“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