Graduation!

The preschool I work with held its graduation yesterday (that's right: yesterday. CURRENT INFORMATION!). Preschool graduations are a big ol' affair here. The two I attended last year went on for five or six hours. I was worried that mine would be no different. Have you ever sat through five hours of a preschool graduation in a language you don't speak? It can be a bit exhausting. They typically include lots of dancing, speeches and costume changes. Last year, one of the preschools hosted a motivational speaker from Kenya. KENYA.

As luck would have it, my preschool is awesome. Our graduation started only an hour late -- which is pretty impressive for the way things can roll here -- and was finished in a tight two-and-a-half. I shot a few photos with my phone. The girls and boys both did traditional dances. The iPhone shutter speed isn't quite good enough to get the high kicks. But here you are. AND I took a photo of the food because it was delicious and I never post food photos. I was a VIP (and spoke briefly, and handed out diplomas), which meant I got a piece of fried chicken! It was very exciting.

So now the kiddos have graduated, and they'll be off to primary school next year. Milestones, y'all.

Photos!

Here are some photos I've been meaning to upload! This is the support group working on its garden compost pile. We're searching for worms here.

Now we are depositing the worms into the compost pile. (Thanks to Jack for shooting these; I have almost no photos of me working.)

 This is the sunset over the inland salt lake at St. Lucia.

Here is a make (mother/woman) dancing at a celebration at my homestead.

Jack and I went for a walk near his place and found this interesting burned-out old building. This is an atypical structure for rural Swaziland.

My friend Emma and me! I just found this and wanted to post it because she's already back in the U.S., and I miss her.

More photos from the burned-out house ...

Life chugs along. We just had our Peace Corps Thanksgiving celebration, which our country director graciously hosted. Volunteers and staff members cooked for two days before the celebration. In addition to the traditional stuff, it included impala, which was fun. The night before, Jack and I had our Thanksgiving at his place (he wasn't available to come to the PC celebration). We cooked turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, mac n cheese, green bean casserole, salad, and apple and chocolate-chip pie. I made the pie crusts from scratch, because that's how I roll. And also because you can't buy ready-made pie crust in the SWZ because no one eats pie.

We shared our dinner with his boss/landlord and her family, as well as a friend of ours. It was a pleasure to explain an American holiday to South Africans and to let them experience and enjoy our traditions. 

It was delicious. In the spirit of the holiday, I'm thankful for how smoothly things have gone for us. My Peace Corps service has its definite ups and downs, but Jack has been able to enter the workforce successfully and create a life of his own in another part of the country. We couldn't have asked for a better situation. Swaziland is a lot easier than other posts in terms of creature comforts and the contact volunteers have with one another. Transport is relatively easy (most of the time), and safety is less of an issue here than at other posts. We are certainly lucky.

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We'll be spending this New Year's on the beaches of Mozambique, so I plan to have scores of photos from that. I will probably be able to share four or five of these with you here. You're welcome.

Keep fighting the good fight, all, and happy holidays from the Southern Hemisphere!

My friend

Sanibonani.

I’ve been experiencing weird times of late. I haven’t exactly been busy with “work” – a trend that probably will continue into the Christmas season – but life has thrown a few curve balls. One of my closest friends and work partners has been extremely ill. I went to visit her with a volunteer buddy, Walker, and she was almost too weak to get out of bed. She wasn’t too weak to tell us stories, however.

She described how some Swazi women have husbands who invite their mistresses into the family home.

“The women, they must cook for their husband and his girlfriend and even bring them the food,” my friend told me. “Even (someone we know) must cook for her husband and his girlfriend and then she must go sleep in the kitchen while they are in bed together.”

“That’s awful,” I said. “What about you? What about your husband?”

“He had a woman he wanted to have sex with. I would not let them have sex here. Then they went to her home to do it. So I got some matches and some paraffin and went there. I told them I would burn their house down. My husband came home.”

“Wow,” I said, laughing. “You are tough!”

“A Swazi woman must be tough, or her husband will have 10 wives.”

We spent the rest of the afternoon talking and laughing together, and we visited her father-in-law to say hello. When we left, she seemed to be in pretty good spirits.

Over the next few days, her condition worsened. I went to see her again. She had just been to see a sangoma, or traditional healer. The healer had treated her by making an incision in her chest and holding a cow horn up to it. He had pulled something from the horn that he said came from her chest.

“It looked like a piece of meat covered in hair,” she said.

Before they had visited the healer, she and her sister had held the Bible to the sick woman’s face and let it fall open. The verse spoke of vanquishing one’s enemies and surviving.

That day, she was feeling much better. She could even eat a bit – wheat cereal with milk. But she was lean. We sat on the brown overstuffed furniture in her living room, and I looked at the 8-by-11 photo of her on the shelf over the TV.

“Look at me, Nonhlanhla, I was so fit!” she said. “Now a man, he told me I am all bones.”

I left after several hours that Thursday. The next Monday, we sent messages back and forth. She had gone to her mother’s home across the country.

“Unjani?” I asked her how she was.

“Ngiyafa.” I am dying.

I stood at my window, staring at that message, unsure how to reply. She told me to call her a few hours later. When we spoke, she seemed to be saying goodbye.

“I am in grave condition,” she said. I asked whether she was going to the hospital later that day, and she said she was. I told her I hoped they would be able to help her.

“My brother, he will give you your camera.” She had borrowed my point-and-shoot.

“Sisi, that’s not important right now. I hope you feel better.”

It was difficult to hear her. Twenty minutes after the call, I called her back.

“I just want to let you know that you have been a great friend to me here.”

I couldn’t hear her response. I wondered if this would be the last time I’d speak to her. How was I supposed to process that? This woman is a few months younger than me, and she was lying among her family members, awaiting death. The tears came. There was nothing to do but wait. I wondered whether anyone would call me if – when – she died.

The next day I was in town. I messaged her in the morning, and I received no response. Was that it? After my meeting, I called her. My heart was pounding. She answered on the sixth ring.

“Sawubona, sisi, unjani?”

“Kuncono.” Better. She was doing better.

By that weekend, she was with her husband (who works in South Africa) and planning to come back home. As she had told me when she first fell ill: “I’m a fighter.” I’m so glad she is.

Tears in the Kingdom

Sanibonani!

I realize I've tapered off considerably in the blogosphere, which is basically a crime against humanity. But it's probably because my life here has become "normal." Everything that seemed interesting at the beginning is a lot less interesting now. So, like many people in the early 2000s, I've put my blog in the back seat.

The difference between me now and 20-something me is that my blog still might be interesting to its readers. Therefore, I'm going to try to do a better job of feeding it.

My conversations at support group often come back to gender roles, as you might have noticed. We often contrast the life of a Swazi woman with the life of an American woman. Whether it's them mocking me because I don't cook meat at home ("Nonhlanhla, you are lazy to cook!") or me telling them I couldn't marry a Swazi man because I don't like to work so hard ("These Swazi women, they are strong!"), a lot of our conversations get at the heart of the women's issues that interest me in public health.

We recently discussed the "teka" concept, or traditional Swazi marriage rites. Stop me if I've already written about this -- oh, you can't? Then here we go.

When a Swazi man wants to marry a Swazi woman, he typically gets approval from his family and the bride's family. Then he has someone (usually a neighborhood boy or relative) throw a hunk of meat on the doorstep of the woman's family. This is an indication that the marriage is on.

The next step is for the man's relatives to come to the bride-to-be at 3 a.m. and take her to their homestead. They put her in the kraal, where cattle are kept, where she remains, topless. The women of her future husband's family then insult her until she cries. I think I've discussed this before. But I'd never figured out why the woman must cry before she's officially married. I asked the support group women, and this is what one said:

"The woman must cry because it is her last chance. After that, her life will be hard, but she cannot cry about it."

That was fascinating. I'm not sure if it's the agreed-upon cultural reason -- I've also heard that she's crying because she's leaving her own family -- but the women said the tears are a sign of a challenging life to come. It's true that women bear the brunt of the work in terms of cleaning, cooking, raising the children and working the fields. The men work as well, some of them extremely hard, but the gender roles are clearly defined.

I've been here 16 months and haven't seen a Swazi adult cry. I haven't been present at any births or funerals, so I can't speak to those, but I've never seen anyone break down at the clinic or when speaking to me about a problem. It's a generalization, of course, but Swazis don't tend to show a lot of emotion in public. That's fair -- I don't either.

I asked the women if they ever cry.

"I cry every day," several said.

They asked me if I ever cried. I told them I'm not a big crier. I've cried twice in Swaziland, I think. Once was because of the loss of a loved one back home, and the other was related to personal stuff over here. But I didn't cry during the stressful adjustment period when I first got here. I'm not sure where that comes from. I'll cry at movies sometimes, and I tend to tear up at weddings, but it's not my go-to emotional response. Maybe I fit in better than I think I do.

As they tell me all the time here: "Ah! Now you are a Swazi."

Quick hits

Here are my parents and me with some of my favorite Swazi ladies in the support group with which I work. I see these women at least once a week. They're also helping me in my new plan to become fluent in SiSwati. Ngiyafundza kakhulu! (I'm studying/learning a lot!) I figure this might be a benefit if I'm applying at any agencies that work in southern Africa. Since SiSwati is a Bantu language, it belongs to a larger language family. This makes SiSwati useful outside the borders of this little country. It also gives me something to do since my work at the elementary school and the clinic occurs in fits and starts.

Mama T meets some of the preschoolers. These children attend preschool at the Neighborhood Care Point, the building behind her. Many of them are classified as orphans and vulnerable children. The women in the support group do a lot for these kids.

I am the worst

Sanibonani, bangani bami!
That means hello, my friends!

I'm embarrassed by my lack of blogging lately. You'd think I wasn't doing anything when, in reality, I am doing many of the things. Not all the things, but many.

Deep breath, aaaaaaaaaaaand, here we go:

My primary focus continues to be the women’s support group with which I work in community. I’m now in the process of working with them to try to coordinate permaculture (sustainable gardening) training. We’re being stymied by the government shutdown because we’ll probably need a grant from Peace Corps. The Washington grant office is furloughed, as I understand it, so we can prepare the documents but won’t get an answer until sometime after the shutdown ends.

In the meantime, I’ve worked with them to teach them how to make paper charcoal. It requires paper and water, which aren’t necessarily easy inputs to come by in my dry neck of the woods. They could eventually sell the charcoal if they’re able to get paper donated by local schools. I’m confident that it could bring in at least a little bit of income. We've also built a natural barrier fence for the garden using acacia thorn branches. I've got the scrapes to show it. These women are tough as nails, if you'll forgive the cliche. I know you will. You're on my team.

I continue to get great pleasure from hanging out with these women and talking about life. We had a long discussion about "blue movies" (pornos) the other day. They were under the impression that women went in with their husbands or boyfriends to act in the movies. I explained that, no, these are actors who might never have met each other before. The upshot: Now they've all heard of California, and I've assured them that I won't be getting into the blue movie industry upon my return.

I'm also in discussions with the primary school about improving their library. It's a storage closet right now, full of used workbooks and wasps nests. The challenge is that the school must raise E1,500 (about $150) to transport the books, and they must find a way to get the books to the school from town. The head teacher is going to discuss the possibility with the school committee. I'd love to see these children have access to books (the program is called Books For Africa if you want to get involved) besides what they're getting in class. There are some UNICEF-produced books around, and they've been immensely popular.

Some other volunteers have decided to organize a national spelling bee. I hope to get a spelling club started at the primary school to feed into that. Y'all might know that I do love me some spelling.

I might try to get an event together for World AIDS Day (Dec. 1) at my local clinic, but it's going to depend on how much buy-in there is from community counterparts. There isn't much time to put it all together.

I also ran a half-marathon on Sept. 28! I'd been training for it since about June, though I was nervous because of some hip flexor pain. Still, I finished unscathed and haven't had aches and pains related to it. We lucked out with a cloudy, cool day with no rain. The weather could not have been better. My goal was to finish the race in less than 3 hours and to run the entire time. I did it! I think my time was 2:37:05. Mission accomplished, and I might never do that again. Jack did the 5K and finished strong as well.

In other news, I've been allowing myself to get stressed out about my future in the job market. This could be related to the grace period on my student loans coming to an end. Eithe

NOW on to some photos!

A man in a nearby community uses donkeys to haul firewood home.

I made this condom distribution box for my local shop. It's from a wine box. Perfect size! 

Jack and me after our running victory.

I did it! And also I have a medal! Greatest day ever! Not really, but I was surprised that I didn't hate everything by the time I was finished. And I repped the Rams and the StL, which is never a bad thing.

 Me with Mama and Papa T at the Mountain Inn near Mbabane. I love getting to stay at this hotel.

Mantenga Falls! This was something else we saw with my parents. It's near the lovely cultural village.

Elections were in September. This is a wall at the entrance to my clinic. This was mostly how people campaigned. See, America? You can do it on the cheap!

This lovely purple tree is in Malkerns in central Swaziland. We saw it when we stayed at Malandela's, an excellent B&B, for Jack's birthday last month. I think it's a jacaranda?

These are most of the other PCVs who ran the half-marathon (pre-race). The three around me finished in less than 2 hours because they are robots.

This lovely view is the sunset from the porch to Jack's place. Beautiful? Beautiful. This country is gorgeous.

Photos of animals AND people!

(This is a post I put together on Sept. 11 and was unable to publish till now.)

Photos! From the top: Elephants blocking the way for cars on our way out of Kruger National Park. Dad and me nerded up for ziplining at Malolotja in Swaziland. A Cape buffalo with bird friends eating the junk off its face at Notten's. Jack and me riding high in the backseat on one of our chilly game drives. Below: Mom and Dad in the Land Rover on our first drive.