Ink Me

I am continuing to visit homesteads with the NCP committee for our “Community Engagement”. For each household in the village, we go through list of questions to make sure everyone here is committed to supporting, in any way they can, a Care Point for the orphans and vulnerable children if it is built. At the end, we ask the interviewee to sign the survey. Most people don’t have a problem with that, even if it does take them a while to gingerly etch out their signatures.

As the sun was setting, we reached the indvuna’s house. (The indvuna is the head honcho of the community). The woman interviewer requested his signature. He got up and slowly ambled into his house on his cane. I thought he was going to get his glasses but he walked out with a big inkpad. It turns out that he doesn’t know how to write. Instead, he carefully pressed his thumb on his inkpad and put his thumbprint on the paper. How cool is that? I wish it were appropriate for me to do that on legal documents.

Oh, Mexico

Today at the VCT (that’s the Voluntary Counseling and Testing Centre), I was helping Susan, one of the Swazi hospital staff, as she entered data on antiretroviral treatment for each patient. Sometime in mid-morning, I had to leave briefly to meet with Thulani at the NGO across the street. Susan asked me to pick up some chips for her on the way back and gave me 10 emalangeni to do so. “What kind of chips do you want?” I asked. She answered in a way I would have least expected. “Mexican.”

Mexican??? Ahh, globalization. How Mexico is making inroads into the far reaches of the world. I have a bunch of dumb little stories like these that probably aren’t even worth telling. So many times, I just wish there was an American next to me at moments like this so that we could look back on it and laugh. Guess I’m laughing by myself on this one.

Inflationary Pressure

I saw in the headlines yesterday that gas was going up by 25 cents all over Swaziland. I felt firsthand the effects of inflation today when a little girl asked me for “lesihlanu” (five emalangeni) instead of the usual “lelishumi” (one lilangeni) that the kids almost instinctively ask foreign-looking people for.

It’s been a while since I’ve been hit up for spare change (which, as Jenny knows, I rarely have anyway). Usually, kids from around my community know not to ask me for money or candy now. In the beginning, I would stop and give the little beggars long lectures (it’s not like I as pressed for time) about staying in school so they could find jobs afterwards. I know, I know, I was being a real sanctimonious prick to some kid who just wanted a stick of gum. But I really think this “beggar” mentality starts at a young age, continues as they grow up, and can keep Swaziland crappy forever. It’s not like their parents will change their rude behavior – many of the adults do exactly the same thing. A couple weeks ago, some tsotsi in the Manzini bus rank followed me and asked me for food. He kept claiming he was starving, but all the while he chomped on a carrot and held a coin in his outstretched hand. When I pointed out the food and money already in his possession, he promptly threw them both on the ground and continued to pester me. The bomake around me seemed to understand the absurdity of the situation and rolled their eyes at the guy. People can be pretty ridiculous.

Garden Scheme and Social Centre

This morning I met with the Committee at the community garden scheme. They’ve been around since 1987, but it’s mostly been small-scale stuff. The scheme members feed their families and sell the excess if there is any. Now, there’s a contingent of members that wants to turn it into a more commercial enterprise. I’m happy to work with them on this because first, my contacts on the Committee seem motivated (they found me) and serious, and they aren’t looking for a handout. Also, I think this is the type of thing that can really fight the HIV pandemic – showing people that there are decent means to make an honest living.

For the past few weeks they’ve been trying to improve their irrigation system. Currently, it’s a series of open irrigation canals. As soon as we get through all this political stuff in the Committee, I’m going to sell the idea of the digging of some reservoirs that some dude from the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation suggested. It’s only a temporary solution until we can get a bigger project going – they’re talking about a dam. Who knows how long that will take. Meanwhile, tomorrow morning I’m headed to the capitol to talk to Technoserve, an NGO that helps small businesses. I’m hoping they can give the garden committee some good advice on business strategy, even basic business principles. I feel as if even though the committee has been around for a while, in this rural setting, there isn’t much expertise or commonsense in the way of setting up a business.

I really like Mcebo, the guy who called me and initially presented the irrigation problem to me and invited me to the garden scheme. Unlike many of his neighbors here, he rails against the dependency and sense of entitlement to aid-handouts that seem to pervade his compatriots’ souls. This attitude is what is killing the Swazi nation, in my opinion. But then he tells me the stories of people who are really “trying their level best”, like the woman with all the signs of HIV who has a plot in the garden scheme and uses it to feed her children. You have to tell and listen to both stories, not just the ones that tugs at donors’ heartstrings, and not just the ones that make you burn with indignation at the corruption and unaccountability with millions of dollars of donor money. Both stories are true.

I also talked with Mcebo about the Social Centre (our name for the local NCP that another committee is planning on to provide social services for the orphans and vulnerable children) with him because I wanted the garden scheme to provide some land for the orphans so that they don’t always have to depend on the World Food Programme (WFP). Anyway, he has been raising some issues about operation of what has basically been aid distribution points for many communities. I thought I was being overly hostile to the idea of NCPs – there are too many cases of abuse of the system. From what I’ve seen, it’s been kind of like a decrepit welfare system where there’s not much accountability at the grassroots level, as to who is actually getting the food. Some orphans are not vulnerable, and yet some vulnerable children are not orphans.

In the afternoon afternoon, the NCP committee and I began our “Community Engagement” to introduce the Social Centre and to get commitments of long-term support from each homestead. I really don’t believe foreigners should just fly in, build an orphanage in a few days, and fly back out. That kind of thing really ruins the fabric of local society. The community doesn’t contribute to it, doesn’t ask for it, it’s just given to them and no one’s really quite sure what to do with it at first. This is a sure route to corruption and misuse of foreign aid. I want to do this right, to spend the time to do the background work – I think the process is important. I think there are a lot of orphanages that just sit there, unused monuments to misplaced foreign charity/goodwill. I’m hoping that by getting the entire community on board and getting them to say what they will contribute first before UNICEF ever delivers a single brick may make this project more helpful to this area in the long run.

This is going to being my second visit to most of these homesteads. It feels good that most people that we visited today still remember me from last August when I was doing the homestead mini-census with Sendie. Wow, I’ve been in the Swaz for over a year now… craziness.