rain and packages!

We had heard that it can rain hard here in the summer, and that the spring rains are late this year, which is a serious issue in a region where there is much food insecurity. But we were not prepared for the rain, which started Thursday evening, and continued for four days, until Tuesday morning, sometimes just spitting, sometimes coming in torrents. On the corrugated metal roof of our hut it was sometimes deafening.

We had planned to go on Friday to a game reserve 30 miles away, but awoke to a continuing, driving rain. Pretty much the same Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. We never really left the hut. When we did we had to pick our way around increasingly deep puddles. You really plan your trips to the latrine – 50 yards away – under those circumstances. Sometimes the clouds would part briefly, then it would suddenly cloud up and pour. KUF stayed after a meeting at the local high school on Monday to try to get on the internet at their computer lab, and got pretty soaked on her way home.

The picture shows our homestead Tuesday morning. A sea of mud. The domestic helper tried to fit a wash into a brief opening Monday – no luck. Our hut is behind me; the main house is to the left of the picture.

And this shows me on the 1+ mile walk to the crossroads. We pass dozens, perhaps hundreds of chldren on their way from the bus rank to the local high school and to a primary school different from the one Mark teaches at. We bought the rain boots a few weeks ago in our local shopping town. Glad to have them.

We've now been in at least 2 classes at each of these schools, and we are fairly distinctive here, so many of the students we pass on the road know us, and some greet us by name as we pass, or just call out “teacher.” Kind of nice. We know a few of the students by name, too, which is even nicer. Some of the students walk in the rain with no rain gear. One yesterday was wearing plastic bags around her shoes.

We go Saturday to a “backpackers”, a species of low budget hostel that caters to the income (or lack thereof) bracket in which most of the PCVs can be found. Many of the 70 PCVs in the country (2 groups, one that had been here a year when we arrived, and our group of 33) are gathering to celebrate Halloween there this Saturday night. The hostel is near Manzini, the country's commercial hub. Then it is a short khumbi (van) ride to the training facility, where we stay Sunday night and then for another 10 days, till Nov. 7, for intensive language classes and training in “monitoring and evaluation” - an effort to see if we are doing any good here, and put quantifiable numbers to it. It would be easy to be skeptical, but I've learned to suspend disbelief, and the Peace Corps ends up making sense remarkably frequently.

Today was a special day. The Peace Corps driver, on routine rounds about the country (it's a very small country – the size of New Jersey), dropped off 2 packages, one from Mark's sister Martha, the other from KUF's “walking group” friends. These were very thoughtful responses to our needs. All the senders put a lot of care and effort into these packages.They are very, very much appreciated. Thanks very, very much.

XXX

Our clever, thoughtful and loving children sent off a care package which arrived Friday and contained, in addition to speakers which can play my iPod (Offenbach and the Dixie Chix – more similarities than you might at first have thought), a solar shower, which we've hung in the nifty tiled curtained shower area the previous volunteers and one of the young men on the homestead had built. Continuing the X-rated trend in this blog, the shower is pictured, in use! This was, unfortunately, one of the rare cool and cloudy days, so my shower was brief.

We administered to two 5^th and 6^th grades and to an 8^th and an 11^th grade class (250 students, total) a 32 question Family Health International survey of the students' knowledge of how NIV is transmitted, whether they know people who are infected (they do, but may not know it – 31% of the adults in this country are HIV+!), how they feel towards people they learn are infected, and to whom they turn for information about HIV. The idea is to see what is needed and who the persuaders are. Then we returned to each of the 6 classes and told them what the survey showed, focusing on correcting erroneous understandings and trying to persuade them to be more accepting of those known to be infected, because apparently secrecy and shame are major obstacles to treatment. We ended up team-teaching most of these feed-back sessions, which generally went really well; we both felt more comfortable with the other to help out in a strange classroom, and I like to think we modeled a respectful male/female sharing relationship.

Here is Katherine explaining the survey results, with, behind her on the board, a list of the four substances that can transmit HIV; you try explaining to a class of 6^th graders, boys and girls aged 11 to 16, what semen and vaginal fluid are. (Why is it that the teacher whose classroom we've taken over, and just as often the school principal, always seems to enter the classroom just as I'm about to try to explain to the students what semen is?) This is one of the less crowded classrooms; the 5^th grade fits 3 of the little ones behind benches about that size. The girls all have extremely close-cropped hair, and sometimes shaved heads, so at this age I really can't tell the difference; it is helpful that the girls all wear skirts, even when on cold days they wear pants underneath the skirts.

Then we went outside to do an activity to make our points memorable. The PC used this approach of learning through activities this winter in training us, and I thought it worked well; I despair of achieving the needed behavioral change through lectures (see below). The class is in the courtyard, under the purple flowers of the jacaranda tree. To illustrate that people are easily fooled by appearances so you can't tell whether someone has HIV just by looking at them (so if you're not going to abstain, you better wear a condom; yup, we're telling that to 11 year olds – and none too early for some, from what I can tell), each line of students passes an apple behind their backs, and the other line facing them tries to guess who has the apple. When we did this in training, I watched KUF in the opposite line because I knew I could tell when she was trying to hide that the apple had been passed to her – she's the one who, many years ago playing Clue with friends, was randomly selected as the murderer, the only one allowed to lie, and she had to withdraw and we re-started the game because she is congenitally unable to lie, even in playing a parlor game with friends. I successfully identified the apple that way in training, but none of the kids in the 2 classes we did this activity with guessed right, which we think nicely made our point that you can't tell from appearances who is HIV+.

I received quite a few really helpful, thoughtful and remarkably learned responses to my plea for Biblical references for my school “ministry.” I chose the gospel of Mark (!) passage on Jesus and the leper, and then the “Suffer the little children to come unto me” passage from Matthew. I thought my presentation out pretty carefully, because I needed to try to hit an audience of boys and girls aged 6 to 14 with widely varied English comprehension, and I was treading a fine line on how free I felt to tell these kids exactly what God wants from them; the other teachers are very emphatic in telling the students what God wants, but I'm less sure of myself here. I gave my presentation to KUF the night before, and she was enthused, but the unexpected is always the most predictable outcome for me on this continent, and my “ministering” did not go especially well. It was a slightly windy day, blowing towards me, and I began with the students after they had been standing, praying and singing, for 15 minutes. (They line up, shorter to taller, under a corrugated metal roof, at 7:30 for assembly each morning.) I did not hold for very long the attention of the younger grades, whose English and attention spans were limited and, as the younger ones right in front of me started to whisper and fidget in their places, I started to lose some of the older, as well. They are used to a more declamatory, less explicating “Opening Statement” style than I have. I did not get much response from the other teachers, only about 1/2 of whom attended; the one comment was that a bi-lingual pun I tried to make with my name (Sipho Tsabedze = gift and blessing) was incomprehensible, and ended up sounding as if I was praying for myself. Oh, well. I've got lots of good additional material. I'll listen to the other teachers, and try to see what works. Thanks for your responses to my plea. Hope I'm asked to share again.

Lizards, and Spiders and Snakes, Oh My!

Lizards, and Spiders and Snakes, Oh My!

Oh yes, there are many creepy crawlies in Southern Africa! This is not safe Colorado any more. We share our hut with lizards, sort of like geckos but without the accent. Most of them are small and help control the bug population. There has been an occasional big yellow lizard which has gotten my attention, but mostly we know about their presence by the small droppings they leave behind, and sometimes by quiet skitterings we hear along the roof at night. I did see one big and very colorful lizard, maybe a monitor, during training, and hope not to encounter him again. The lizards for the most part are good neighbors.

The spiders come in all shapes and sizes. The big ones in our latrine (outhouse) can be pretty scary. Mark has been wonderful to rid the outhouse of spiders, but one recent spider even surprised him. Its body was bigger than a man's thumb and the rest of him (the spider) was the size of your palm. I didn't stay in the outhouse long! The centipedes are a good four inches long. To keep our huts bug free, we were advised by the Peace Corps to use “Doom”, a white powder which I have generously sprinkled around. We find lots of dead bugs and I can only wonder what effect the powder has on our bodies.

It is the equivalent of early April here – remember we are in the Southern Hemisphere so our seasons are just the opposite of yours - with hints of a long hot (very hot) summer ahead. Summer here is the rainy season and brings much anticipated moisture. Last year there was little rain and a poor maize crop. The result is many hungry people. With the rain also come the mosquitoes. Swaziland has almost eradicated malaria, but not quite, As a result we are on Mefliquine for 2 years and sleeping under mosquito nets. We spent some time this past weekend putting up netting on our windows. At night I feel a nice sense of security (maybe false) with my mosquito net all tucked in around me.

And now the snakes. First, I really don't like snakes and Swaziland has many snakes and they take them seriously. There are several types of vipers and the black mambas. I am told you can encounter them day and night. So far I have managed to not have any close encounters, but a small black mamba was killed just outside our hut recently. I was happy to miss his demise, but have had to alter my nocturnal habits as a result. Our latrine is some distance from our hut. I no longer visit the latrine at night. We have purchased a pee bucket! I know it is just a matter of time and the snakes would rather not see me, but rationality doesn't help.

Parents Day, and more adventures in African coifure

Since the 3^rd term started Sept. 9, much attention has been devoted at my school to preparation for “Speech and Prize Giving Day,” (pretty much like Parent Day at Graland, although there were some differences) which occurred last Friday, October 4. More than 300 parents assembled in a large tent erected on the School grounds. The program was scheduled for 9 and got under way around 9:45. The Chief of the County and his entourage and also the Ministry of Education Guest Speaker and other national administrators arrived around 11. The students demonstrated their skills in reciting poetry (pre-school) and reciting in french (4^th grade). Awards of 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd position were given for academic excellence, and also awards for cleanliness.

Towards the end of the program, around 2 PM, after speeches and entertainment by drum majorettes, choirs, a fashion show from the Home Economics class, and more, some of the older children did the traditional high-kicking dance, dressed in the skirt-like wrap that is their traditional wear (we posted a picture of Katherine attempting this dance from our July visit to the reconstructed “cultural village.”) At the school presentation, I am quite sure that some of these topless performers, including the one in the center of the picture, in the front row, closest to the camera, were 12 to 14 year-old girls. (For those of you feverishly searching our earlier blogs, Phumi was not topless in our earlier post. Anyway, not that day.) Girls wear long dresses, always below the knee, any time they are in any formal gathering, typically over a pair of tights or trousers, because apparently a woman's thighs are to be concealed, but these young women perform topless in front of their classmates and parents, and no one sees any incongruity. I guess its just what you are used to, or what you look for. Or something.

On an uncharacteristically cool and overcast Monday morning, with the never-ending wind, we walked up to a Neighborhood Care Point (“NCP”), one of 3 such locations within 3 kilometers of us, where volunteer moms cook and distribute food to between a dozen and 30 children 5 and under (over 5 would get at least one meal a day in school.), when food is available. They have these NCPs throughout the country, I believe. No child under 6 is turned away, I believe, but the target is Orphans and Vulnerable Children, especially those within “child-headed” homesteads. The food is distributed by the World Food Program, but WFP has told us they will terminate all food distribution here in December, 2013, because funding has run out. Since the US is typically a major funder of such programs, we suspect a change in US giving is threatening that devastating result here. The picture shows the unroofed enclosure where the Makes cook and serve the corn meal, enriched with powdered milk. The children bring the plastic buckets to the NCP, where the women help the children wash the buckets, which are about to be filled with corn meal, to be taken home and eaten. Usually they also serve beans, but beans take a long time to cook, and they did not get started in time.

Last Wednesday we went into Manzini, the nation's commercial center, with 2 missions: buying lighting; and getting Katherine's hair cut. Manzini has the only store we've been able to find that carries table and other lamps; Swazis don't read much at home, it seems, and go to bed early from all I can tell (but they stay up to watch Generations, a South African soap opera along the lines of Dynasty, I think – but more repetitive, and angry, and not as well acted, if you can imagine that), so apparently they have no need for lamps. We did, and bought the place out.

But no such luck on finding someone willing to cut a white person's hair. That's not racist – our hair is demonstrably different. (An 18^th century Swazi king had a dream telling him to welcome the pale people with hair like cows' tails who would come with a book and coins; the dream told him they should take the book – the Bible, which they certainly did – and reject the coins; they are re-thinking the latter part of the dream.) No one in town would take on cutting Katherine's hair, except for one salon that wanted $US 18, which we certainly weren't going to pay – we're volunteers! So on Saturday we walked up to the salon at our little cross-roads, and they called in the specialist, who did a number on us: $3 for a cut and shampoo for KUF and worth every penny of it, don't you think? And $1.50 (US) for me – I think you'll agree I got my money's worth – about 1/8^th of an inch left, in every direction. Next time I think I'll try to sweet-talk Phumi into doing mine with the electric scissors we bought; more . . . stylin', don't you think? What do you think my chances are?

The picture shows our bedroom behind us, with the mosquito netting over the beds (really not very necessary yet, and we have the departed PCV groups used mosquito netting velcroed to the windows as screens, but even one of the little fellows is annoying; we don't have much fear of malaria – its not very prevalent here, and we take Meflaquin every Saturday morning), the bedside table we made from the box the electric oven came in, and our precious lamps. (Actually the lamps don't work that well – we're each asleep within about 2 minutes of getting in bed, often with the light still on.)

Some have expressed concern about the effect on us of the shutdown of your government, but, remember, we are volunteers, we get only a living allowance, so cutting off funding wouldn't pay to polish Ted Cruz's or John Boehner's shoes. But going on furlough – that would have been nice! We were advised Monday afternoon by text message (the means of communication when they want us to know something, because text messages, to phones, get through, whereas emails are a sometime proposition) that furloughs would not be “required” of overseas personnel, and that we should keep up the good work. Oh, well. Thanks all the same. Hope they get it figured out before someone notices. We can tell from emails from family and friends, and some NY Times headlines, its making a difference back home. Sorry.

pix for the previous blog

Here are the pictures I could not send yesterday. This shows the two 2-year old girls who live at our homestead, with the mother of one of them, the domestic worker employed by the family. The girls are mimicking with their stuffed animals the way the moms tie babies to their backs with a blanket. The bare earth compound around the houses is customary in southern Africa; with the warmer weather and rains the snakes will appear, and they stay away from houses where they have to cross a lot of open space. Water barrels filled from a metered tap are behind them. The banana (visible), orange and avocado trees (not visible) grow right by the water-filling and washing area, where they get some water during the dry winter.

I mentioned in an earlier blog about the primary school where parents are helping build 3 new classrooms. The completed the foundation this past week; with this kind of parent involvement, public finance as practiced at Sherman and Howard is unnecessary! When I set up for the picture they assumed I would want Phumi pushing the wheelbarrow. The woman guiding the wheelbarrow – in the skirt and slippers! - had been pushing it.

 

Thanks to those who have responded to my plea for biblical references - these will be very useful!  Other ideas will be appreciated, too.

 

Need help with Biblical references, + an alternative to public finance

It turns out that some of my blogs have been of interest to the residents of a Quaker senior living community in Philadelphia where my cousin Cathy works as a social worker. Cathy's seniors asked about the religion in Swaziland, and I'll provide what I can on that, but first, I have a request to those reading this blog who are learned in either the Old or the New Testament, for some help with useful Biblical citations.

I'd like to use Biblical references to make some points to my Primary School. Every Wednesday morning at assembly one of the teaching team “ministers” (preaches) to the students, and I've been asked to do that. Initially I begged off, because the PC doesn't want us to proselytize, because many PCVs aren't Christian – we've got 2 Muslims, at least 2 Jews and probably more, in our group of 33. But the young man who preceded us here, who was enormously loved, was LDS (Mormon), and he “ministered,” and I got to thinking I might have a “bully pulpit,” if I could firmly ground my lessons in the Bible. But my Biblical knowledge is a little sketchy, which is where Cathy's seniors and other Biblically learned readers might be able to help.

Can you give me Biblical citations that might be useful? I'm initially thinking of stories of strong women, as leaders, thinkers, doers. Not so much Ruth (“Whither thou goest, I will go, thy people will be my people”) - these girls get that in spades. And not Mary Magdalene – the fallen woman. Is there someone like David vs Goliath, but female? Or Solomon? Delilah was clever (shearing Samson), but I don't think that's quite the message I want.

Then, how about accepting people? Isn't there a passage where Jesus goes among the lepers? Boy would that come close to what we have here. Where can I find that? I need to be a little delicate; during these beginning months, as I hope to build up some local credibility, I'm trying to be careful and conservative, hitting for singles and maybe doubles, not home runs, careful not to offend the people I want to be persuasive to for 2 years.

And how about children as being worthwhile, themselves. Where can I find “Suffer the children to come to me, for of such is the Kingdom of God?”

Maybe if you just send me the citations by email (markLfulford@gmail.com) (We get pretty good service receiving email early most mornings – can't always send.), I can find them in the English Bible they use here – I'll have to borrow one – didn't bring one.   Or, if you can copy them as a PDF attached to an email, I can probably download them on Tuesdays when I get some low cost moderately fast internet service through the village library. Or post them as a comment, if that is easier or might be of interest to other readers – we could instigate a theological discussion!

My cousin Cathy's seniors also asked about the religion here, and I've picked up some, but the services are mostly in siSwati, although sometimes they translate the readings and the sermon for us. And the PC, as part of their careful and well done acculturation this past winter, gave us a lot of background on local religious practice, because religion is so important here, and plays a role in battling HIV (generally the churches urge abstinence but discourage reference to using condoms, claiming condom use promotes promiscuity; there is a lot here of what are called “multiple concurrent sexual partners,” regardless of condom use.) Swaziland is very Christian – around 80%, although I'm told only around 40% of that number regularly attend church. The religion is predominantly pentecostal Christian: African Evangelical Church (“AEC”), “Jerichos”, Zionists. We've encountered one Roman Catholic person, and spotted 1 “Anglican” church. The emphasis I find is on having faith, and loving God, and that way you will be saved. There is much about “the End of Days” and the coming Judgment. I've heard nothing at all about the Virgin Mary. And no instruction that I've picked up about living a Christian life: nothing of “love they neighbor”, or the Good Samaritan. The instruction I've heard is to believe, pray, love and praise God, have faith, as far as I can pick up. And the preaching has a really angry tone; kind of frightening, maybe just because I don't quite know what is being said. The readings seem to be mostly from Revelations and, in the Old Testament, from what I think is called the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Bible.

The singing is really good, although the patterns are quite repetitive, and the churches that have sound systems keep them at their loudest level, which I find deafening to the point of being painful in these relatively small enclosures with hard walls and roofs.

Here are the two 2-year old girls who live at our homestead, with the mother of one of them, the domestic worker employed by the family. The girls are mimicking with their stuffed animals the way the moms tie babies to their backs with a blanket. The bare earth compound around the houses is customary in southern Africa; with the warmer weather and rains the snakes will appear, and they stay away from houses where they have to cross a lot of open space. Water barrels filled from a metered tap are behind them. The banana (visible), orange and avocado trees (not visible) grow right by the water-filling and washing area, where they get some water during the dry winter.   SORRY - CANT UPLOAD PIX - WILL TRY TUESDAY FROM THE LIBRARY.

I mentioned in an earlier blog about the primary school where parents are helping build 3 new classrooms. The completed the foundation this past week; with this kind of parent involvement, public finance as practiced at Sherman and Howard is unnecessary! When I set up for the picture they assumed I would want Phumi pushing the wheelbarrow. The woman guiding the wheelbarrow – in the skirt and slippers! - had been pushing it.

Homestead visits, grass mats, and a church wedding

During the 3 month “integration period” we are in now we are not supposed to be working on our “primary projects” (although I've started teaching – they wanted me to, and I really wanted to get on with it – nice to have a structure to my week; Phumi is a little envious – in a nice way), but instead we are to get to know the neighborhood. During training we learned several techniques to do this, and they really do help you peel through the layers of a community very different from where we come from, and they also help get us out of our hut and meeting with people. A major getting-to-know-you technique is the “homestead survey,” involving visits to each homestead in our community, asking the same questions, accompanied by a local “counterpart”, who handles introductions and translation.

Phumi is assigned to “Community Health” (I'm in “Youth Development” - the 2 areas overlap, and I see us crossing over a lot), and so she works with 5 women who are umgcugcuteli, or Rural Health Motivators. For US $30/month these women visit around 25 homesteads each and try to educate them on sanitation, hygiene, disease prevention, and the like. Invariably these women are highly knowledgeable, deeply committed to their task, trusted and beloved by their community, exhausted caring for their grandchildren and additional “Orphans or Vulnerable Children” (an official category because school fees are waived for OVCs, sadly very numerous), and living close to the edge of poverty. And sometimes over that edge. When Phumi met her principal contact among the RHMs, the umgcugcuteli's home had been robbed, stripped bare, probably by young men seeking money for “dagga,” a strong form of marijuana that is one of Swaziland's principal exports. Her daughter could not go to school because her shoes were taken.

At these homesteads we meet the living face of this country's failed economic and health system, and see in front of us the human toll, at an individual level. At any given time I'd say the inhabitants of maybe 20 % of these homesteads are hungry. When we've finished asking how many adults and children live there, how many go to school or are employed, whether there is a latrine or a source of water on the homestead, we ask if anyone on the homestead is HIV+. Most homesteads have someone who is, and the RHMs know that; occasionally we get a response that they don't know whether someone is positive, or, more likely, not all the people there know their status. Then we ask if they have questions for us, and typically they ask us for money. We could relieve their hunger temporarily and not notice the expenditure, but, fortunately, the PC forbids outright gifts. Once you start that in a community, you'll be asked even more frequently. And a fundamental PC goal is “sustainability:” “give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach him to fish . . . .” These encounters are draining, emotionally and physically.

Here we are interviewing 2 different homesteads, both among the more prosperous of the ones we visit. At the first the man questioned us closely about why the US isn't stopping the war in Syria, and was very enthusiastic about Pres. Obama. The 2^nd picture shows in the background one of the houses they make of stones held together with rows of parallel sticks wired together. Strong, but well-ventilated.

 

Our household is composed of the father (“Babe”, age 71), his wife (“Make” around 65), and his brother's widow (Gogo, around 80). Make weaves grass mats on hot afternoons on their porch, which is directly opposite our front door. The 2 little girls who live here, her granddaughter and the domestic helper's daughter, are also in the picture. Both Make and Gogo have diabetes, which is impairing their eyesight. Diabetes is common in this country, especially, I believe, among older women, I think because of their diet. In training we learned that having HIV is preferable to diabetes in this country, because the insulin for diabetes is not as readily available and has to be refrigerated and the injections are hazardous.

Sunday 9-29 we were invited to a local church wedding by the PC staff member whose family

live in the area. The wedding was scheduled for 10 a.m. in the very impressive teepee-shaped village “community hall” which is “the Agape Church” on Sundays. My Swazi PC boss is active in the church and helped organize the wedding. Only a few dozen people were there when we arrived as instructed at 10:30; it started shortly with the “Praise Team,” 1 woman soloist after another coming to the mike to lead the hymns, till there were 6 of them up there, doing harmony and backup. We were ushered to a seat directly behind the bride's (I'm pretty sure) family, sitting, we were told “with the elders.” Oh, OK. By 11:45 there were 300 people there. We were introduced by name; we'd previously met the pastor in going around the community. After much singing, praying and sermons, the wedding wound up with a generous meal at 2:45. I thought the children clustered around me as I ate wanted to take my plate to help pick up, until I remembered a similar circumstance at the primary school a few wees ago and was careful to stop eating in time to leave some scraps on my plate when I handed it to a watchful little girl. A boy bigger than she scraped my scraps off the plate into the plastic back he carried for the purpose and made off.

This picture shows the bride, groom and wedding party on the decorated dais, and the “MC,” a staple at Swazi weddings, invoking the deity' no doubt.