The People I’ve Met and the Things I’ve Done

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So, as I suspected, I eventually fell off the whole blogging bandwagon. This was not only due to the time getting away from me, but also caused by a combination of internet outages and constantly feeling that anything I’d write would more or less “Well, I went to work again today.” Most of the time since my last post has been just that…working. One of the things this experience has taught me is that office jobs are office jobs, no matter where you are. I realize I have not provided much information on my work since I’ve been here, so I’ll start with that!

As previous posts have mentioned, my internship has been with the Mbabane City Council, attached to the office of the CEO (City Manager). My work here has consisted primarily of 4 projects: 1) Revision of the city’s Economic Development Strategy, 2) Revision of the city’s service delivery standards, 3) Formalizing the city’s youth and young professional organization, The Spearheaders, and 4) Managing the construction of a community health and social center. The 4th project I mentioned, the health center, is the primary purpose of my internship. The project is funded by a Sister Cities International Africa Urban Poverty Alleviation Program (AUPAP) grant, with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as the principal donor. The project is jointly managed by the City of Mbabane and Fort Worth Sister Cities International (Fort Worth and Mbabane have been sister cities since 2004). I worked as a Program Manager at Fort Worth Sister Cities from 2007-2010, and during that time I got my first exposure to this project. It has been a fascinating experience seeing this project from the Swazi side, and actually getting to work on the ground as the site is developed and the building constructed. The center is being constructed in an informal settlement zone on the outskirts of Mbabane with a population of about 1500 people, and will provide HIV/AIDS testing and counseling, immunizations, and distribution of food to the community’s orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs).

One of the many orphaned and vulnerable children that will benefit from the health center

It's all beginning to come together

The key to doing anything well is pretending that you know what you're doing

One of the more challenging aspects of this project has been the development and refinement of performance measures and indicators – essentially, things that will let us know if the center is achieving the results we hoped it would. The Gates Foundation has very strenuous monitoring and evaluation requirements for their projects, so we’ve had to pay particularly close attention to this aspect of the project. Much of it has involved skimming through records to track down baseline data on the community, and trying to determine what the best indicator is for each impact we are trying to measure. Although I have taken a course in my graduate program called “Evaluation,” actually designing these tools can be quite complicated, since you’re not only thinking about what you will measure, but how the data will be collected, who will collect it, and how will it be logged and compiled into a format that is useful to the eventual reader.

Working with the Spearheaders has also been a big job. The Spearheaders are a group of high school and college students, and young professionals, who are all alumni of Fort Worth Sister Cities’ International Leadership Academy, having participated between 2005 and 2011. Since the city has sponsored their participation in this program, they are interested in the group bringing the skills they’ve developed back and use them to the benefit of their communities. The group was started in 2006, but so far has only done piecemeal program planning. My task has been to formalize their group constitution, guide them through a vision and mission process, and help them develop an annual program planning process. Facilitating the vision and mission process has actually been one of the hardest part of my experience. We have spent a lot of time understanding these concepts in school, but there is such a huge difference between understanding the ideas in an academic sense and actually being able to walk a group through creating those things for their organization. It has really been one of those processes where I have been learning through failure.

The Spearheaders at my first Vision, Mission, and Strategy Workshop

Since it has been a while since my last blog entry, here’s a quick rundown of the people I’ve met and the things I’ve done:

- Met a guy named Josh who is a 39 year old Peace Corps volunteer who used to work as a production assistant in Hollywood. The last film he worked on was Thor, and he was telling me about spending entire nights blowing up cars in LA.

- Joined the Mbabane city government team on Sibebe Survivor, a local 15K walk/run up the world’s 2nd largest granite monolith.

Sibebe Survivor: Walking thru the tall grass

Our Sibebe Survivor Team!

- Rode on the kombi to work next to a live rooster (yes, a male chicken)

- My secretary locked me in my own office accidentally and left for her lunch break

- Met a British South African girl named Sam and her Israeli boyfriend/life-partner/soul-mate Anton. Sam was one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, as well as the first time I’ve found myself so attracted to someone with dreadlocks. She was just a beautiful person all around. She and Anton has spent time living in India, and were now headed to Mozambique looking for work

- Met a group of Canadians from BC here for 2 weeks working with SOS Children’s Villages. They were some of the loudest, most alcohol-filled people I’ve ever met. They embodied most of the typical American stereotypes. Maybe I’ll stop telling people I’m from Canada…

- Monkeys broke into my part of the hostel and ate an entire box of 15 bananas (of which I’d only eaten 1) and a whole loaf of bread (of which I’d only eaten 1 slice), and busted a good bottle of wine.

- The day after I was robbed by monkeys, some backpackers stole more of my food. Stupid hobo backpackers…

Most recently, I spent some time with my good friend Ngwane and his family. He has two incredibly adorable kids, and I went with them to eat traditional food (lots of meat!) and visit the national museum and the King Sobhuza Memorial Park. The national museum was a great way to learn about Swazi history and culture, and having Ngwane explain many of the exhibits to me gave me an even deeper perspective on the very diverse and nuanced culture of Swaziland. The King Sobhuza Memorial Park is dedicated to the late king, Sobhuza II, who became King in 1899, led the nation to independence from Great Britain in the 1960s, and still hold the record for the world’s longest serving monarch (Queen Elizabeth is approaching his record # of years). Apparently he was a very modest, accessible King who worked hard to build up the Swazi economy and regain Swaziland’s lost lands.

I'm a big fan of this little guy!

Me and the boys in front of one of the late King Sobhuza II's cars

The late King Sobhuza II

Ngwane and his family have graciously offered to host me at their home for my last week here. I’m really excited about getting an authentic Swazi experience before I leave!

My most recent experience was a trip to Jo’berg. It was a quick trip, where I went up on a Sunday and came back on a Tuesday. It was sort of a spur of the moment, fly by the seat of my pants sort of trip, and I actually would advise more planning ahead of time to anyone else who would do this. My first mistake was traveling alone. I arrived at the Mbabane bus station at 10am, but since the international kombis don’t leave until they fill up, I sat there until 12:30pm before we finally left. After a 5 hour drive, including a 1 hour stop at the South African border crossing, I finally arrived at Park Station in the middle of downtown Jo’berg. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure where to go once I arrived, and the sun was going down, which added to my anxiety. A guy who appeared to be a staff person at the bus station offered to help me find an ATM and find my kombi. I was very hesitant at first, but I felt I was in a bind and accepted his help. After searching for another 30 minutes for my next kombi, we finally found it, but as I was walking toward it, the guy who was helping me got in my face and demanded I pay him R300 (about $50) immediately. I was tempted to protest and refuse, but I didn’t know if the guy was armed, and I didn’t want him making a scene and possibly getting other people involved, so I paid him and got on the kombi. Unfortunately, it was the wrong kombi, and I was let out in a poorly lit parking lot after the sun had gone down. The driver assured me that the street I was looking for was close by, but it didn’t take me long to figure out he had no idea what he was talking about. I turned down another street and saw a huge group of rowdy men walking my direction, so I turned back and walked quickly down another street and ducked into a hotel, where I was able to hail a taxi to take me to my hostel for the night. I was tired and a bit shaken once I arrived, but the place was comfortable and the food was good, and it didn’t take long for me to get my nerve back.

The place, called Brown Sugar Backpackers, is actually an old South African mafia hideout designed like a castle. It was abandoned in the 1970s and bought by the backpackers, and they’ve done some pretty cool stuff with it!

The Old Mafia Boss' Castle

The Brown Sugar Common room

View from atop Brown Sugar Backpackers

The next day, I was determined to see as much of Jo’berg as I could in a single day. On the way to my next destination I passed:

The 2010 World Cup Stadium

I decided to spend my day in Soweto, arguably the most famous township in South Africa. Soweto is  an abbreviation for South Western Townships, and has an estimated population between 3.5 and 5 million inhabitants, almost all black South Africans. The townships are home to nearly 40% of the entire population of Jo’berg, and are located along one of South Africa’s most famous gold mining belts. Soweto is most famous for its residents’ vocal resistance to the Apartheid policies of the white South African government during the mid-to-late 20th Century, culminating in the the 1976 Soweto uprisings, which received international attention. Some of South Africa’s most prominent civil rights and anti-Apartheid leaders also lived here, including Bishop Desmond Tutu and former South African President Nelson Mandela.

I stayed at Soweto’s only backpackers hostel, Lebo’s Backpackers. Lebo’s is owned and run by a guy named Lebo, who actually grew up in Soweto. His backpackers is the first and only black-owned backpackers in all of South Africa, and he and his hostel have won numerous awards for local entrepreneurship and innovation. This has made him a bit of a hometown hero, and which has made his enterprise massively successful. He used to be a street vendor selling arts and crafts, and it took him 3 years to sell enough to open up the backpackers hostel. I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Jo’berg!

Lebo's outdoor lounge area

Lebo's Bar and Picnic Area

One of the coolest things Lebo’s does is bicycle tours of Soweto. We went out for 2 hours and got to see much of the township and the informal settlements (hostels) surrounding the town. The hostels were created by migrant workers coming in from other parts of South Africa to work in the gold mines, and have a history of being very dangerous places. In fact, instigated and supplied by weapons provided by the police, the hostels staged attacks on the townships during the 1970s and 80s. At the time, the ruling white South Africans believed that by keeping black South Africans fighting among themselves, they would not be able to organize into a force that could challenge their authority over the country. However, it was explained that residents of Soweto and anti-Apartheid leaders were inspired by the events of the American civil rights movement in the 60s, and used a lot of the same strategies to galvanize the public and organize rally the local population. Now the hostels are relatively safe, and we got to travel through, meet locals, and try local the local “Jo’berg beer” which was first brewed by the hostel residents during a time when they were banned from drinking alcohol. We all went inside of a small sheet-metal shed with benches positioned around the walls – their informal bar. Then our guide brought in a large gourd filled with beer, and told us to drink some and pass it on to the next person. The beer is actually made from maize (corn), and while I don’t think I’d order it in a bar, it actually wasn’t bad! Our guide then demonstrated the typical dancing and singing done by the locals during celebrations.

Our guide taking the first sips of the Jo'berg Beer

Our bicycle tour also took us past several other important landmarks in Soweto, including the Hector Pieterson Museum and Nelson Mandela’s former home. Hector Pieterson was a 12 year old boy killed by police during the 1976 Soweto uprising. The event was initially meant to be a peaceful protest against a policy requiring Afrikaans, the language spoken by Dutch South Africans and the ruling white government, be taught in all schools nationwide. Black South Africans felt they were being forced to learn and speak the language of their oppressors, and staged a protest in opposition of the policy. The march encountered a nervous white police force who eventually opened fire on the crowd and killed many marchers, including Hector. His death galvanized the Black African community in Soweto and across South Africa, and violent protests erupted. The picture of his lifeless body being carried away from the scene is the most famous photograph from the event.

Antoinette Sithole (his sister) and Mbuyisa Makhubo (another marcher) carrying 12-year-old Hector Pieterson moments after he was shot by South African police during a peaceful student demonstration in Soweto, South Africa

I also visited Nelson Mandela’s former home, and learned about the life and history of the famous South African leader. His home in Soweto was actually firebombed by police while he was still in prison at Robben Island prison. The building was left in that condition as a memorial until 2009, when it was renovated to its original state as it was during the various periods that Mandela lived there. The house is now filled with many of his personal effects and awards, and is a popular museum and tourist attraction.

The outside of Nelson Mandela's house

So despite a few rough points early on, my trip to Jo’berg was actually really great, and I’m thankful I went. I have 2 weeks left in Swaziland, and I hope to make the most of them. Since I will be home hosted during my final week here, I imagine I’ll have tons of great stories from that experience. If you’ve kept up with my blog through all this time and my many delays, I would like to thank you. I would also like to thank everyone for the kind thoughts and words you’ve posted on my blog so far. It means a lot that so many people have taken interest in what I’m doing here, and have been wishing me well. I look forward to sharing more about my experiences here with all of you when I get back.

Cheers.

Meeting Little Banele

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Yesterday, I finally got to meet a little girl I had been hearing about for several years. Her name is Banele, and she is a 10 year old primary school student. A group of college students and young professionals from Fort Worth, TX met her in 2007 (I think) while they were distributing donated clothing in an impoverished part of Mbabane. At the time, I was just beginning my job as a Program Manager at Fort Worth Sister Cities International.

Little Banele

In talking to her mother, whom they suspected was HIV positive, they learned that even though Banele (6 at the time) was of school age, she was unable to attend school because her mother could not pay the school fees. She told them the fees were something like $100, which to a group of Americans was a mind-bogglingly small amount to keep this little girl from going to school. So, the group scrounged up the cash so that she could pay for her school uniform and school fees, and within a few months, we had beautiful pictures of a smiling, healthy looking Banele at some of her first days at school.

Now, I believe Fort Worth Sister Cities has succeeded with Banele in ways that so many organizations and individuals have failed in providing international assistance. Visiting a developing country, it is incredibly tempting to give whatever you can spare to people in poverty, especially children, who clearly need the help. Westerners commonly travel to places like this, and give children and families money to pay for food, school, etc. NGOs and non-profits will spend months or years working in impovershed communities. The problem comes with the fact that at some point, they always leave. These people are very used to having Westerners (aka European and American white people) visit their communities, give out candy or money or clothes or water or food, only to never return again.

In many cases, these incredibly kind gestures, while given with the best intentions, can actually cause more harm than good. Imagine, for example, if Banele’s first year of school had been paid for, and she had gone and made friends and loved the experience, and then was told that “Well, the people who gave you money last year are no longer here, and they only gave you enough money to attend for one year, so you can’t go back.” So now, not only would she not be in school, but she would have gone and experienced it and then had it ripped out from under her. Fort Worth Sister Cities recognized that this reality, and believed that once the initial support has been given, it must be sustained. And so, for the past 4 years, they have supported her by paying her school fees, and keeping her in school when she otherwise would not be.

Me with Banele and her older brother

Last month, we received the incredibly unfortunate news that Banele had been diagnosed with HIV. Based on her age, it is very likely she contracted it while still nursing as a baby, which is a tragedy given the fact that inexpensive medications and using baby formula could have prevented her contracting the virus. It is always so shocking and heartbreaking to hear that a beautiful child like Banele is already carrying such a heavy burden, especially when she was finally being given a chance to have a better life by going to school. Luckily, in Swaziland anti-retroviral (ARVs) medication is provided free of charge by the government, and medical care is relatively inexpensive. Little Banele still has a tough road ahead, even with access to ARVs. Her family lives in poverty, and she lives several kilometers away from her school, which she has to walk to daily. The ARVs have a lot of bad side effect, and make her a lot weaker than she would be otherwise. I pray that she be given the strength to persevere through these tough times in her very young life. Luckily, Swaziland now provides Free Primary Education (FPE) nationwide, so the funds that had been going to funding her school fees can now have the possibility to be used to help meet some of her other needs, such as food, clothing, and transportation to school.

Fort Worth Sister Cities is still providing support to Banele, and I’m sure would be happy to receive donations to help them in this cause. The great thing about any donation you make, unlike many of the advertisements you see on television to help children in far away places, is that your donations will all actually reach Banele directly.  If you feel moved to help provide a little support to this beautiful little girl, please email me at jmc7285@gmail.com and I will get you in touch with FW Sister Cities and help determine how you can best contribute to her support.

Somewhere between vacation and adjustment: Bulembu, Emlembe, and Mlilwane

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Multiple psychological studies have been conducted on international travelers, and according to these studies, long-term travelers go through four distinct stages while adjusting to their new environment:

Stage 1: The Honeymoon – This is the reason people go on vacation to exotic places. You’re excited by the newness of everything. You’re intrigued by the foreign culture your immersed in. You feel like you can handle and do anything.

Stage 2: Culture Shock – In this stage, you tend to focus on the differences between your and your host culture, but in a much more negative light. You’re often irritated, hostile to new things, and small things can feel like major catastrophes. High stress and a longing for familiarity are common at this point.

Stage 3: Gradual Adjustment – Much like the acceptance stage in the grieving process, you decide to accept your predicament and make the most of your experience. You start seeing the bright spots of your host culture, perhaps even finding some aspects better than your own. You start finding humor in the little differences, and go through a noticeable stage of deeper learning.

Stage 4: Feeling at Home – At this point, you’re not only learning and growing, but your completely comfortable. You live and work to your full potential.

At the moment, I seem to be making my way through stage 2 of this process, aka Culture Shock. I had never really given the phrase much though before now, thinking of myself as an open-minded, flexible person who isn’t prone to homesickness. While it hasn’t been homesickness so much that I’ve felt, it has definitely been a bit of agitation, frustration, and stress. It’s hard to describe to someone who’s not in the midst of it, but I’ll do my best to explain:

Imagine yourself in an entirely new setting: new culture, new place, new food, new language, etc. You’re completely out of your element. None of the foods in the restaurants or grocery stores are American brands. You don’t have a car, and your only way around is very cramped public transportation. At first its exciting and you’re eager to try new things. However, the vacation slowly fades, and the realization you’re sticking around for a while sets in. You begin to get frustrated with always being pinned against the window on the kombis (mini-bus) on the way to work. You hate the way that people will push you out of the way and take your seat on the bus while you’re having to stop and ask the driver if they are stopping at your stop because you can’t read the signs on the kombi of where its going. You get angry and frustrated at a consistently poor internet connection that makes Skype calls sound robotic and broken, and often leaves you unable to communicate with those back home. You get sick of boredom because there’s often nothing to do in the evenings, and stressed because your job is harder than you expected it to be.

I’m not sharing these things to complain, but to provide a picture of how it can feel. There are definitely ups and downs, and I’ve had more good days over the past week than bad. But it can be a struggle, especially in a country where you don’t know the language most people speak, and where nothing you eat, even if you make it yourself with store bought ingredients, ever really tastes like home.

But enough about that; On to the fun! Last weekend, I visited the Swazi town of Bulembu. Located above the Komati Valley in Swaziland’s Highveld (highland desert), Bulembu is named after the siSwati word for a spider’s web, and between 1939 and 2001, Bulembu was operated as an asbestos mine. After the mine suffered heavy losses in the 1980s and went bankrupt in 1991, the residents abandoned the town, turning it into a literal ghost town. In 2006, the entire town was sold to a Canadian christian organization, Bulembu Ministries Swaziland. The group has the goal of rebuilding the town with self-sustainable enterprise, and have populated the town with nearly 2000 children that have been orphaned by HIV, whom the organization cares for.

It was very strange driving through the town, seeing children running around a midst abandon buildings and a hillside dotted with colorfully painted, square houses. Many of the abandoned houses were very large, and even had two car garages. If they were refurbished, they’d probably be some of the nicest houses I’ve seen in Swaziland. The town even has an abandoned cable car that weaves through the mountains. Originally used to haul asbestos from Bulembu to South Africa, we all agreed that it would be a fantastic ride and tourist attraction if it were refurbished.

The reason I went to Bulembu was actually because I was joining the Swaziland Natural Historical Society on a day hike through the eastern uKhahlamba (Drakensberg) mountain range, located on Swaziland’s northwestern border with South Africa. Our destination was an area around Emlembe mountain, the tallest mountain in Swaziland (6,109ft). The green rocks in the region are world famous because they are some of the oldest in the world, and gave scientists one of their first glimpses into an earth before life existed. The green color of the rocks is caused by the fact that they do not contain any organic material (remnants of plants and animals), which means they were created before the first plants began to appear on the planet. Pretty cool, huh?

Check out some of the pictures from the trip below:

The uKhahlamba Mountain Range

Close to the summit

The group walking across the mountain ridge

A lonely desert tree...

This weekend, I met 2 medical school students from the UK who are doing hospital internships in a small town in eastern Swaziland near the Mozambique border. The invited me to join them for horseback riding and hiking in Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary. It is Swaziland’s oldest protected area, owned and managed by a non-profit trust. It serves as a headquarters for the Big Game Parks including Mlilwane’s sister reserves Hlane Royal National Park and Mkhaya Game Reserve. The Sanctuary covers 4,560 hectares in the Ezulwini Valley or “Valley of Heaven”. Formerly a farming and tin mining area, the area has been rehabilitated and is now Swaziland’s most frequently visited reserve. Mlilwane means Little Fire, a reference to the many fires started by lightning strikes on Mlilwane Hill. (Interesting fact: Swaziland has the most people struck by lightning per capita than any country in the world).

It was great making new friends and going on my first horseback ride! We also got to see hippos and crocodiles, which I hadn’t seen yet. Here’s some of the top pictures from the weekend:

Most of these make sense, but catapults??

Did you know Hippos are related to dolphins and whales?

They look cute, but they are incredibly dangerous...

Me and my horse, Skye. Skye wasn't nearly as thrilled as I was, nor as nervous...

A HUGE Crocodile

Me and my new friends from the UK, Sheila and Lauren

The sun setting over the mountains!

The Ezulwini Valley’s on Fire

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Today it was literally on fire. Most Swazis are farmers, and the most prevalent technique is slash and burn farming. Since it is winter time, farmers are clearing their fields by literally catching them on fire. On my way home today I watched the faint orange glow of at least a dozen fires reflecting off the thick cloud of smoke hanging over Ezulwini. I’m living in the Ezulwini Valley, which is the fairly well-to-do, touristy area outside of Mbabane. Basically, if Swaziland had a Disneyland, it would be here. It’s great because it is less developed and more open than Mbabane proper (there are monkeys out here), but the downside is that the monkey’s try to get in and steal your food, and that my only way to work is the kombis (pronounced “koombies”).

Kombis are Swaziland’s most prevalent form of public transportation, and they aren’t exactly public. From what I can tell, they appear to be a highly unregulated group of privately owned 16-passenger taxis.

Hi. I'm an unmarked van AND your ride to work!

The fare is usually about 6.8 emalangeni (about $1US) for a one way trip. To catch a kombi going into town, you can go to one of the unmarked brick bus stops, one of the many random signs along the road that say “Bus Stop,” or just walk along the road and just wait for one to come by. There is no posted schedule, nor an unwritten schedule that the kombi drivers adhere to, so your best bet is to stand on the side of the road and wait for the right one to come by. Some of them have their destinations glued to the front and back of their kombis in store bought decal letters, but some are just large, unmarked vans that you hope are going where you’re headed. Getting into Mbabane for work is fairly easy. It’s getting home at the end of the day that is slightly more hectic. In the city center, there is essentially a giant parking lot filled with big buses and tons and tons of kombis.

                                                       Find Kombi at Own Risk

Since my last post, I have done quite a few exciting things. Last Thursday night, I joined Jay, Nancy, and other members of the Fort Worth group and the Swazi Spearheaders at the city theater for a community poetry slam. I’m not a huge fan of poetry, but I have to say, it was pretty cool. The MCs could have been stand-up comedians, and the poets were incredibly talented. One young woman read a poem she wrote titled I’m Just a Swazi Sister which was very similar in style and theme to Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou. Several did hip hop style poems, followed by shamelessly promoting their upcoming albums. It got me thinking how interesting it is that African-American pop culture is having such a visible impact on African pop culture, especially when African-American pop culture is driven in large part by its traditional African roots. The hip-hop music in restaurants and on the kombis, the style of dress of youth on in the city, and even the communication styles reflect these influences. Sure, it’s probably in many ways a lot more MTV and Hollywood than the average African-American, but I just find the trend culturally fascinating.

On Friday we visited the Swazi Cultural Village and Mantenga Falls. The Cultural Village aims to recreate the traditional tribal life of the Swazi people, and provides a recreation of a Swazi village for guests to tour.

Swazi Huts

The guide walked us through the village, first showing us the daughters huts, then the sons huts, and the father’s huts, and then the huts for each of the wives (Polygamy is a traditional Swazi practice), and lastly the hut of the grandmother (the father’s mother). He also showed us a walled-in area equivalent to the modern “man cave” where the father would share his wisdom with his sons and teach them how to be men, and women were forbidden to ever enter, except to place food at the entrance. It was explained that in their culture, women were always subservient to the men, and were responsible for preparation of the food and taking care of the children. Also that the average age of marriage for women was typically 18, while the average age for men was closer to 35-40. This age difference was because in order to marry, a man had to pay a bride price of 17 cattle (the price was apparently negotiable if the woman was not a virgin), and it took a while to accumulate that much wealth. It all seems pretty unfathomable to Americans, given out emphasis on the individual and individual rights and freedoms, but in the Swazis’ defense, they definitely place a lot more emphasis on family. We also got to see a series of traditional Swazi dances.

Traditional Swazi Dancing

On Saturday we visited the Hlane National Game Reserve. Since pictures will do so much more justice than my words ever could, here’s some shots of some epic wildlife:

Baby Rhino

Mama rhino ready to charge because we got too close to the baby

Like every other cat, this one's plotting our demise...

On Sunday morning we attended a rural church in Mbabane that my good friend, Mr. Bongani Dlamini set up as a satellite of his home church. Most of the 30+ churchgoers were children, and illness and injury seemed to abound in the adults. We saw the kids eating some bread after church and were told it was probably the only meal that would have that day, Bongani gave a great sermon on maintaining hope in the light of trials and difficulties. I can’t imagine a crowd that needed it more, or left believing it more firmly.

Swazi Praise & Worship

More later. Blogging is exhausting.

Sawubona!

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I’m entirely certain that the world’s top scientists, or the funders of any R&D department anywhere, have never made the trip from Seattle, Washington to Mbabane, Swaziland; and I know this because had they done so, we would now all be the proud owners of Star Trek-style transporters. It really was a ridiculous amount of time to spend in an uncomfortable seat in a flying metal tube. My flight to JFK was on Jet Blue, which I had never flown, and I was excited about the 36 channels of live TV they advertised on their website. To those of you who are also lured by thinking that being able to do mundane things while moving at 500 miles per hour at 30,000 feet would be the coolest thing you’ve done in a while, my recommendation to you would be to make sure you book a day flight. Leaving Seattle at 9:50pm and flying through the night to New York, all I got to enjoy was 6 hours of commercials for male enhancement products, kitchen appliances designed by ninjas, and cleaning products that could burn a hole in a steel beam. Yes, late night TV is the same no matter your altitude. Who knew? SHAMWOW!

So after my 24+ hour journey, I finally made it to Swaziland! For the moment, I’m living at a backpackers hostel managed by my good friend from TCU, Courtney Loechl.

The staff is friendly, the rooms and clean and cozy, and since I’m the only person currently staying in the extended-stay wing of the lodge, I’ve got my own kitchenette and bathroom. All-in-all its a pretty sweet setup, and living here allows me to meet lots of really cool travelers, like this guy Reuben from Holland that I met tonight. He lived in Cape Town, South Africa for a bit a few years back and wanted to go back for a visit. He decided the best way to get there would be to backpack his way across Africa, so he started in Cairo two and a half months ago and just joined up with his girlfriend here before they do the last leg of the trip. How cool is that?! Not only that, but he has a white-guy fro that would give Jesse Billingham a run for his money. (Yes Jesse, that was a challenge). Unfortunately, I may not be able to stay here. My bosses in Mbabane are concerned that where I live is too far away from the city and that the bus stop is not as close as they had hoped, particularly since I will be having to walk home from the bus stop after dark. They are looking for other places for me to stay currently, so if you have my current address and was planning on sending me mail, please hold off until I get this sorted.

After getting setup at the hostel, I went to meet up with the Fort Worth delegation of students and teachers that are currently in Mbabane. For those of you not familiar with why I am here, I used to work for Fort Worth Sister Cities before starting my grad program at UW, and it is because of my past with FWSCI and the sister city relationship between Fort Worth and Mbabane that I am able to be here now. I was able to reunite with some great friends from Fort Worth and Mbabane, and was really happy to see Nancy, Jay, and Staussa, as well as Bongani and many of the Spearheaders (Swazi students who have participated in Fort Worth SCI’s annual International Leadership Academy).

The Local Scenary

Today, I was reminded why I’m here, and inspired me to make the most of this internship experience. Today, I visited 2 care points, which are more or less community centers in impoverished areas of Mbabane that provide a place for local children to go for food and education. HIV has left many of these children orphaned, and some of the children likely have the disease themselves. The term “child-headed household” is a common term in Swaziland, since the high prevalence of HIV here has left many children without parents, with the oldest child usually left to take care of the rest of the children. The first care point I visited is where our Fort Worth delegation is painting a giant mural, led by a visiting Fort Worth artist. The kids and teachers at the care point really seemed to appreciate what we were doing, and the teachers told us it was the happiest they had seen their kids in a long time. The kids were incredibly playful and completely adorable.

After lunch, a group of us traveled to a care point in another part of town to distribute toys, books, and shoes. When we arrived the teacher brought all the kids in the room and had them greet us in unison and sing us “Jesus Loves the Little Children,” which was probably the most heart-warming rendition I’d ever heard. After their song, we presented them with gift bags filled with candy and toys, and their eyes just lit up. Many of them just sort of starred at us after we handed them their gift bag, as if they had never been given anything before in their life and weren’t sure what to do next. We all spread out and played with the kids, showed them how to open their tootsie rolls, helped them put puzzles together, and tried to explain to them why they shouldn’t eat the Play-Doh we had given them. At one point I was on one end of a see-saw while about six 4 year olds were sitting on the other end giggling and trying to lift me up (I’ll try to post the picture soon). It was amazing being able to bring some happiness and joy into these kids lives, knowing the reality of the world they faced. In what was the most heartbreaking moment of the day, as we loaded up the van and began to drive back to the town, I looked back to see the kids waving and smiling at us, while behind them a lock was being put on the gate of the care-point, closing it for the day. From that moment, that group of 20 or so 4 year olds had to fend for themselves, perhaps walking several miles back home. No one would be walking them home and making sure they got there safe. I began to wonder if I would have been able to walk home by myself at 4 years old, much less walk home to a home with no parents or parents who are sick, go without any dinner, and potentially sleep on only a few blankets on the rocky ground.

So far this is shaping up to be a life-changing experience. Later this week I’ll be doing a bunch of touristy stuff and going on a game drive. Look for another post and some pictures by the weekend!