A posting from Mark's sister Martha

[Mark's sister Martha did a tour of southern Africa in February and March, visited us briefly on February 24 at a nearby game preserve and then for 4 days March 13 to 17.  Here are her impressions.]

Below are some thoughts about my visit in Swaziland. You showed me so much, I had a hard time picking what to discuss.  It was an amazing visit.  I’m so glad you let me visit.

In the 4 days I spent with them, Mark and Katherine packed in visits to four schools, seven classes, and some of their favorite students and teachers.  They showed me three vastly different, but quintessentially African, communities: I stayed with M&K in their fairly basic homestead, spent a night at a lovely, European style farm B&B, and visited a refugee camp.

I had so much fun visiting some of the classes M&K have been teaching from pre-school to high school.  Both students and teachers love M&K.  Mark explained that I was his “sisi” (that’s siSwati for “sister”) who came from America to visit them.  We showed the classes my trip from Denver to Swaziland on an inflatable globe to illustrate flying around the world. 

 The students were surprised to learn that it was still dark in Denver when it was the midday in Swaziland.  They were also puzzled by the concept of snow in the postcard of a skier at Vail.  In the shadow of the AIDS epidemic, M&K have been emphasizing female empowerment, so I made sure the students knew that I had been a lawyer.
The kids spoke and understood English well and so were able to ask good questions.  Several fifth graders had recently had a short airplane ride to celebrate the opening of the new Swaziland airport and were interested in what I could see as I flew over the Atlantic Ocean.  They told the class that when they flew, houses and cattle were as tiny as ants.  I’m sure they didn't understand a body of water so vast that you can’t see land at all.
At the preschool we visited, one very good teacher was in charge of all 80 children because the other teacher was away on a family emergency.  Nevertheless, the children all sat down in front of me and listened to me tell them, in English, how I had flown across the ocean. 

 When the teacher asked these preschoolers where I had come from, one, and then all, of them answered “America”.  Then we asked them to sing a song for us, and one started a song about Jesus, in English, with lots of hand motions.  They loved the attention we gave them just as much as we loved the attention they gave to us.

Unlike the preschoolers, the birds at Mabuda Farm B&B, where we went Saturday night, were not quite as engaged with us, but the owners of the B&B definitely were.  One of the owners took us for a bird walk at 6am on Sunday morning.  He identified about 20 birds by song and knew their habits well, but most of the birds were hanging out deep in the woods and were heard but not seen.  The owner also walked us through his fruit orchard and offered us grapefruit, oranges, passion fruit and persimmons that were ripening in the late Swaziland summer.  The farm is beautifully set on a verdant ridge above the steamy, brown lowveld where M&K’s homestead is located.  While at Mabuda (which means "place of dreams") Farm I could understand why the early European farmers loved Africa.

Life at M&K’s homestead is so much more basic than life in Denver or at Mabuda.  M&K share a water tap in the yard with the homestead's family.  They also collect rain water from the corrugated metal roof.  Shower water is heated in a solar reservoir; drinking water is boiled 10 minutes, then poured through a special filter and finally flavored with Crystal Light drops.  The path to the latrine is about 100 yards with dogs, chickens, cows and their poop to dodge.  M&K's two room cinderblock house has fairly reliable electricity with which Katherine turns out splendid meals on electric (or gas) burners or in a small electric oven.  Food can be kept cool in a small refrigerator if the power stays on.  Mark does the dishes using as little of the scarce water as safely possible. For many reasons, the kind of home-centered entertaining that M&K were so good at in Denver doesn’t work at their homestead. 

After I had experienced the European comfort of Mabuda Farm, and the relative privacy of the homestead, M&K took me to the nearby refugee camp where refugees from places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia live.  Some of the refugees live in buildings appropriately called “warehouses” with fabric curtains to separate each family’s small space.  Food for the whole camp is prepared in a pot that is heated by biogas (generated from fuel collected from the latrines and from the cattle herd). M&K introduced me to some of the amazingly resilient students who live in the camp.

M&K continue to be the consummate hosts they were in Denver.  Katherine is still an excellent cook, even with limited ingredients.  Mark gave up his bed for me and moved into a rondavel in the homestead.  They helped me work out the arrangements for getting from and back to the airport in Johannesburg.  While M&K’s Peace Corps site may not make it into the Lonely Planet guide, my visit was priceless.  I think they’d love to have others visit too.

[M&K:  it was indeed a great visit.  So nice to show Sisi wami our new home.  The pix are ours - Martha took lots, but sending more than just one or 2 would absorb all the internet we're likely to have for a while.  There are nice pictures of Mabuda Farm in our Sept. 20, 2013 blog posting.]

hand washing, and opening a new airport

    Our favorite High School student John, Head Boy at the HS, from the Refugee Camp (2 brothers killed as his family fled the “Democratic” Republic of Congo) will take a test March 15 for admission to the International Baccalaureate program at Waterford, the superb private school up in the capital. We are helping him with the application – personal statement, etc.

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We taught hand washing this week. It rained all week, which didn't make it easier, but the kids loved it, teaching why, when and how to wash.

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Mark's drawing of a germ was especially . . . contagious?

While Katherine worked through the journals in which we want them to write every week, Mark would take part of the class out to the faucet to practice washing hands (which can prevent ½ or more of the cases of diarrhea, which is no fun, let me be the first to tell you and is one of the top causes of death in children.) The girls especially loved our soap with a faint perfume smell in it; they kept lathering up and smelling their hands and asking where we got it. Thank you, Concord NH Best Western. When a tiny piece would slip through their fingers the next child in line would snatch it out of the mud, and when I'd pull another new piece of soap out of my pocket – a riot!

The tanks are filled with water from the roof; we do the same. Cleaner and tastes better than what we draw from the tap. The bugs washed off the roof keep changing as the summer wanes.

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We interrupt the incessant whining and occasional bragging of this Blog to bring you news of the opening of “the Jungle Airport” just 10 miles (straight line; 30 miles by foot and by car) from our homestead. And worlds away.

The wealthy primary school was also at the opening. They recited and kind of acted out a terrific poem they'd written last year, when the airport was supposed to have opened, thanking the king for making this happen..

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We'd come over with the High School; it was really fun to be so enthusiastically greeted by our little Primary buddies, who hadn't expected us. Many of those Primary kids really love us, especially Katherine – can you imagine the thrill of being kind of a Mom figure to 90 kids?

Our high school performed the traditional dance at the opening. Here they are practicing in the parking lot in front of the terminal.

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Yeah, I noticed that too. Katherine insists they were wearing panties under those skirts; thongs, I guess. I made a point of not peering so closely that I could have testified to any of that from personal observation. Some of them wore shirts when not “dancing,” but others spend the day topless and with little below, either. We held their lunch money for them.

When these dancers performed at the debate back in January at the local government center (actually just a tree in the barnyard in front of the chief's house) all the middle-aged guys rushed over to snap close-ups, and I figured standards of sexual allure differed little from here to where I grew up, but today I watched herds of teenage boys, policemen (boy does this country have plenty of them, all in crisp uniforms, most with AK 47s – makes me feel really . . . safe?) walk past these girls,and not one especially leered, that I saw. I remember a college friend told of sitting at the base of Michelangelo's David in Florence, facing out,, towards the tourists, watching as each new visitor's gaze wandered to take in the whole, and then focused . . . . Well there really was none of that. Although the girls are not oblivious to the fact they are on display; watching the dancers' (fully clothed in school uniform) rehearsal earlier this week I asked one girl I knew why she was not a dancer and she said “I do not like to show my . . . “ and she gestured to her chest.

More importantly, how are women going to be taken seriously in this country if they perform at an airport opening dressed that way?

We went over with the High School, but before we left 5 lucky ones were driven off in the back of a pick-up 50 miles to the old, tiny airport, to ride on a plane over to the new one! The teacher called us over to explain to the lucky 5 what they should be prepared for in flying. We came up with: “grab a window seat, fasten your safety belt, you can pretty much ignore the instructions about a water landing, and it's much safer than any khumbi we've been in, and way safer than the back of that pickup.” Of course, they loved the ride.

The khumbi driver bringing us to the airport blasted a Shakira tune (“Summer song”?) on the way over; the girls knew every word and, packed in though they were, the little van shook to their dancing and singing; the police at the checkpoints just smiled and waved us through. Then someone called “The Professor” was the next piece. They knew that one too. I guess 15-year-old girls are pretty much the same the world over. There's a universal language.

(Hope so, because this coming week, after the easy lesson on hand-washing last week, we plan to start on Human Reproductive Systems, puberty and changes in your body. I ran into one of my students at the produce stand over the weekend and asked her what of that she'd had before. Yup, had studied people's body parts. The backbone was all she remembered. Could have been a language issue. Or embarrassment. But it could be a challenging week. We're getting to know some of our favorite students, and just a very few live with both parents and a good number (maybe 1/3^rd?) have no parents; so there's likely no one to give them straight hard facts, and we sense they crave that, despite the intense embarrassment. Try saying clitoris and seminal vesical in front of 60 11 to 19 year-olds. Fortunately, the PC, bless 'em, has provided us with excellent posters with graphic details, so what we lose in translation, maybe we can convey visually. Hope to go into those classes off a good night's sleep.)

Everyone passed through a metal detector going to the airport opening. Katherine worried that her Swiss Army Knife and the scissors she always carries (she's a full-time primary school teacher now!) would cause a problem. The metal detector was howling merrily as we approached, continued as we passed through, and also as we walked away. No one batted an eye. It was just a doorway.

and the “poor” primary school? No money for any extracurriculars (when you can't provide lunch . . . ). So not invited to the airport opening. They just keep losing out.

Oh, “Jungle Airport.” I couldn't understand much that the speakers had to say, and really didn't try very hard, but the translator of the King's speech kept denouncing the “nay sayers” who'd labeled it that way, and particularly a documentary the king had seen using that phrase that seemed to have raised some hackles. I looked around at the surroundings, and wasn't sure the comment was so far off. Not a single airline has, so far, committed to fly into it, and even little Swazi AirLink, with 2 planes commuting over to JoBurg, isn't ready to move until, they say, the access road allows their customers to reach the airport with more ease. But the new airport will be really nice for all in this country who have private jets.

It's named the King Miswati III airport. The crowd was said to have been surprised and delighted. I was not surprised.

Sorry this is dragging on, but lots is happening. There will not be a test. Anyway, when my sister connected with us a week ago she left us with some nifty school supplies, some well-chosen books and a ziplock pouch of the most wonderful birthday cards for Katherine, which we opened after celebrating her birthday with the traditional spaghetti sauce, pasta and raw red South African wine, after returning from the airport opening. We were deeply touched by the care and forethought that went into writing and then assembling these cards, and the sentiments expressed. And season 4 of Downton Abbey? WOW!! after we've watched that, we should be in a superior bartering position with these PCV kids for other stuff, with that.

One more thing: we finally got a list of donors for Books for Africa. We will be in touch with each of you, but given our limited internet access, that may be a while, so we'll just mention here that we are touched and deeply grateful that so many friends from all over contributed to this effort. Also, the list seems to us to be incomplete, but we are working on that. Anyway, we think we can make this new library a winner, with generous help from so many of you.

Mark's Sister and Drama, wild and scripted

2 posts in 1 day - surely we're trying the patience of our public.  But we've lots to share.

    Mark's sister scheduled a tour with “Elder Treks” through southern Africa which included a stop at a really neat game reserve 45 minute drive (this is a small country) from our homestead. It was wonderful seeing her, getting news from home, and meeting her traveling companions. Also, she brought some marvelous and thoughtful supplies, including, as you can see below, batteries for my camera!

      We went up the the game reserve the day before and spent the night in a “rondeval” - a round hut, shaped like the traditional thatched-roof huts – very common. (In many aspects Swazis are most comfortable when they can anchor current architecture, religion, behavior, etc. in “traditional” practices.) I (Mark) had intended to nap because I was in the midst of a tummy problem and a head cold was coming on, but the fine birds all around us were too good to miss, although only a few were new to us,.

The next morning we did an early bird walk (we thought we glimpsed an eagle owl through the think scrub, but we're far too ethical to claim it only on that brief glimpse – but what else could it have been?)and then sat with our coffee watching the 2 acre pond 100 yards away, when Mark saw a really big croc – at least 12' – slide down a mud bank past the 3 hippos in the shallows and swim leisurely across the pond with a motionless impala in his jaws – you could see the graceful black curved horns! In a few moments one of the hippos turned and followed the croc across the pond, took the impala from the croc and reared up out of the water, holding the carcas high in his jaws. Now, hippos are strictly herbivores, so what gives? The Swazi guides were non-plussed, but Martha's South African guide said hippos don't like crocs (crocs will try to kill a baby hippo – can't deal with anything bigger) and was just messing with the croc. The croc eventually got a lot of the impala back and we saw him shaking it and thrashing in the water to try to fit in the legs and horns; we heard the crunch.

       Life Skills has some basic lesson plans, and one is a skit between 2 female friends who have become pregnant and lament their foregone possibilities, Katherine had been working on that with two 10^th grade girls, and we presented it Thursday afternoon to 200 high school freshman and sophomores. I did not want to interrupt the brief skit to take a picture because every senetance is important (If you loved me we'd have sex.” “You can't get preganant your first time.”), but here are the two actresses after the show, and the discussion that followed. Trying to do a discussion of why people who have condoms don't use them and how boys try to coerce girls into going ahead without protection, in a crowded stuffy hall with 200 thirteen to 22-year-olds jammed together, was a challenge, but it went really well. The taller girl holds the “baby” she bore in the skit. Curiously the taller unsmiling one was the animated one who really got into it; the shorter one with the big smile in the picture was nearly in tears from stage fright. The woman in the middle is their teacher, who was extremely helpful keeping the attention of the students during the discussion. I've taught some literature with her.

       We fill 20-liter (4 gallon) jugs at the barrels 50 meters across the courtyard and store them in our hut for washing and to boil and filter for drinking. Some are covered and have a small opening, and those get slimy when I don't scrub and then bleach out the crud from the water system that accumulates in them, so I sometimes leave them open to air and bake in the heat. As I filled them yesterday morning at dawn (a spectacularly beautiful time of day – fading planets and constellations, vast sky dappled with clouds) I found a small lizard in one. Turns out it's harder to shake a lizard out of a small opening than you'd think, but the trick is to get a liter or more of water and go SLOSH suddenly. Shhhh, Katherine doesn't know about this; but did you notice some” local flavor” in the tomato and beef jerky sauce on the rice last night? (JK - I don't come near dinner till it's ready to be devoured.)

       When we first set up at our homestead we consulted with some Swazis on the Peace Corps staff and with our local family and all agreed there is nothing to be done about lizards/salamanders/newts, or whatever they are, in your hut, and you wouldn't want to, because they eat bugs. Oh, OK. So that means that the little brown 1/8^th inch deposits with the white tag at the end (pee) are just a fact of life. The deposits are easy to pick up once they dry. No smell, even on your pillow, although a little bit of a surprise. Some volunteers name their lizards, but we are not on such a familiar basis.

GOOD READS

We came to Swaziland with our Kindles loaded with a large variety of reading: classics or books we've always wanted to read, best sellers, escapism, books about or by authors from southern Africa, books recommended by Scott on economic development, and books recommended by the Peace Corps. Here are some of our favorites so far.

The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novagratz is a highly readable economic development book which Scott uses in one of his classes. The book is not too heavy with theory, a more hands-on experience with micro finance especially in Rwanda before and after the genocide. After working for the Rockefeller Foundation, Novagratz started the Acumen Fund which combines venture capital with philanthropy by investing in local entrepreneurs and vendors working to bring needed goods and services at an affordable price to the very poorest people of the world. The fund has invested in bringing clean drinking water to millions, in the manufacture and distribution of mosquito nets, and efficient eye surgery and low cost intraocular lenses. All the clothes which we donate to charity in the US and that don't sell, eventually make it way to Africa. We see the t-shirts from the teams that did and didn't win championships; jeans of all varieties; and Novagratz saw her favorite childhood blue sweater with her name written on the label on a child in Kigali. I even saw a real Burberry jacket with the plaid on the outside worn by an elderly man.

28 stories of AIDS in africa by Stephanie Nolen. This is a highly moving, informative and inspirational book about HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Nolen looks at the disease from many angles: the stories of those from all walks of life who are sick, dying and living on ARV's; the doctors and caretakers fighting to save people; the researchers working to find a cure or better drugs; and the policy makers who failed to act soon enough to stop the spread of the disease. These are real people and their varied stories; and though heart wrenching, will give you a clear and sobering human view of the HIV/AIDS crisis.

Born in Africa by Martin Meredith A page turning account of the quest to discover where and how the human race was born. The intrigue and rivalries among the scientists makes for good reading. Mark wrote for the PC newsletter: Books about paleontology are as dry and dusty as the bones those guys pick over, right?

Nope.

Born In Africa is one part detective mystery, another part adventure yarn, and just enough soft science to make you feel pretty virtuous for having read it. It is the story of the fossil-hunters and paleontologists in East Africa who gradually deciphered the origins of our species. And an intrepid, idiosyncratic and highly competitive crew they were, too.

Other good reads:

Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Next up: W is for Wasted, thanks to my daughter-in-law Lindy!