Scoooorrre!!!

         We are sometimes treated on our homestead to radio broadcasts of soccer matches, which are largely unintelligible to us regardless of the language spoken by the narrator.  I can however tell immediately when there is a goal scored, by the long-drawn-out shriek: "SCOOOORRRRE"    That is pretty much the soundtrack for the following.

       Regular readers of this blog may remember the Democratic Republic of Congo refugee John who was selected Head Boy in his 2nd year at our local high school, and whom some of you have assisted with ideas, research and study materials.  We met him at the nearby Refugee Camp in our first weeks at our site, and our efforts to help him with applications for further study and life experience were mentioned in our January 20, 2014, and January 5, 2015 blog posts.  This year we have paid 2 semesters of tuition for his A Levels (needed for college admission, 2 years after high school) at one of the best government schools in the country, in the capital, Mbabane.  He had some health problems,  now fortunately resolved (these kids have never had real preventative health care beyond the most rudimentary level - wash your hands and brush your teeth).  We were concerned how he would do at a decent school, where all students had desks, teachers showed up for class and started teaching at the beginning of the class period and expected homework to be completed and subjects to be mastered, and where the students had come from high schools with similar standards.

         He was #1 after the first month at this new school, and then again at the end of the 1st term.  (They announce and post that information here - every class position is public!)

      He had applied to Waterford, the excellent and extremely expensive private school in the capital, part of the United World Colleges, with which we were previously unfamiliar.  He's now been admitted to UWC Robert Bosch  campus in, Germany, on a full scholarship!  We like their web site at http://www.uwcrobertboschcollege.de/en/, and we are enormously excited for him.  

             We also helped him with his application to African Leadership Academy, a  7-year old private 2 year A level program in Johannesburg.    www.africanleadershipacademy.org   He was selected as one of the 400 finalists and traveled by khumbi to Jozie for their finalist weekend in January, and he recently learned  he has also been admitted there!  Either one of these admissions would complete all of the dreams of any student we know here.  John was the only admission to ALA from Swaziland.

           John has selected UWC Robert Bosch, a 2 year International Baccalaureate program in Frieburg, in the southwestern corner of Germany, that started up just a year ago.  We think having the European influence will open new vistas for John, the UWC "brand" and other indicia (the headmaster starting it up was head at Waterford here in Swaziland for 11 years) lead us to believe it will be very good, and we understand all graduates are awarded full scholarships to the US colleges or universities to which they are admitted!

            Those in the development business think a lot about "sustainability," and the Peace Corps emphasizes it to us continually, but as I see the sites and projects from the efforts of departed volunteers, and also projects we've worked on earlier in our stay, I think of a rock thrown into a pool, creating waves that quickly subside, leaving the pool placid, as it was before.  Maybe some of these students will have, for a while, a different view of themselves, their possibilities, and what they need to do to move forward, but most of our formal projects will be like that rock making a splash in the pool, which shortly settles down.

               But John is one "project" that is "sustainable."  He is launched!  He would have broken out somehow, I think.   He's really smart, and diligent, poised and mature, generous and a leader, and an extraordinary networker.  But we helped with some technology (scanning his school reports at HQ so he could attach them to his applications - nearly impossible from here), reviewing, targeting and helping focus his applications, and  some timely fee and transportation payments.   And it is a great joy now to consider the world he has ahead of him.

              Here's a picture of John with the PC volleyball team that competed against the Embassy in March.  He was really good and they put him in the center.

        We've been in the urban commercial area of this country most of the past week, unloading and then distributing the boxes of books sent by Books For Africa.  This is one of the most enjoyable things we do.  I enjoy the time with the volunteers, who are clever, resilient, hardworking, helpful (Mark: "How can I make my iPhone stop doing this?") and just a lot of  fun.  And the school staff picking up  the books are so proud and hopeful and delighted and grateful - it is heart-warming.  There were sometimes cheers, song,s even delighted dancing!

          Here the volunteers are in the empty warehouse starting to unload the truck, and the '14-'15 and '15-'16 BFA leadership group, in front of one school's stack of boxes.

The black girl to the middle of the back row was born in Somalia, grew up to age 8 in Kenya and then  most of her family moved to Washington State; she's one of my favorites of my new "daughters."  The Swazis have a lot of trouble with our lack of devotional zeal; their first question to us, after our names (big laugh when we give our Swazi names: Sipho and Nomphulmelelo) is usually "Are you Christian?".  Sagal is Muslim.  Her host family here "protects" her by quickly interjecting, when that question is asked, "She believes in God."  I haven't noticed Sagal in need anyone's protection.

          We have a little bit of a division of labor here from the "comparative advantage" arising from our different skill sets.  Katherine does a little more of the cooking than I do, and I deal more with the water supply and with snakes and spiders.  Last night as she was preparing for bed she was surprised by a small snake crossing her path by our front door; that one got away from The Mighty Hunter, but not the spider nearly the size of her hand just beside the seat in the latrine this morning.  I had previously let this spider live (or his relatives - could there be many more that size?), because I think they feeds on flies and mosquitoes, but my careful calculus of the relative distress from his life or death was the end of him.

Holiday Travels: Ngwenya Mine and Ngwenpisi Gorge

      1st term ended April 17, so we did some traveling within Swaziland each of the 2 weeks between terms, on the other days meeting high school students at the nearby refugee camp.

THE OLDEST (OR 2ND OLDEST) MINE IN THE WORLD

      The first week of break we went with our young friend John Koffi to Ngwenya mine, described around here as the oldest mine in the world (actually, John did some research afterwards and found there is one in Egypt that is older, so,OK,  2nd oldest).   43,000 years ago the San bushmen, the only inhabitants then of southern Africa, hollowed out a cavern the size of a small living room on the top of the mountain to the left of us in the picture below; here we are in front of a modern iron ore open pit, now abandoned.

The bushmen were mining hematite, for color in painting themselves and on their rock drawings, suggesting the importance to them of that decoration and art work.  We spent 3 days with John, thinking through issues and steps in the coming years, staying at a favorite Peace Corps backpackers hostel.

TUTORING AND MEETINGS AT THE REFUGEE CAMP

     We  met with the high school students from the refugee camp most days when we were home over the break.  After one session Katherine WhastApped one of the students suggesting a writing project (we try to suggest them frequently to those who might benefit), and she received this reply:

Good morning Catherine,  thanks alot for every single words that you guys keeping on telling me, because they build something in me that contribute a big change in my academic and personal life.  Thank you very much and i will do the writing.

   The writer is one of the Form 4s (juniors) whom we have just gotten to know this term, a quiet, thoughtful  19-year-old from the Democratic Republic of Congo; I think he started English about 5 years ago.

        Even more than Swazi high school graduates, refugees in this country are stuck in a desperate limbo, because there is no funding for them to attend college in Swaziland, and it is difficult and expensive for them to travel elsewhere.  To try to understand their alternatives we set up meetings at the camp with a young woman who has studied scholarships available to graduates from Swazi high schools, other than financial aid from the Swazi government.  She was due at 8:30 in the morning; we told the refugee students we'd meet them at 8, just to prepare, and we came in to find they'd been meeting since 7 that morning, going over plans and expectations of each other: e.g.,  "use formal language when you ask a question."  We regularly tutor about a dozen high school students from the camp, but there were 25 kids there, nearly every student in the Camp from 6 grade up. 

        After the first speaker we were joined by the US Embassy's Consul, who handles applications of refugees to enter the US, to talk about that and generally about the (many, many) issues with refugees traveling and trying to establish themselves in more favorable economies.   We left at 11 with the US Consul for lunch Katherine had prepared at our hut because we wanted some face time with the Consul; we learned later in the day the kids continued meeting and de-briefed for another 2+ hours!  So that was around 6 hours of meetings for these kids; they are a determined  crew, trying to find an exit strategy.  

NGWEMPISI GORGE

       This week we took a trip we'd been thinking about for a year, to a lodge built into a cliff face high above a remote gorge at the end of a rough 15 kilometer dirt road, in the hills on the west side of Swaziland.  Several people whom we reached by phone assured us they handled reservations for the local community association that ran the lodge and all would be ready for our arrival, but when the taxi we'd hired to take us from the nearest khumbi rank 40 km away reached the lonely homestead at the end of the road, the Make (mother) there who handled the Lodge had no idea we were coming.  But, not to worry, no one else was at the Lodge that night and she assured us all was in order: gas for the stove; water; even hot water for showers!  And the paraffin lanterns and blankets we would need (winter is coming on, and it gets into the mid-40s at night up in the hills) would be brought down in a few hours.  And the taxi driver promised to come back for us at 11 the next day.  We hiked 40 minutes and maybe 800' elevation loss into the gorge and then found the water not working, and no fuel for the shower heater.  But the blankets arrived later in the afternoon and I found the lanterns in a nearby hut for a security guard (which raised some questions in our minds, but, I guess we're glad to have security). 

 We hiked down to the river. On the way we met a man carrying a sack, which he said contained "leaves" he had harvested, no doubt dagga, the hot and (in my opinion) low potency marijuana which some claim is Swaziland's major export crop.

       Back at the lodge we watched for birds.

  Katherine developed the annoying habit of exclaiming she'd seen a purple crested turoco when I was looking the other way; she got some good views, I think I saw him once; we've seen him before, at other game reserves, but I'd have loved to see him again.  On one porch of the lodge we sipped wine we'd carried

and then had dinner. 

       The next morning we watched the dawn from the rocks above the lodge

 and from a high rock we managed to text our taxi driver to confirm he was coming for us; he called right back and promised to meet us at the school near the homestead.  We hiked out of the gorge and the driver was early, picking us up on our way to the school.  I don't want to seem cynical, but I've heard "Oh sure, I'll be there tomorrow" from lots of Swazis and been disappointed, and there appeared no other way we could have got back to a traveled road - we saw one other vehicle (going the wrong way) on the whole length of the road out, so this was a great end to our trip.  

       It was interesting to think of looking forward to getting back to our homestead to get clean, and comfortable, and safe, and to be in control.  Just as we get set to leave, we are settling in.

Birthday, Running Buddies, and a Lost Cell Phone

Birthday: 67!

       We celebrated my 67th birthday with pizza lunch at the only restaurant in the dusty shopping town 25 km from us, with a volunteer from our group (left) and a volunteer in the newer group who was visited by her husband,  from their home in Alaska.  They were just back from seeing the game in Botswana, at Chobe. 

Both volunteers live near the town where we met them, but the visiting husband had rented a car, so they drove us back to our site, after a big grocery shopping binge - a true birthday celebration!

Running Buddies

      Last week  I started off on my customary run. A slender dark  figure raced out to join me - Bonkhe, age 12,  4th grade last year at the "poorer" school nearby.  We only teach grades 5 and 6, and Bonkhe was very proud to tell us at the end of last school year that his teacher was sure  he would be promoted to grade 5, where we would teach him.  Alas, when the new school year started in January, it turned out he had failed English, which automatically precluded promotion, but he still makes a point of greeting us at school, and around the community.

        Bonkhe kept pace with me on my run 2 weeks ago, and, on our way back, which was slightly uphill, his pace pushed me a little harder than I would have chosen had I been alone.  I do yoga stretches at the mid-point turnaround of the run; I don't know the siSwati word for that, and Bonkhe doesn't really get the point, but he imitates my triginashina (spelling?); the one-legged holding the foot by the butt stretch eludes him.

      When I started my  run earlier this week I hollered for him and he immediately came sprinting to the path, and we ran well together.  I've taken to running shirtless so as not to trash a shirt; they already know I'm odd, so going around shirtless can't be that much of a shock by now.  1/2 way through the run Bonkhe pulled off his shirt, but he was careful to put it back on when he returned to his homestead.

      Oh, perhaps I should mention, the first time Bonke ran with me, he ran barefoot.  I run in expensive REI "trail running" shoes, more like low cut boots, now a little bedraggled.  And I've used pliers to pull an acacia thorn out of those boots, that came all the way through to my foot.  This week when Bonkhe ran out to join me he was running in crocs, more like bedroom slippers.  Seemed to work just fine for him.

Here he is with other kids from the surrounding homesteads. 

CONDOM PRACTICE AT THE HIGH SCHOOL

             Last week, with the help of one of the smart young science teachers at our high school,  we  arranged to give condom use demonstrations to each of the science classes - she thought it important to get to the students before they went on break.  Two girls have dropped out in the past 2 weeks because of pregnancy - pregnant girls are not allowed to attend school.   We reached all 420 students at the high school, giving all the boys a chance to put male condom on model penises (slightly larger than life size (at least, I think so!)), and the girls a chance to do that one, and the same for a female condom on our model of female genitalia.

           It is well we now have 2 weeks of break;  you relate differently to a student after you explain to him or her that after climax they must firmly grasp the base of the penis while it is still stiff, holding onto the condom, now full, before sliding it out of the vagina, to be sure the condom does not slip off.    We got some questions that seemed to have been searching for an answer for a long time, and some students were very serious; others were silly, the way teenagers working with plastic penises and vulvas are bound to be.

       Here are our models in our dish rack after we cleaned them up after last use.

THE PURLOINED CELL PHONE

         We each teach a section of Form 4 (junior) English language once a week at the local high school, and we assigned them homework of taking a book out of the school library and reading it and writing a report over break.  Here they are thronging the library. 

PIC

Unfortunately I did not keep watch over my backpack and my cell phone, with 2 years' worth of phone numbers, has disappeared.  This is a common occurrence, so, as instructed, a day later I filed a police report in our local shopping town, 15 miles away.

     The police were very responsive and helpful, and quickly took a statement, but whoever trains the Royal Swazi Police has been reading too many British detective novels;  I don't recall saying, as part of my statement "On that fateful day" (seriously) nor would my description of what I wrote on the board in my Form 4 section's room ("I lost my cell phone in the library - there's a reward!") have been phrased that I "immediately raised an alarm."

      As instructed we went from the police station to the phone company office nearby, who sent us back to the police station for another paper, which we obtained after paying about $US 1 at the nearby Department of Revenue office and taking that receipt back to the police, who now said we needed to go to Manzini, to the main phone company office, to initiate tracing the phone.  When we got there 2 days later the phone company said we needed another kind of paper from the police back at the station where we'd filed the original report. We tried the Manzini police, who also said to go back to our shopping town for that paper and bring it back to the Manzini phone company.  But we're giving up on that official process; the phone company estimates it takes months to trace a phone, once the paperwork is in order!  A teacher at the high school is going to call the girlfriend of another teacher, because the girlfriend works at the phone company and, with information from the police report, may be able to get the tracing done in a few days. 

Easter in Maputo

        Over Easter weekend we took the last vacation of our PC service, and our last trip out of the country until final departure.  (We are not allowed to take vacation during our last 3 months.)  We went to Maputo, capital of neighboring Mozambique, traveling 1 1/2 hours first by khumbi and then a lucky hitch-hike to the border, then 1 1/2 hours by chapa  (their khumbis, equally crowded and hot) to the bustling, sprawling, crowded city known until independence in 1974 as Lourenҫo Marques.   Fueled by offshore oil,  Mozambique had the highest GDP growth rate in the world in 2014, although its people would be quick to say the country's wealth  is not shared - inequality is an issue for our time.   A civil war from 1977 until 1992, partly fueled by neighboring Zimbabwe before that country's independence in 1980 and then by the dying South African apartheid  regime's efforts to install friendly regimes in its neighbors, tore Mozambique apart, sending refugees across the border, including up to 20,000 to neighboring Swaziland, prompting construction of the UN-sponsored refugee camp near us.  (That camp is now down to around 320, most now from Central Africa; its funding now comes through Caritas, a Roman Catholic charity, although the UN High Commissioner for Refugees participates in "governance" of the camp.)  Civil wars are bad for game animals, and the few tourists passing through MOZ go to nearby Kruger in South Africa and occasionally even Swaziland, to see wildlife, but the MOZ coastline with endless white sand beaches on the Indian Ocean and snorkeling are a big draw.

       Most PCVs in SZ get to MOZ, especially over New Years, but they generally by-pass Maputo on their way to the splendid beaches 6 hours drive north, replete with the required complement of bars and other amenities for young people.   Although I like beaches well enough, 6 hours for nothing but beach and bars is a little much, so we stayed in Maputo for 3 nights, doing some shopping, sightseeing, and luxuriating in hot showers (I took 3 one day), ensuite flush potties, and unusual food that we didn't have to prepare ourselves.

        Our guide books to MOZ, the PC, and comments from friends, had all warned us of rampant crime in MOZ, with a small frail elderly white couple presenting an especially inviting target.  The father of one of our students was shot over Christmas, and a PC couple were held up at gunpoint at a beach resort over New Years by a man wearing a police uniform.  We left at home everything we could not easily replace, traveling very light.  We were, however, never  threatened in the least, and found the people uniformly helpful, pleasant and welcoming.  Portuguese is their official language, but we could fake it a little with our few words of Spanish; many of the people we encountered had a little English, and one of the dialects in southern MOZ is similar to siSwati, so we mostly managed to communicate.

         Maputo is a southern African city by a harbor, but similarities to Cape Town end there. Maputo is hard for a tourist to navigate, with rubble- and rubbish-choked sidewalks crowded with parked cars, few street signs, little visual appeal, and limited tourist amenities.   The mix of southern African, Portuguese, and Indian cooking, especially with sea-food, had great potential, and we did some fine eating, but there were also disappointments, attributable partly to language difficulties: twice I ended up with canned tuna when I thought I had ordered fresh fish!

              Our tiny boutique hotel was clean, pretty and well-located, between Karl Marx and  Vladimir Lenin Avenues, on Patrice Lumumbo Avenue.[i]   Here we are in the beautiful garden with Chiara, from Turin, Italy, who worked as a UN project manager in Lusaka, Zambia, with whom we had dinner one night.

She told us of the tough deals imposed on host countries by Chinese (Peoples Republic of China; e.g., mainland) companies extracting minerals, and the resentment of host countries

                The weather was nearly perfect, with mostly sunny days and gentle sea breezes.  We found the best fabric store in town on the 2nd pass, with help from 2 friendly Portuguese ladies,

and we caught some craft fairs.   

            One day we ended up in a vast, crowded, dark market, where we were so out-of-place I heard a woman mutter the Mozambiҫan derivative of umlungu, siSwati for "white people"[ii],  as we walked past; she had a good laugh when I responded in my fractured siSwati.

That would have been a good place to purchase a wide variety of herbal remedies and animal body parts, but we passed.  There were no taxis or tuk-tuks in sight when we exited and somehow we ended up going in the opposite direction than we wanted on the crowded chapa we thought would get us back into the center of the city, but other passengers showed us where to get off to get a tuk-tuk back to familiar turf.

     Here is the view of the Indian Ocean from the nicest hotel we saw, where we did not stay.

     We returned home with mixed feelings, happy to be where we know the language and customs and feel safe and oriented; when we got off the khumbi at our stop, nearly everyone there knew and greeted us, by name and enthusiastically.   But we were sad to leave behind the shower, cleanliness and quiet (of our lovely little hotel), varied food, cotton sheets and towels . . . .

---

[i]           After Portugal changed governments in 1974 and the new regime abruptly withdrew from MOZ, taking all professionals and skilled workers back to Portugal, Russia stepped in to help the new government; hence the street names, which feature nearly every failed European political philosopher,  as well as many from the plentiful selection of African despots.  The Russians' heavy-handed ineptitude and rapacity were deeply resented and they were  unregretted when they, too, pulled out abruptly in 1991, with the collapse .of the Soviet Union.

[ii]         It has been much debated among PCVs whether a black volunteer, or one of Asian or Hispanic heritage can be umlungu,  but the Swazis definitively settled that in favor of inclusivity; Americans, of whatever ethnicity, are the color of money, so all PCVs are umlugu.

Nontokoso's lobola negotiation

       The 2nd stage of a Swazi "traditional" wedding (as distinct from a church or "white" wedding, or a civil wedding, which until recently would not allow polygamy[i]) took place on Saturday at our homestead, when the bride's family arrived for the symbolic delivery of her pots and plates to her new home, the groom's homestead where they now live, and where the negotiation for lobola, the bride price, occurred.  This event is steeped in tradition and expectation, so we had conferred with various friends and family members to try to understand it, but there were still surprises, and areas where practices differ, or we are still not clear.

       I think this whole process offers many helpful ideas for our readers back home, especially families with marriageable daughters; the marriage consulting service we plan to start when we return will providemuch-needed assistance, reasonable terms, and I anticipate being able to help arrange for transport of the cows.

         The bride's family had planned to arrive by 11 Saturday morning.  This is Swaziland; they arrived around 2 in a pickup truck and some cars.  Everyone jumped out and the women began dancing and singing various traditional songs.  I remain puzzled that, in this devoutly evangelical country, the songs sung at traditional ceremonies are never hymns and seem to make no mention of religion; a short prayer at a break in the negotiations was the only nod to religion I detected.  But in schools and meetings of every sort, including with government officials, the meeting begins and ends with a prayer.  And it seems frequently prayer is the only action item addressing a lot of agenda items.

        The context of this event must have arisen as the aftermath of a rape, which seems to be the way a "bride" was traditionally acquired; that was replicated at the first step back in early December,  with the "bride" being awakened by surprise before dawn and taken to the family kraal, to see there the 4-footed wealth of the family into which she was to marry.  Now the bride's family has come demanding recompense, and they are welcomed and placated by the groom's family, who must pay.

            The bride's family was shown to the nicest house on the homestead, a  rondaval (round house replicating in cinder block and tiled roof the round thatched-roof huts of an earlier day),like nearly all of the 7 sleeping huts consisting of one room[ii], where they danced and sang some more,

 and where they were shortly joined by the groom's family, who welcomed the bride's family profusely; the bride's family reciprocated.   There were also calming and, I think, welcoming speeches by various older representatives of each family, to which the other family would murmur appreciation and assent, but neither the bride nor the groom ever spoke publicly.  The many children who had come along peered through the windows.

After a while the bride's family, sitting on one side of the room, passed a 15" notched stick to the groom's family, who counted on it an opening request for 14 cows, and apparently there was a request that they be delivered soon, "because the bride's family is elderly."[iii]  Here the groom's mother and his deceased uncle's wife, the gogo (grandmother) on our homestead (on the left and middle; we don't know the woman to the right), inspect the stick.

The groom and 2 brothers left to slaughter the goat tethered outside, the traditional welcome for the bride's family. 

                A few days before this meeting I asked the bride "Suppose they don't reach agreement on the lobola,  and was assured "They must agree!"  Apparently a standoff is not an option.  I had been assured that there had been no previous discussions to lay the groundwork for the bargaining, but there must be a kind of Zillow or "Kelly Blue Book" general understanding of the right bride price.  The bride's firstborn brother, to whom the lobola would be paid, assured me she was worth more, at least an extra cow, because she "is a Dlamini," meaning having the same surname as the king's (very large) family - I estimate that more than 1/10th of the people here have that last name, some living very well off the king's largesse, but many, like the bride, wholly destitute.

             The groom's family showed the bride's aunt, chief spokesperson for the bride's family, a white calf tethered in the field behind the homestead; this is the "dry the tears" cow paid immediately to the bride's mother (who in this case is long dead, hence, the Aunt's role, but despite the absence of the bride's mother the "dry the tears" gift cow must still be paid) to assuage her loss.

                The break seem to have provided a chance to resolve issues, although I did not see a sidebar between the families' negotiators.  When the families again gathered in the rondaval they quickly reached agreement at the original offer of 14 cows;  the groom privately assured me it was too much, but that his wife was excited.[iv]  We have closely questioned several of the most modern, with-it Swazi women we know, and all agree they are proud their husbands paid (or agreed to pay) cows for them; we know of only 1 Swazi woman for whom no lobola was required - one of the PC instructors, and one of the more able people we know here.

                  The bride is what we call a "double orphan"[v], so the lobola goes to her oldest brother (except the "dry the tears" cow, which in this case will go to the aunt), but he kept entirely in the background.  He seemed pleased.  He should be; it appears the bride and her husband are to spend the next decade or more working to pay him the lobola. I have been unable to learn of any financial support he has ever provided to his little sister.

         Katherine and I approximated traditional dress, here with the bride, of whom we are very fond.

        Because the proceedings had started late, the goat was quartered and appropriate pieces were provided to the bride's family, who took them home to be cooked.  Ordinarily the families would have shared them together.  This lobola negotiation is a step in blending the two families.  Payment of lobola, which can take decades, finally consummates the joining of the families.  Apparently the bride's family keeps asking for the lobola until it is finally paid; that certainly seemed to be the plan of our bride's firstborn brother.  The groom in this case is perennially short of money, so I would think these requests could become an irritant.  The bride's oldest brother told me he would not be welcome at this homestead until the lobola was paid, so I am not sure of the form of his dunning requests, but this is a small country (geographically the size of New Jersey, but with only around 1.3 million people (no one really knows!), around 1/8th the population of NJ), so maybe they encounter each other.

        As things were winding down Katherine sensed from many a latent desire to inspect our family photographs, which they were able to persuade her to satisfy.

           We have now shared some important family events with our homestead: several funeral services; a celebration of the recovery to health last year of the diabetic grandmother; the first and 2nd stage of this traditional wedding; and, when we first came, the celebration of the final payment of lobola in a Christian wedding by the groom, now a grandfather in his 40s, after at least 20 years of marriage.  We see many of the same people of this very large extended family come to the homestead for these celebrations and, during our stay here, their children have moved forward in school, the health of some has changed (only rarely for the better) and we've all aged, some.

---

[i]      A little more background on the participants and what we understand of the different forms of wedding is in our December 9, 2014 blog post.  The wife of the first-born son on our homestead explained to me that a recent change in the law now allowed polygamy even in "white" and civil weddings, supposedly to eliminate foreign white influences; she was furious, and felt her status had been unfairly changed.

[ii]     There is also a separate hut for cooking; they cook over a very smoky open fire.  It is just  to the windward of the clothes line, so our pillow cases have an aroma of burning acacia after they are freshly washed.  The homestead also has 2 "little houses" (latrines), one I assume built especially to meet PC standards when volunteers first moved here - e.g., a door that latches from the inside.

[iii]     There appear to be some variation in customs for negotiating lobola, but the stick appears ubiquitous. 

[iv]    In the world I have now left behind creditors' committee counsel would have come back with a much tougher demand and postured and threatened.  That "would not be Swazi."  For better or worse.  When the former king revoked the parliamentary monarchy the British left this country with and imposed a "more Swazi" absolute monarchy, there was little opposition - not Swazi.

[v]    Neither parent is alive.  Although the term "single orphan" (only one parent) may seem oxymoronic, the concept is useful because children for whom one parent is dead do far worse than those with both parents, in measurements of mortality, health, education, and future income and employment.  "OVC's" ("orphans (including "single" orphans) or vulnerable children") is a legally defined status with important consequences, foremost of which is government payment of school fees.  The High School here recently devoted a full day to screening putative OVCs, requiring each  to appear before the entire School Committee with her documents (death certificate, OVC certificate) and a guardian to prove up their status; around 8 of the community's Rural Health Motivators (women paid a tiny monthly stipend to visit each homestead to help with routine health issues - uneducated but well-trained and determined women who take their task extremely seriously - oen of the better health initiatives here), were present to corroborate or perhaps contest the claims of OVC status.

Ongoing Battles

               We may have mentioned that we live in a barnyard.  This has been a true learning experience for us city people. There are numerous chickens living all around us; 5 dogs, who are feared by all the neighbors; an occasional goat; and a herd of cattle which sometimes wanders by our house.  Needless to say, we have to watch where we step.  It is the chickens and roosters though whom we dislike the most.  The rosters like to crow under our window kusenombonombo (very early in the morning), and they are ruthless in pursuit of the hens.  And the chickens especially like our front porch as a potty stop.  We have been told that once a chicken chooses a spot, they can't be deterred.  For those of you unenlightened, there is nothing more disconcerting then exiting our front door first thing in the morning and finding a big, smelly wet pile where the door swings or where one must step. Or finding a similar deposit on a low front window sill.

                Mark has been diligently trying to introduce behavior change to our chickens.  (After all, we were sent to Swaziland to effect behavior change.) One day he came back from a run with a large acacia branch which he cut up and placed just by our front door, putting numerous rips in his shorts and fingers.  Acacias have lethal thorns.

 It worked for awhile, but the chickens just moved their deposits over some to the window sill.  Not to be outdone, Mark placed numerous pieces of barbed wire on the sill, plus some stones and metal debris, but so far the chickens are winning. 

Mark spends a lot of time washing our porch, muttering and swearing softly under his breath in a variety of languages.

                He did have one success.  In the 2 springs we have lived here,  the sparrows wanted to nest above our doorway.  They would swoop out on us leaving the house, making lots of noise and mess.  Mark plugged up all the places the birds could nest with rocks and plastic  bags.

                So score one for Mark and one for the chickens!

                The last battle, which we will not win, is with the snakes.  They are very numerous this fall and very scary.  I have been warned not to go outside to pee at night so without chagrin, I use a bucket.  Lately, all the houses on our homestead have had snakes inside, including ours.  A week or so ago we had a big thunderstorm.  Both of us went in and out of the house to view the rain.  Because of the storm, I bathed inside.  So there I am standing bare naked, and see a snake (appx 18 inches) slithering around on the floor into the bedroom.  Talk about being caught with your pants down.  Mark valiantly whacked away at our snake with his croc, swept it wriggling into the dust pan and took it outside and finished it off with our hammer.  It was pretty unnerving.  The photo below shows a snake killed beside our pit latrine recently; from the beautiful markings it looks like a picture the PC has provided us showing a puff adder - quite deadly.[i] 

No place is safe!

---

[i]   Last week the custodian at the High School across the road from our homestead showed us a small snake he'd killed.  We asked him, was it deadly?  He assured us, no, it was not deadly.  It would not kill you in 5 minutes.  It would take 30 minutes, he said.

A visit with friends from home

    Some of our closest friends from Denver came to visit us this past weekend.  We went with them to a beautiful farm B&B near us, where they recovered from jet lag and we all walked the beautiful grounds. 

Saturday was Katherine's 65th birthday, and we celebrated with a cake our friends had made and brought,

and cards and messages from many of Katherine's friends.  Many, many thanks to those who sent the messages; they were thoughtful and clever, and deeply appreciated.

   A local Swazi festival celebrating the Marula harvest leading to each homestead's production of a sweet home-brew was happening nearby, and our friends wanted to see it; it was kind of like the county fair at the end of the summer.  We encountered other PC volunteers, all dressed in traditional costume,s one carrying a placard urging condom use, as the effects of the home-brew are thought sometimes to result in many, ah, trysts. 

     We spent a night at a nearby game park for some more bird-watching and game viewing.

Monday we went by our hut

 and then to a primary school where we teach, where we introduced our friends to some of the children who are most important to us.  They were very interested in why Fred looks Chinese, but is from America.

      At the High School we showed our friends the library to which they had donated.   (Books For Africa note:  we held our breath as the tally came in a few weeks ago after the deadline for receipt of each school's contribution to transportation to Swaziland of their new library from Books For Africa, fearing this country's deteriorating financial and commercial situation, coupled with the drought in the low-veldt farming region where we are located, would jeopardize receipt of a critical mass of funding, but every single  school came through with their contribution on time!  Libraries are really, really important, and communities have great pride in establishing new ones.  I'd also say, however, that keeping those libraries open as the months turn into years, requires some prodding; that's what PC volunteers do.)

      This is our last visit from friends from back in The Real World.  We are really touched they would take the time to come see us.  It was very, very nice to relax and just be ourselves with our close friends.  A little hard to see them go, but fortunately we had a tutoring class that afternoon with our High School Refugees, which is always a kick for us, followed by a few weeks of classes in the primary schools on the male and female parts of the reproductive system - from what we can tell for many of these kids this is the only detailed, organized instruction they ever receive in this area from an adult.