Wednesday, December 31, 2014

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.

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

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.

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

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/