Our Summer Vacation - The Adoration

     We went back to the US for Christmas to see St. Matthew, our 2 ½ month old grandson. A 1 ½ mile walk from our homestead to the main road, 1 hour khumbi to Manzini, 5 hour international khumbi to OR Tambo airport, 9 hour flight to Munich, 9 to Dulles, and there He was, with his mother (our daughter). She had rented a house in Annapolis, Maryland, and her husband, our son and his wife, and my sister joined us. Christmas was a low key affair; good food and good times with family.

Holding that little boy, feeling his little body, seeing him look around and then smile when we drew near. Oh it was so very, very good, and so precious. And good to be with our family. But over in a flash!

     The long trip back was very smooth, but so sad. And then as soon as we arrived we hit phone and computer problems. We seem now to be slowly, arduously getting past them, but it certainly is trying our resolve. And how we miss that darling little boy and his mother. He had changed so much by the time we arrived from the pictures she had sent us, and then even in the 5 days we were with him, we hate to miss the intervening time with him. Our bodies hardly know what time zone they are in. It was nice to be heartily greeted back by our Swaiz family.

      We go Friday to a nearby game park with the excellent student from the refugee camp for whom we have become mentors; he got into the only public high school in the country offering the more advanced “A level” or “matric” courses; we will pay his tuition to that. We hope to spring him from the no-opportunity limbo in which refugees here are trapped.

      Then next week we go to Cape Town for a week, and back to Johannesburg to see the world-renowned Apartheid Museum. Then school starts. Onward.

2 different weddings

     Last Friday night, the night Katherine returned from working on Books For Africa applications at PC HQ, people started showing up at the homestead after dark. Our suspicion that a funeral was in the offing seemed to be confirmed when people stayed up all night, cooking and talking. They seemed merry, so we assumed the deceased was not close. Around 4 a.m., at the faintest hint of dawn, there was laughter and calling, then loud knocking and demands to wake up in the small hut just behind ours where the youngest brother in the family lives much of the time. When Katherine got up a little later (she really could have used a full night's sleep, but is pretty good now at getting by without) she learned that a traditional Swazi wedding, or really an engagement, was in progress in the kraal (the coral where the families cattle are kept) 200 meters away across the maize field .

Katherine dressed quickly and joined the ladies – men are not invited.

     We had heard a little about traditional “weddings” in training. On a night when the “bride” happens to be at the man's homestead, she is awakened early by the women of the homestead, who take her to the kraal, the symbol and center of the family's wealth, where she is told she is to marry the designated man. A song that I know well from the High School “traditional dancers” is sung, about her leaving her own family now and married life being difficult and painful and leading then to death; traditionally the intended would wail and cry. These days we are are told the bride generally has a sense of what is coming up, although she might not know the exact day; this bride knew the very day. Interestingly, the traditional wedding is not terribly common now, and the family of the “groom” said they had never been to a traditional wedding before; the neighbors, who are much more imbued with the tradition, did most of it. A sister of the groom explained that the Swazi Constitution forbids compelling the bride. ( I'm interested how frequently Swazis refer to protections in their Constitution; many of them know it well, but are also aware of some deviations in practice.) No friends or family of the bride were present; this was an event of the neighbors, assisting the groom's family.

       The groom told me that he would also do a “civil” wedding “signing the paper” before a government official, and he said that would have to be done by June. He also needs to negotiate the “lobola” (cows paid to the brides family, essentially dowry). The bride is a “double orphan” (both parents dead; single” and “double” orphan are useful concepts because children who have lost even one parent suffer similar diminution in health, education, and job prospects as with “double orphans.”), so the lobola is paid to the oldest brother; if you think of lobola as compensation for the cost of raising and educating the bride, I'm not sure older brothers are always entitled to much, but the concept is to compensate the bride's family for the transfer to the groom's family.

       The traditional wedding suggests roots in a less orderly past. It is easy to imagine a young woman being seized without her consent and taken to a man's homestead, then being introduced to the women of the homestead the next morning at the kraal, where she would see her new family's wealth, and the bride's family shortly being bought off, literally, with the promise of a payment of cows. The going price, paid even now, for healthy brides, is from 11 to 18 cows, but we understand there is a fixed lobola for a daughter of the king, of 115 cows. Since a young man's desires can often outrun his wallet, it is not unusual for lobola to be paid years, frequently decades, after the engagement, as the man saves up enough to provide the agreed number of cattle.

       This is a very Christian country, but the traditional wedding has nothing religious about it: no prayers, no hymns – that's all for the “white” wedding, which is in a church.

       I learned from the bride that her husband chose the traditional wedding because it costs less than a “white wedding” (in a church). But a traditional wedding allows polygamy. The bride told me she insisted that her husband promise no more wives unless she dies or they are divorced; polygamy would be illegal after a civil wedding. I hope that civil ceremony does occur, but even then, he has not appeared to have difficulty finding girl-friends. The husband has had 3 jobs since we've been here, none for more than a few months. His sisters agree he has a drinking problem. His lifestyle would make it very hard to have avoided HIV. This bride has a sense of her market value and, like a Jane Austin heroine, I guess she negotiated the best deal her circumstances permit; there was no one looking out for her. The 2 are very sweet together, and she is very good with his daughter.

       We like her a lot – she is smart, has pretty good English, is willing to try to be understood, and is fun.; I hope this works out well for her.

       The bride was a domestic worker here from around April to August, but left suddenly. She has 2 children; having one child makes a woman more marketable as a bride, because it shows she is fertile. Having more than one can be a negative.

        The “groom” was living, when we arrived here, with a smart, pretty, strong-minded woman who had a good job as a clerk at the nearby airport construction. Their 2-year-old was also here, but their relationship was already rocky when we arrived, and ended when she reported to the police that he had stolen some of her money, and a police car showed up on the homestead one night. Our Babe ( the father on the homestead, pronounced bäbā,) is a pastor, a member of the local “inner council” (kind of like country commissioners, but the position is either inherited or appointed), and an important member of the community; he must have been deeply embarrassed. The mother visited her 2 year old a few times after she left, but a child always belongs to the father's family, and we soon stopped seeing the mother. Likewise, the two children of today's bride live with her husband's mother who does not allow their mother to see them. The bride told me bringing them here would not work – they would always be blamed and criticized and treated badly.

      The groom had purchased a goat, which was slaughtered.

When you slaughter a goat, the first thing you do after cutting it's throat, letting the wriggling settle down, and hanging the carcass from a limb, is to cut off the penis, scrotum, and testicles, and set them on a limb.

I asked if there was any symbolism to that, because in some cultures those parts of some animals have significance, but it seems not here – it would just be in the way of cleanly slicing out the insides, I guess, and besides, who wants those parts still attached to their goatskin?

     While a meal was prepared the women built a fire on the road from the kraal and had tea.

After a while the women approached the homestead from the kraal.

They started throwing stones at us, because the men then had to go away, perhaps because the bride is still topless; she was very self-conscious about that, all day, until she was ceremonially dressed in married women's clothes: long dress, head scarf and scarf covering her shoulders. Fortunately the older brother on the homestead, with whom I was sitting, knew of traditional expectations, and he and I scurried off to our huts amid much laughter – those neighbor women had good aim! The women presented some symbolic gifts to the groom's family and jesting “negotiations” occurred, along the lines of “Where is the cow?” and “What color cow do you want?” Much laughter and good humor. But you could see the origins in a scared young girl being brought into a new homestead by the women, with the men excluded for that stage. The stories we hear suggest that often little care is taken for the young girl's sensibilities, as she is promptly put to work in all kinds of ways – the groom's family is going to have to pay for her, and want their money's worth!

       Katherine observed that this girl is going from paid domestic worker to unpaid daughter-in-law, but she has gained membership in a family, and my sense is the older generation in this homestead, especially the 2 oldest women, would try to treat her fairly.

        We had seen the final step in a traditional wedding when we first arrived at site and went with the family just across the border into South Africa to see the final lobola payment by the “groom” now in his 50s, the soonest he had accumulated enough to pay what he owed; the grandchildren of that marriage assisted at the wedding. That ceremony is intended to symbolize the joining of the families; the expectation and final accomplishment of that would be a useful step where such important property has been exchanged, perhaps initially somewhat abruptly. See (if you haven't already had quite enough of this) our September 12, 2013 blog..

     In the negotiations at the front door of the main house of the homestead the women of the household gave the new daughter-in-law advice, such as to be patient, and they then painted her forehead with ochre,

(Katherine took this picture – I was still excluded) had her suck the gall bladder of the goat (which tasted as you'd expect, I understood from her later), and symbolically tied around her right wrist the skin from the goat's forehead as a symbolic ring, which was only to be removed when she returned to her own home, which she would do the next day. I sat next to her when we ate, and could smell her “ring”; she was embarrassed by that and said she'd cover it that night, because of the smell.

That's the “ring” on her right wrist.

        After a while we assembled in a small room near the cooking shed and enjoyed the feast, as shown above. It was just the neighbor ladies, Katherine and me (I'm not sure men were to be included then, but they invited me; some rules apply less strictly to outsiders, I suspect. None of the groom's family joined them) I declined an offering from the pot where the goat insides had been cooked. One piece of the “flesh” was pretty good, I think from the back somewhere; I passed off the other piece to the neighbor girl (one of our students) sitting beside me – the piece had too much identifiable skin on it; ignoring my subterfuge I was complimented for cleaning my plate. Katherine was sure everyone wanted to see pictures of our grandson Matthew.

       As it happened, a “white wedding” was also staging from our homestead the same morning, because our Babe was performing this wedding for one of his parishioners at the church at the nearby School for the Deaf. The bride, bridesmaids, and flower girls bathed, dressed, and fidgetted at our homestead . That is our Babe with them, in the dark suit.

And they then drove off in fancy clean decorated cars.

          One lesson this experience keeps teaching me is the futility of prediction. Preparation is important, but then the unexpected invariably intervenes.

Exam period and the holidays

      After a really busy, sometimes frantic, October, our schedule dropped off a cliff to practically nothing in November. In October we were teaching 7 classes a week, 240 students, and we also had 1 or 2 tutoring sessions most days. But exams started early in November, so no classes met, and once classes finished the students were still required to come to school (although many didn't, presumably because the free lunch was not worth the transport cost and effort) while the teachers marked their papers. This sounded to us like the perfect opportunity for some large and small group activities, so we studied some programs recommended by the Peace Corps and also selected the two books in the High School library with multiple copies for 2 “book clubs” we wanted to start.

      But we had far less success than we expected. We had bad luck – rain and a competing NGO demonstration on male circumcision (important here) just as we tried to get started, but mostly it was hard to get the students interested in much that looked like work. We gave up on the large group, and had some successes with the book clubs. In each, at least one student read way ahead and finished within days. And sometimes the discussions were very thoughtful and deep. But we always had to go round up the students, and we found fewer and fewer. And this is the last week they will be in school, so we have little planned except our own travels and projects and planning for next term, until school starts January 20, 2015.

      The Rural Health Motivators are one of the most successful health measures in this country. 6 women selected by the community are well-trained and then continually circulate among about 20 – 40 homesteads assigned to each of them advising on health, hygiene, nutrition and related matters. They were Katherine's introduction to the community; they love her. 3 of them asked Katherine to teach them English. Actually, their English is already much better than our siSwati, and they do not need English either to improve their understanding of their work nor to communicate with their neighboring homesteads. I think it's just a matter of pride; maybe keeping up with the grandchildren. Each of the women arrived with a new notepad on which to take notes – no small expense for them. We taped a portable “white board” on the back of a door, shown here,

and when we came for the second session we replaced it with a homework poster of 20 words for parts of the body. I think they were delighted to have this vocabulary to study.

       Most of the volunteers in our group (now the veterans) and also the new group ( who are now through “Integration Period” and settling in, some more smoothly than others) assembled at the Country Director's house for Thanksgiving. It was so good to be with our friends for this family holiday, and the food was delicious.

Next year, in Denver. The US Ambassador gave us a ride to the bus rank; we talked about why Swaziland did so little to retain eligibility under the African Growth Opportunity Act; losing that tariff-free importation privilege is a self-inflicted disaster for this sad country. The Ambassador is a splendid diplomat and an atrocious driver, and in this country, there is much competition in the latter category.

    We stayed Thursday and Friday nights at a backpackers we like, splurging on 2 nights in a private room with its own shower and toilet – right there in the room! Ahhhh. No flies, spiders, cockroaches or snakes! Cost an extra US$4 per person per night - US$15 each.  Worth it, kakhulu (big time!) Thursday night Katherine worked with one of the other volunteers on the Books for Africa Committee preparing to review applications for libraries.

     Friday we climbed a fine local feature evocatively named Executioner's Rock.  The approach was really long, but we had great luck with rides.  Less so on the way back.  Long day.

     Katherine has now gone to PC HQ in Mbabane to review Books For Africa library applications, which were due December 1, and she's also been asked to help a new staff member organize the PC resource library. So I'm on my own here. Being very brave.

     The Country Director asked Katherine to speak with a USA Today reporter about being an older PC volunteer. Here's the link to the article: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/26/peace-corps-older-50-volunteer-age/19278429/

Help Support New Libraries in Swaziland

“The library is a good place to spend time in. I say this because of the books that are intresting (sic). For the library to be opened is good for all of us. In reading the books it gives your mind some new words and other vocabulary sentences. There are books that you will read them for fun and some for knowledge. Do not be indifferent in reading books. Good luck, happy reading.” Form 1 student (equivalent of US grade 8)

The new library at our local high school has been a phenomenal success. The photos in this posting show Mcebo helping to register the new books

and students enjoying the new library.

Hundreds of books have been checked out since the library opened in June. One Form 1 student often checks out a new book each day. The teachers tell us they have seen a definite improvement in their students' exams and writing skills. Recently, a Form 3 girl was jumping up and down at the excitement of finding a book she wanted to read. We have several book clubs going affording us an opportunity to work directly with small groups of students. The High School received some books that were too young for those students, so we brought 3 boxes to the local primary school that lacks a library; whenever we bring a “box library” into classes at the primary school, the students eagerly swarm, delighted at the chance to read a book. At recess the students beg us to read to them.

This year Katherine (with Mark's help) is part of the Peace Corps' Books for Africa Swaziland Committee helping volunteers start 30 new libraries around the country. (We will not apply for a new library in our community this year.) The books are donated, but volunteers must raise half the shipping costs, this year $7617.

We are requesting readers of this blog to donate to Books For Africa to support our efforts and bring the joy of reading to the young people in Swaziland. We are convinced that improved English will help these students move from dependent poverty to becoming self-supporting citizens. The link to donate is:  https://donate.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=15-645-001

Please make sure you include your name with the donation. The default for this site seems to be “anonymous”, and we were not able properly to thank many of you who donated last year.

We are well into our second and last year as Peace Corps volunteers. There have been many highs and some lows. Our work with libraries is one of our proudest efforts. Please help us continue this work.

We wish a happy Thanksgiving to all our friends and family who are following our blog.

Katherine and Mark

A Halloween Trick

     Technology is the toughest obstacle we've faced in the PC, starting from our first application and then endless medical review, and especially after we arrived: maintaining phone and internet access and keeping our computer operable. 2 weeks ago the 5^th Horseman of the PC Apocalypse descended upon us when our computer froze into a loop we couldn't break. Many invocations of task manager and hard booting were to no avail, as were attempted interventions by the PC tech manager. We've now spent 3 full days and many worried hours visiting the best computer servicing location in SZ, who managed to fix the problem after several days of tests, and then literally days of downloading programs that did not survive the assault. We've now mostly returned to functionality – we think. I'm still getting used to the photo processing program I'm using now, and I'm not sure I'm compressing the pix as I should – you can let me know. The struggle continues. And we have no understanding of the cause of this early Halloween trick!

     We caught a Halloween celebration back on Saturday, Oct. 25, because that was when the new group could join us. Some of our group went all out on decorations. Boy can some of those new folks party – most of them till 3:30 or 4, a few all night; I know, cause I saw them still at it when I got up to pee, then went back to bed.

Then Katherine made a presentation the next Friday, Oct 31, to the new group about Books For Africa and had housing (and a hot shower!) at the training facility, so I joined some of our gang at a hostel to celebrate the real Halloween. I was glad to be at each, and I enjoy getting together with the gang, but it's not the same as when it was new and exciting a year ago. We're going to be ready to leave in 10 months.

     The school year is winding down. Grade 7s (in the primary schools) and Forms III and V (high school; roughly sophomores and seniors) have already started national exams, and all other grades and Forms start school tests next week, so this is the last week of classes. The students will still come to school, but there not be classes, so we won't have an opportunity to teach. So over the next month we will try to get some activities going on which we have been trained, that dramatize for them how infectious HIV can be and give practice on making good decisions. We'll see. It's called Grassroot Soccer, and is quite clever, using sports as a hook for the kids' interest; it gets at the behavior change which is the key to what we are trying to do. We will call it Grassroot Netball, because girls are our primary target; they are more vulnerable to HIV, and seem more willing to try to change.

In addition to our class teaching – 4 5^th grade and 3 6^th grade classes - we've been busy tutoring some Grade 7s and Form IIIs on their literature and English comprehension exams, and that has been a kick – some smart motivated kids, reading some very provocative literature on growing up, race, families, and sexual abuse. But that too is over now. The Form Vs will finish their exams this week and next – the girls are letting their hair grow so they can have extensions attached (prohibited at rural schools). And some of our favorites, who first introduced us to the school, will be gone.

      And here, by popular demand, is a picture of Matthew Hunter Coyle in his Halloween Pumpkin costume – he is sometimes known in this hemisphere as Litsanga Lomncane Kumnandze – the Sweet Little Pumpkin.

Martha records his gurgles and chuckles on WhatsApp and sends them to us. All who have heard them – fellow teachers, students, strangers on khumbis - have been charmed. Smart fella, that one, and very melodious!

“For unto us a [grand]son is born”

     We interrupt our usual programming for a special announcement: Last Wednesday, October 15, our daughter Martha gave birth to our first grandchild, Matthew Hunter Coyle, in Washington, D.C.

     She called us early the next day and told us his birth was more exciting than they had anticipated. The afternoon of the 15^th she had contractions 4 minutes apart, so her husband Tyler drove her to the hospital, but they sent her home. ½ hour after getting home her water broke and contractions were coming every minute. They sped back, Tyler driving carefully, using the horn liberally, while trying to assist Martha who was lying in the back seat screaming as Matthew's birth became more imminent. At the hospital she could not sit in the wheelchair. Baby Matthew was born at 10 p.m., less than 10 minutes after their arrival. 7 lbs 6 oz. 20.5” She did it just on Motrin – no time for anything else!

     I was in the Swazi capital, Katherine back at site, at 2 p.m. our time Thursday when Martha tried to reach us. It took 3 calls to reach me, and the same for Katherine, because of thunder storms across the country. It was 8 a.m. for Martha; she sounded exhausted, hoarse, and so proud and happy, with her Little Bundle there beside her.

No phone call has ever made us so happy.

     Here is Matthew, 1 hour old:

And here he is 2 days later, at home, with a shirt we'd sent from Swaziland.

       When Martha told us in March that she was pregnant we were of course over-joyed. But both of us, without saying anything to each other, also felt personally, selfishly, very sad to miss the physical, tactile joy of our daughter's pregnancy and the first days of our grandson. We remember the morning after she called us with news of her pregnancy was one of our worst classes, with the large 19-year-old boys in the back of the 5^th and 6^th grades mocking us and disrupting, and we walked home wondering “Why are we here?” Others have stepped forward to celebrate for us: my sister gave a baby shower, and so did Tyler's mother and aunts. Our daughter Martha is a quick study and very cool customer, blessed with a clever, loving husband and a wise and helpful mother-in-law, so our presence in Maryland would be wholly superfluous. Except we hate to be missing this.

       When we left a year ago for our two year service we knew we would miss important events and turning points, and we have. Katherine and her father, age 94, knew it was very possible they would never see each other again, and spent 4 good days together in March, 2013, when he felt well; he died quickly last December. We missed family and friends' weddings and Katherine's Dad's interment; pictures, messages and calls from our family and children have filled us in. Katherine foresaw a possible pregnancy and knit pink and blue sweaters before we left; she pulled out some special blankets and clothes she had stored for 3 decades and gave them to my sister before we left, who passed them on. So intellectually Katherine was way ahead, but the reality still surprised us.

        We will go back to Maryland to have 5 days over Christmas with the 7 (!) of us – our son and his wife will come down from Boston. And my sister will join us – 8! Then, when we get back to Swaziland, there will be only 7 or so more months. Soon after we get back we've scheduled a trip to Cape Town and Stellenbosch before the new school term starts, anticipating a need to have something fun to look forward to. Fortunately, we are very busy here now, with classes and tutoring, some splendid kids whom we'd like to see launched successfully to the next step, and some more libraries to get established. And some good friends. We gather with many of the other volunteers at a backpackers this coming weekend to celebrate Halloween, and it's always fun to be with the gang. But when things don't go well – a bad night of sleep; a bug invasion; we step into a big fresh chicken poop in front of our door; a snake scares us; a class doesn't go well – we are quicker to get blue and start thinking “Do we have to keep doing this?” But so far, we are determined to stick it out here until our 27 months service is completed – there is still work we want to do here. We are, however, sure Matthew Coyle is going to need some serious grandparent attention when we get home.

Visitors from Denver!

     David and Maeve Franklin visited us this past weekend. They are friends through Katherine's 3-days-a-week “Walking Group,” which has been tremendously supportive of our effort here in lots of thoughtful ways. Both Maeve and David were born and schooled in South Africa, receiving medical training in Cape Town, but they left for the U.S. nearly 30 years ago. Their South African perspective was of particular interest. They are here for 2 family weddings in the province of South Africa that is just south of Swaziland, and for a visit to their summer home in the Eastern Cape.

They went with us to the two primary schools where we teach.

They spoke about medical careers, and then they met a ½ dozen of our favorite students we had assembled in the High School Library to talk about medical training and careers.

David and Maeve visited our local shebeen and sampled some home-brew, which they left behind, generating much cross-border good feeling.

We had lunch at our hut.

Notice the picture of Walking Group's Farewell Party 15 months ago behind us, beside Katherine's right ear.

     The Franklins brought some treasures to make our life here easier, carefully selected by Walking Group and my sister. These thoughtful deliveries from home make our life here easier and are very much appreciated.

     The Franklins then drove us 2 hours to the nicest game reserve in Swaziland, Mkhaya, where strenuous efforts have preserved “white” and “black” rhino and lots of other game.

     Mkhaya is very high end, and we were well fed and treated beautifully. We slept in thatched-roof huts with stone walls up to about a hard high, open to the bush above that, lit by kerosene lamps and lanterns. They brought us coffee and tea and biscuits at 5:30 a.m. before the 6 a.m. game drive.

     We talked with the Franklins about Denver news, changes in South Africa, retirement, religion, our work, other travels in the area, politics, birds . . . . David has a very quick eye and a long lens.

Bird Of The Day

     BotD honors had to go to fine multiple sitings of the purple-crested turaco, which David calls loerie, its Afrikaans name. A nice green with a bluish-purple head, it flashes a bright red under-wing when it flies; David was emphatic that the Swaziland national bird deserved BotD honors, and how could we assimilated Swazis disagree - the king wears 5 of its bright red feathers in his official traditional garb. It won out over stiff competition from the black-headed oriole with its gleaming yellow body, black head and red beak, and black and white edged wings, and also over the bearded woodpecker's black and white tummy stripes and red-crested head.

     Sunday we drove 1 ½ hours to Mabuda Farm; David is distantly related to the current owner! They had planned an outdoor braii, but had it inside because the weather was cold, windy and damp. The Mabuda Farm owners are at the far end of this picture, with Maeve and David and Katherine. Closer are 2 interns who had been training at the local hospital with Dr. Pons, an ophthalmologist there, and her parents who were visiting. This is the dining room in the enormous main house, which was built in the 1930s and has been in Helen Pons family since then.

     This was a really nice visit, with many flavors of home to enjoy while we visited with the Franklins and also in coming days.

condom demonstrations at the shebeen

      We have arranged for Population Services International to deliver condoms to us and, better yet, directly to supply our major distribution points. In visiting at our site with PSI they were interested in an alternative to our biggest distribution point at the local bar. Near the bar is what is called here a shebeen, which is an Irish word I'm told meaning an informal, unlicensed place that sells “home-brew”, a sweet fermented sorghum drink. We were told in training to avoid shebeens, and our only association with this one had been to see its denizens stumble around back (right by the road we travel) to pee. The PSI rep was tall, self-assured, and Swazi, and he took us to the shebeen, where we met the owner/manager (a woman, which I think is typical). The customers were quiet and polite, if a little stupefied. I enjoyed some home-brew with them, and we agreed to return Saturday afternoon for a condom demonstration.

     We didn't arrive till around 4 because of an event at the Refugee Camp, and the clientele had not become more lively with the passing time, but they were older than the bar, the absence of the pounding music of the bar enabled us to talk with those there, and we saw one woman we knew, the secretary at one of our schools, whom we like and who has been helpful to us.

     We pulled out our models and condoms, a customer volunteered to do translations and Katherine demonstrated on the models the use of the male condom first, then the female, then we answered many good questions.

       As in dining halls I've observed for US primary schools, high schools, colleges, and graduate schools, the men at the shebeen mostly sat together, and the women sat apart. After our demonstrations for the men, we went up to the women's end, and started our demonstration there, but several women, including our friend, told us quite nicely to stop. They said they are widows, and this information was not useful for them; they were passed this stage in their lives. Not easily deterred, Katherine said they could use this information to be sure their children and grandchildren were being safe. They were not interested. We backed off. My guess is we are older than all of these women, but many of them were lame, missing teeth, significantly over-weight in some instances, and all rapidly losing ground in the struggle with mortality.

      Our translator came up, led us back to the main group, and publicly thanked us, very eloquently. I think he was genuinely appreciative, but I was also coming to understand that they expected us to buy one of the small (probably 1 ½ quart) plastic buckets of home-brew they pass around. We get requests for money a lot more compelling than this all the time, and we mostly just brush them off as I did this one, saying we're volunteers, not paid, and we're giving our time. I went inside to see the fermentation process, bought a bucket of brew for the two of us and, after we'd had a swallow, one of our new friends took it off our hands, and it quickly started around the circle. Which was fine. Katherine said she was burped all the way home. I liked it.

      Sunday we planned to ride around 20 kilometers to the homestead of another volunteer, but shortly after we started K got a flat, I couldn't repair it, so she walked back alone. When I got home after a long, hot, dusty, dry ride into a fierce headwind we worked on some siSwati exercises we've set for ourselves and, upon finishing that, found the kitchen area was infested with ants; there's a crack in the wall, and if you leave unwashed plates out for a few hours, the ants invade. We washed and moved everything, then sprayed and exited into the late afternoon heat. Not what I'd planned for the end of the afternoon! In the increasing heat we've been drinking and generally using more filtered water, and I did a 2^nd processing overnight, and awoke to find I'd overfilled the reservoirs and flooded the kitchen table, seeping underneath the plastic cover, which is worse than it sounds because the kitchen table is made from composition material like cardboard, and I'm afraid it will fall apart if I do this much more. After teaching 2 classes at the “poorer” primary school, which did not go very well – they could recall few of the most elementary things we'd covered (the 4 fluids that can transmit HIV) and instead talked and joked among themselves - we went back to the High School to meet some Form IIIs selected by the teacher as needing special help for their exams. The Principal had sternly lectured the students at morning assembly on the importance of a big push for their final exams for Form III and V, which start this week and extend through October, but then he sent so many of them home for failing to pay their school fees (including the refugees, whose fees are supposed be paid by Caritas, a Roman Catholic charity funding the Refugee Camp) that classes were canceled for everyone. We rounded up 2 of the 5 Form IIIs we were to help, and had a pretty good session with those two.

     Sometimes this country is too much for us!

The Trip of a Lifetime: Part 4 – Maun, Old Bridge Bacpackers

     Arriving in the dusty tourist and agricultural town of Maun after the luxury of Gunn's Camp was a big change. A van met the plane, picked us up with our luggage, drove us to the terminal, and we walked away, with our backpacks, on our own again.

TIA Moment: No cash!

    We always had to be careful to get cash whenever we passed an ATM, especially in a new country. We'd been in Bots nearly a week, but only passed an ATM twice, each time hitting it for our withdrawal limit, so we really needed to re-supply in Maun. There was an ATM right outside the airport. I fed in my card and PIN, and the screen went blank. Hmmm. Katherine tried hers. Same. We started trying to figure how far we could get on the cash we had left, plus credit cards where they might be accepted. We walked a little further, spotted another ATM, and, ah, the sweet sound of those little wheels inside spinning out Motswani Pula. We knew it was the last Saturday of the month, and we'd seen a similar pattern in Swaziland, where some ATMs run out of cash the weekend after pay-day.

    In Maun we stayed at a backpackers hostel PCVs recommend, but we got the upscale tent-on-a-platform overlooking the Thamalakane River, which drains the east side of the Delta, with ensuite open-to-the-stars HOT showers and potty. Although the ablutions at Chobe Waterfront had an impressive-looking solar apparatus, Katherine got 1 sort-of warmish shower while we were there, and the boys' never warmed up at all; we showered quickly, in the hottest part of the day. And Gunn's, despite the wine glasses, white table cloths and fluffy towels, didn't really have hot water for its showers. So after a week of cold showers, the hot showers at the backpackers in Maun, for which we paid 1/10^th of the daily cost of Chobe camping and 1/40^th of the Gunn's cost, were quite welcome.

     In Maun we did an all-day mokoro ride, a morning bird walk/mokoro ride, and a hot dusty trip into town looking for the fabric we'd seen on women at Vic, but the fabric in Maun was essentially what we see in Swaziland; the Central African women must have a source we haven't discovered yet.

BotD: African Barred Owlet

     Our bird guide in Maun had a really sharp eye but no binoculars, and few teeth on the left side of his mouth. As we walked through a grove he stopped and pointed, and then carefully described where to look. Neither of us saw, with “binos” as they're called, what he was seeing with his bare eyes, and the bird flew. He called it, spotted where it returned to, and painstakingly guided our searching, until we, with our binos, spotted a perfectly splendid little brown owl, with white-speckled circular patterns around its eyes and over its head, white-fringed feathers on its body, and then large white spots like epaulets on its shoulders.

Oh yeah! It's hard to spot many raptors, and owls are especially difficult.

TIA Moment: “May I borrow me your binos?”

     Our guides on the all-day mokoro trip were Whiz (named, he said, for an American singer; could have fooled me.) and Extra (we did not ask the derivation of the name; the names of many Swazi children reflect the circumstances of their birth – the name of the PC/SZ Manager of Safety and Security (a full time position and, for some of these small young women in remote sites, he's very important) translates as “another boy”). Neither had binos, and shortly into our walk Extra, who seemed to be sort of a guide-in-training, asked could he “borrow me your binos” (a turn of phrase also common among the Swazis, whose language has only one word thata means both lend and borrow.) Then he asked for the small bird book Katherine was carrying. He did not offer to return them, and seemed to expect to walk with them during our excursion. We got them back and borrowed them to him when he asked.

BotD: Pied Kingfisher

(with an honorable mention to 6 Little Bee-eaters)

     We saw Pied Kingfishers all through Bots, but they are still special, with vivid black-and-white markings and a ridiculously long bill; hyper-active, darting/hovering/returning to perch and then diving for small fish. But at the backpackers at Maun a family of 2 seemed to have nested in the bank 1' under our tent platform and spent all day fishing (successfully, then bringing their catch back to the vines in front of our chairs and gulping the little guys down like nachos at a Super Bowl party – alas, that would have been the best part of the last SB I got up at 1 PM to watch in February).

They're noisy: K - “I never thought I'd ever say 'oh, just another kingfisher!'”

     In the colorful world of Bee-eaters, Little Bee-eaters are the (relatively) drab poor relations, with only a yellow throat and green back to show for themselves, neither terribly bright. But one evening at our Maun backpackers 2 perched on a slender twig 10' from our porch, then 2 more, with the twig bobbing up and down as each landed, then another and another until there were 6 of them, huddled together in the fading light as if for warmth.

    We went on the all-day mokoro ride, and then had dinner with a young German couple who were traveling southern Africa by public transportation. They were in the tent next to ours. He'll start at PWC in audit in Cologne in October.

We bought them an excellent Namibian beer (Windhoek – Namibia was colonized by Germans) and asked them about how people from the old East Germany are regarded by those from West Germany; with tribalism at the root of so much discord on this continent, I'm curious about how some groups get along, others don't.

     We cooked 2 nights in the communal kitchen with 2 South African couples about our age who were driving 4,000 miles around southern Africa. The wives were sisters, raised on a remote farm without electricity at the base of the Drakensberg Mountains in the eastern part of SA. The girls had gone away to boarding school at age seven – 3-month terms with a single visit home per term. The 2 couples came over to our porch for cocktails

and explained SA to us: those of English and Afrikaans descent barely notice the origins of each, this despite some English concentration-camp atrocities just over 100 years ago during the 2^nd Boer War and English opposition to the Afrikaans' imposition of apartheid more recently. One husband is of English descent, the other Afrikaans. In the deep south of the US I think some are still fighting the Civil War, 150 years later – how's that work? Relations among whites, blacks and, I suppose, coloreds, in SA are still developing, but are far better than they would have been without Nelson Mandela; what a precious gift that man was for this entire region.

     And then, alas, a flight back to Jozie, overnight at a hostel there, and early the next morning the Gautrain into town to the international khumbi rank

 

followed by a 5 hour ride to Manzini and 1 hour back to our town, some grocery shopping and a ½ hour walk home, heavily loaded, including with many wonderful memories.

The Trip of a Lifetime: Part 3 – Gunn's Camp in the Okavanga Delta

     After 3 nights camping on the Chobe Riverfront we returned to the main city in the area, Kasane, and flew in a small plane (4 passengers) to Gunn's Camp, in the middle of the Okavanga Delta. Gunn's had 6 tented platforms and a reception/dining area, on a series of small islands in the marshes formed by the Okavanga River spreading out and evaporating, leaving practically no water to flow south into the Kalihari Desert.  For the 6 tent/cabins, so 12 "clients" there were 24 staff on site; it was delicious to be pampered – clean sheets on real beds, good meals served on china, spectacular dawns and sunsets over the marsh.

(Did you notice in that top picture, fine South African white wine with lunch! Ohhh, I could get used to this!) The wildlife wasn't nearly as abundant as at Chobe, but the guides were more sophisticated, and made it very interesting for us, and you know, 3 or 4 elephants can be as interesting as 100.

     For instance, who knew that the male impala servicing a breeding herd always poop in a pile in the same place, time after time, while females poop around anywhere. When a rival male comes and poops on the other male's pile, the 2 have to fight and often the male with the herd loses, having lost weight and strength attending to 2 or 3 dozen does. Don't you hate it when that happens? But our guides held out hope – often the defeated male, driven out and disconsolate, rests, eats and gains weight, and wins back his place with the herd. I'm eating all I can. Really.

Bird of the Day: Wattled Crane

     The Wattled Crane is a big bird (seeing a pattern here?): 4' high, with a gray back, white belly and neck, yellow bill with a red base, and long white wattles hanging from its chin! (Urine samples have been demanded from the design committee submitting this one; wattles? Red base to the bill? Really?!) Our Bird Book describes it as “vulnerable . . . uncommon and localized,” with only 8,000 globally, 2,000 in Africa!

     At Gunn's our guides could identify birds by their call, and could call them in, and tell the different kinds of nests. They also babied us, insisting on coming to our cabin/tents to get us for dinner, after dark. But seeing 18” elephant footprints in the sand outside our tent one morning did make us appreciate the attendants' attentions. On a walk our guide pointed out lion prints in the sand, going the opposite direction from ours. A few steps on he pointed out that the lion had then gone back the other direction, so the lion was now apparently ahead of us. I noticed after that the guests all walked close together.

     One of the pleasures of our trip was the people we'd spend a few intense days with and then move on. Here are clever handsome Belgian newly-weds who had been self-driving 3,000 miles, camping through Namibia and then Bots, having adventures nearly getting stuck fording rivers, and who now stayed 2 nights at Gunn's. The first night at Gunn's they chose to camp on a nearby island – with 4 attendants! Segolene had never camped before she'd met Benjamin 8 years ago. He'll start with Boston Consulting Group in Brussels when they return.

    Giorgio, a courtly and witty old-world widower, 81,who was from northern Italy and had an old-world grace, carried a well-thumbed copy of Birds of Southern Africa, stained and wrinkled in some places, many of the pages kind of curled. That told us all we needed to know about him. He reminded me a little of Katherine's Dad, but from Parma.  His wife, an avid birder, had died, and he was there with Eleanor, a new acquaintance only a little younger than he, who had no English, the lingua franca of southern Africa, nor, as far as I could tell, any interest in birds. . He was, of course, charmed with Katherine. 

      We carried everything we needed for 2 weeks in our backpacks, and had to pack with care. I'd pulled up weather forecasts for Vic and Bots before we left and noted a hot spell while we were in Chobe, followed by a cooler patch, but had not focused as much on the implications of a day/night temperature swing of around 48ºF. At the last minute Katherine chose to jettison an insulated jacket, and it became clear that presented a challenge. We borrowed a fleece jacket from our organizer before we left for the Chobe Waterfront, but at Gunn's she was really cold. She is very hardy. Not that she doesn't notice the cold (and other afflictions from living in southern Africa), but she doesn't let it get her down. Here she is one morning, on our porch at Gunn's, catching the dawn over the marsh

BotD: Meyers Parrot and Bennett's Woodpecker

     This has to be a tie between 2 fine “life birds” for us. Our plane out was a late one – 3 PM, so after lunch, with no activity planned (yes, it's a little like summer camp), we set chairs in the middle of our small island behind our cabin/tent and studied the jackelberry tree above us, which was full of life. Guides had pointed out both the Meyer's Parrott and Bennett's Woodpecker on our walks, but we've got our standards, and had seen neither with sufficient clarity to claim a sighting. But here we nailed 'em both. Meyer's Parrot with green belly, blue vent and yellow shoulders and an improbable yellow crown. Bennett's Woodpecker with a red crown and mustachial stripe, brown and white barred wings, and speckled belly. Ahhh.

No pix of either – these guys are tough to catch.

The Trip of a Lifetime: Part 2 – Chobe Waterfront

     After 2 lovely, memorable days at Vic, we took a taxi to the border crossing of the Zambezi River into Botswana, rode the ferry across, and waited for the guide I'd hired by email, the recommendation of the friend of a Botswana PC volunteer whom we knew from Denver, who had served in Botswana and been a great help to us in getting ready and in understanding the PC.

“This Is Africa” Moment: abandoned?

     I'd made all of the arrangements myself for our 2-week trip, using our limited internet and email, so there was no one local and knowledgeable to help us with the transitions, leaving me always wondering as each new stage approached whether it would work, or had I failed to notice something?

     No one sought us out at the ferry landing where we crossed the Zambezi into Botswana, so we walked up to the border gate, got stamped to enter Bots, but stayed there. Then each of us, one at a time, went back to the ferry. We are pretty recognizable – the only other white people all were in tours, arriving together, being met by those open-back safari vehicles with rows of benches, each vehicle with guides and a driver. No one responded to the name of the guide I'd hired, to whom I'd sent half our payment for 3 nights because, he'd insisted, he had to pay the fee for the campsites right away back in May. An hour passed, now an hour later than we'd said we'd meet. We had no phone service. We spoke to one of the safari guides, who called the number I had for our guide and he answered! He was down by the river, at a separate boat landing where the safaris bring their clients across in a motorboat, maybe 50 yards from the car/truck ferry landing, where we'd come over free with all the Africans.

OK, relax.

TIA Moment: buying food by memory

     Once we'd gone by an ATM to pay much of the other half of what we owed our guide we went to the grocery store where our cook bought all the 4 of us needed for our 3 nights of camping. I saw no list. All from memory. And, you know, if he forgot anything, I never noticed it; do you think sometimes some of the things that assist us, such as lists (and notes for speeches – Swazis never have notes when they speak, but don't seem to need them) cause memory and perhaps other skill,s to atrophy? Though I do wish Swazis made more use of calendars.

Bird of the Day: Saddle-billed Stork

     On our drive into Chobe National Park we saw a Saddle-billed Stork. An enormous bird, maybe 5' tall, with a white belly, black neck and head, and black and white wings. But then, in a touch Disney's animators would not have dared, the bill has broad red and black stripes and, can you believe it, a bright yellow saddle at the base of the bill. Wow! When you take your eyes off it, you can't believe it, and have to look again.

TIA Moment: our car as an elephant scratching tree

     As we drove to our camp we startled a medium-sized female elephant scratching herself against a tree 20 yards away. She appeared annoyed at the interruption and came up to the car and rubbed her ample butt against the right headlight, then her side against the driver's (and my) side of the car. Then she turned towards us and glared, flapping her ears and feeling the car with her truck. Having made her point, she moved on.

I have no pix once the female started scratching herself against the car; photographs seemed unimportant at the time. Here she is when we first encountered her, on the left, scratching her butt against the tree.

      That night we camped on the shores of the Chobe River. Our guide cautioned us that there were lions around, and that hippos, hyenas, or perhaps even leopards could come through the campsite, and all were “Potentially Dangerous Animals” (PDAs, in the guide lingo). Our guide said if we really needed to visit the ablutions during the night, which was a large cinder-block building 75 yards away, we were to call to him to wake him and he would drive us. Well that didn't work for me, but I could hear on and off through the night the distinctive grunting/bellowing/roaring lions make, so I did wait for a time when I had heard no roaring or footsteps for a little while, and I did not go far, nor did I linger, although the stars were magnificent.

TIA Moment: A Lion!

     The next morning, as I was explaining to Katherine that sounds travel further at night, the pitch of a lion's rumble carries particularly well, and the lions we heard were actually probably quite far off, we looked up and watched a large male lion walk by our camp, maybe 20 yards away, between our fire and the river. He's just disappeared off to the left of this picture, in which I had thought I was capturing the coming dawn.

We followed the lion (in the car), and shot lots of pix.

He joined another large male, 3 females and 3 cubs, and then disappeared into the bushes about 300 yards from our camp, following a herd of water buffalo.

TIA Moment: An Attack!

     When we got back to camp we found we'd been raided! No, not by man-eating predators, but by baboons, who had seized the bag containing all our bread – alas, no sandwhiches. Keeping food safe was a struggle.

     Each morning waking up on the Chobe Waterfront was like waking up in the Garden of Eden. “The world was all before them, where to take their rest . . . .” (Martha's Baccalaureate, with an assist from John Milton.) The number of animals and birds was simply astonishing. I tried to count the elephants; there were small families of 30; herds of 80; a herd of around 130. Sometimes 2 such herds would be in sight at the same time. I did not try to count the Cape Buffalo, and could not possibly count the zebra.

During the heat of the day the guides would snooze and I would sit in the shade with a 5-week-old Economist magazine and my siSwati vocabulary flash cards, but I rarely read or studied. Even at the quiet time of day, there was almost always something going on: an Open-billed Stork would catch and swallow a fish, Glossy Ibis and Pied Kingfishers dove for fish, White-breasted Cormorants opened their wings to catch the sun's warmth. When the fishermen from the Namibian side of the river (not a park, as it is in Botswana – Botswana has done a whole lot of things right) moved out of sight in their mokoro (a canoe hollowed from a log),

a Marabou Stork or African Fish Eagle (similar to but slightly bigger than a bald eagle, but with the bright white extending much further down the front) would settle in.

      On our afternoon game drive we found the lions about where we left them, and then followed the males as they walked by our camp as the first male had done that morning; our guide said the females always lead (!), so they must have gone through earlier, unnoticed by us.

      That night around the campfire we discussed with our guide and the cook the importance of tribal relations - whenever they encountered someone they would always mention to us what tribe their visitor was from.

That's our guide in the middle, the cook on the left. And that night and then throughout the rest of the trip we asked about relations between men and women – our guide was adamant that a man should have sex with as many women as possible, and having several wives is a mark of success. Botswana is a relatively prosperous nation with good health care and educational systems, and yet a very high HIV+ incidence, although not as high as Swaziland's, which is the highest in the world. If Bots can't solve that problem, with all it has achieved, the prospects for success in our efforts are not encouraging. Changing behavior is really hard. Especially behavior driven by hormones.

     As our cook was fixing dinner the lions did their parade past the camp; our guide built up the campfire and urged us all to gather closely around it. We complied.

     That night shortly after we'd gone to bed I heard a lot of thrashing around in the river by our campsite, and some trumpeting sounds I thought were elephants, but could have been . . . hippos? When it grew quiet I felt it was probably OK to get up; as I re-entered the tent Katherine awoke and said she wanted to step outside. As she proceeded I heard more thrashing and bellowing from the direction of the water, but Katherine was very cool, giving no indication she'd even noticed. She took longer than I wished, but I said nothing, and we quickly returned to the tent. Her hearing at certain pitches is even worse than mine, and the next morning, when our guide traced the footprints and elephant dung on the road by our camp, Katherine asked if I'd heard them.

That day we finally saw a leopard, only briefly.

Our guide had heard from another guide, one of his “home boys” (his word = same tribe), where a leopard had been seen, and our guide figured just where to park to watch him slowly stalk by, 15 yards away, following a herd of impala. Just magnificent!

Bird of the Day - a Hung Jury: Goliath Heron or Green Wood Hoopoe

      We'd seen the aptly-named Goliath Heron in February at Kruger, but this was such a close and long viewing of a splendid bird that he wins BotD honors.

         (This is Katherine.)  I  disagree with this designation. For me the BotD was the Green Wood Hoopoe, a big green/blue bird with bright red decurved bill and red feet and a high pitched cackling call. Though not a rare bird, this was one I had been hoping to see!

Another TIA Moment: Kidnappers!

     The guide and the cook had different pressure points concerning the dangers around us, although each wanted us in our tent, for different reasons, when they weren't around. I was up a little before dawn the day we were to leave and made my way quickly to the ablutions, for a lot of good reasons. The cook came in shortly after and was genuinely startled and upset to find me there. He had earlier told me that the guide, who had warned us about the lions, had only lead ½ day tours from the lodges, going back each night to the lodge, in contrast to the cook, who was used to living among lions in his 2 week trips; I'd been puzzled about the inconsistency of our jumping in the car to follow the lion, but leaving the cook to fix breakfast while the lions walked by camp; how did we know they weren't hungry? Anyway, the cook's concern was different; he said I was vulnerable to Namibian poachers who, seeing a target of opportunity, might seize a westerner for ransom. But later, when I mentioned that concern to our guide, he brushed it off, saying that hadn't happened for years. Its hard to assess the dangers. Especially in the dark, with lions roaring in the bushes.

      The guide and I had begun to get on each other's nerves. I couldn't consistently distinguish all the different birds we were seeing (K could), and was starting to hear a little too often “As I told you before . . . .” The relationship of a guide with his male client can be fraught: see Hemingway's splendid safari story The Short, Happy Life of Frances Macomber; fortunately, it didn't get that far with us. To my knowledge.

TIA Moment: Elephants on Parade!

Katherine had taken her chair to the shade of some acacia bushes, but came back to where I was sitting to tell me a big herd of elephants was approaching. As we sat under the bushes they passed by 15 yards away from us, some starting as they spotted us, facing us and waving their ears, stamping a little before they turned and moved on to the river. I stopped counting at 80.

Here are some other shots from Chobe. It was just unbelievably fabulous.