Since the 3rd 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
(4th grade). Awards of 1st, 2nd
and 3rd 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 18th 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 1/8th
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.
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