haven’t heard many good things said by Swazis about these border-hoppers. Is this condescension rooted in jealousy? A bit of racism?

Speaking both siSwati and heavily accented English, the Mozambiquens hawk gaudy watches, trinkets, bootleg DVD/CDs, socks, and other random cheap goods (that somehow made there way over here from China or India, mostly China, but that’s another story). I even saw one dude selling toilet paper by the roll. If only more Swazis had that sort of entrepreneurial spirit…

I make a comment concerning the perpetual Swazi complaint about how tough life is in Swaziland, that the Swazis are suffering because there are no jobs and no money. What does it mean about Mozambique if Mozambiquens are streaming across the border to look for work here? “Ay, the Swazis, they are lazy,” the woman chuckles in reply. “They don’t like to work.” Maybe a little competition might jumpstart that missing work ethic that she’s talking about.

When Swaziland Peace Corps Volunteers take vacation days, they often like to go to Maputo (that, and Zanzibar). The beaches and seafood are supposed to be amazing. Will Smith visits with his wife all the time -- “My wife Jada and I love Mozambique… It feels like God’s house is in Africa, and He made sure everything around His house is beautiful. Africa is the best and worst of everything on this planet.” In that regard, Mozambique might be like Swaziland, in which there are pockets of wealth where the rich are extremely rich and but the vast majority live in poverty. I hope I can check it out sometime and talk to some people. Anyone wanna come with?

-mw