Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Kosi Bay sojourners
December 28, 2008:
Yesterday we returned from a 4-day camping trip to South Africa’s Kosi Bay National Park, a World Heritage Site located on the beaches just south of the Mozambique border. We went with 3 other PCV friends and had a really great time spending Christmas with them and the other locals we met there. Kosi Bay is a very remote spot, so we managed to avoid the big holiday crowds that flock to the beaches this time of year. We'll put the pics in the next entry (they're both being posted at the same time anyway).
Kosi Bay National Park protects a string of big lakes that empty into the ocean, and it features huge sandy beaches cradling warm Indian Ocean waters, all surrounded by a dense “sand forest” housing hundreds of bird species, antelope, and other wildlife. We stayed just above one of the lakes at a bush camp. Swimming in these lakes isn’t advisable: they’re home to hippos, crocodiles, and Zambezi sharks. But we did plenty of swimming in the ocean, playing in the waves and floating in little coves sheltered by outlying reefs and rocks. Jamie-girl was able to run 30 minutes down the beach in bare feet, dense vegetation on one side and dazzling blue water on the other side, without anyone in sight after the first 5 minutes. The emptiness and beauty of our surroundings were stunning.
Our Lonely Planet-Southern Africa guidebook calls this park “the jewel of the KwaZulu coast… some of the most beautiful (and quietest) beaches in South Africa.”
Our hosts, the owner of the camp and his friends, were great; sea fishermen with jaw-dropping shark stories, generous personalities, and a rugged old land-cruiser truck to haul us around on the tricky sand roads of the Park. This group of South Africans basically included us in their Christmas activities, taking us to the beaches, sharing their camp kitchen, campfire, huts, and beautiful screened-in camp dining room. We made some good friends and good connections to guides who know the KwaZulu area like their backyard, and we’re definitely returning for more. It took us 3-4 hours to get there, and our total cost for the entire 4 days—rental car, groceries, lodging, everything—came to about $100 (US) per person.
I didn’t do any surfing, partly because I had no board and the nearest surf shop was about 1-1/2 hours south of the Park, and partly because I had no idea what we were going to find out there. It’s quite remote, no surfers were in the water, and around sunset the tiger sharks come out to feed—3 to 5 meter-long beasts with a dangerously curious nature. But I did get my saltwater fix by playing in shore break until I felt truly broken, and by getting enough saltwater up my nose for my sinuses to feel normal again. Ocean water temp: mid-70s. perfection. The place was hard to leave.
One of the coolest features of this place, aside from the gorgeous empty beaches, was it’s so-called “sand forest.” Imagine miles and miles of big sand dunes, covered with a multi-layered canopy tree forest and beautiful grass meadows—all this plant life growing directly on sand dunes. You could dig down and all you found was more sand, no actual brown dirt. Apparently there’s enough consistent rain and drizzle to support the forest despite the water’s rapid drainage through the sandy ground. There are lots of mangrove, fig, raffia-palm, acacia, and other trees in this forest, and some kind of fern/palm species that takes four hundred years just to get as big as a bush. All the roads winding through it are deeply-rutted sand tracks.
After parking our rental car at our host’s home in the nearest town to the Park border, we rode in the back of his old truck for about an hour over these crazy roads just to get to his bush camp. And then it was another 30 minutes’ bumpy and beautiful drive from there out to the nearest beach. By the time we got to the sand we were so far off the proverbial map that it felt like we’d time traveled. The beach was a nesting area for loggerhead and leatherback turtles, and there was a little research station built into the hill out on the point; other than that, there wasn’t a structure in sight. The shallow water was topaz blue, the sand was the color of tanned skin and fit perfectly between my toes, and the breeze was fresh and light.
Amazingly, the heat wasn’t at all oppressive, thanks to a bit of cloud cover and rain that came and went during the first few days, blocking some of the intensity of the African sun’s direct rays. It’s truly amazing what the sun can do to a person down here, and we’re getting smarter: we escaped getting burned while on the beach. We’d expected extreme humidity and heat, but we managed to get some relatively mild conditions. Our host said we’d lucked out.
For New Year’s Eve we’ll be joining some other PCVs and close friends at a backpacker’s lodge in Swaziland’s Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary. It’s supposed to be a really nice and low-key lodge with a pool and private rooms (Heidi/Xtophe and Fed/Lekha: the description of this place reminds me of that great hostel in San Jose, Costa Rica). It’s not far from home-- we’ll just stay a few days there, but I’m looking forward to it.
Then, at the end of January or the beginning of February we’re planning to take one more little trip before summer goes away. We’ll take some days and go to Durban, which is also on the KwaZulu section of South Africa’s eastern coastline—just much further south than Kosi Bay. It’s known for great surf breaks and swimming beaches in the summer (that’s now), but it’s too crowded to properly enjoy during the holiday season. So we’re waiting until school starts up again and things calm down before going. While there, we’ll get some boards and catch some much-needed waves, stay in a room near the beach with indoor plumbing (the opulence!), jog along the beach promenade like in San Diego, explore the Indian spice markets Durban is known for, and maybe even go out to eat at a restaurant.
Anybody want to come along? I’ll make you a deal: you pay for your airfare, I’ll rent you a board AND buy you dinner. I’m serious—I’ll do that. Think about it… let me know.
Happy New Year everybody. We love you and miss you all, and we miss all the great traditions of gathering and celebrating with friends and family that make this time of year so special for us.
Thanks for your thoughts and prayers, your gifts and cards, your support and encouragement.
Yesterday we returned from a 4-day camping trip to South Africa’s Kosi Bay National Park, a World Heritage Site located on the beaches just south of the Mozambique border. We went with 3 other PCV friends and had a really great time spending Christmas with them and the other locals we met there. Kosi Bay is a very remote spot, so we managed to avoid the big holiday crowds that flock to the beaches this time of year. We'll put the pics in the next entry (they're both being posted at the same time anyway).
Kosi Bay National Park protects a string of big lakes that empty into the ocean, and it features huge sandy beaches cradling warm Indian Ocean waters, all surrounded by a dense “sand forest” housing hundreds of bird species, antelope, and other wildlife. We stayed just above one of the lakes at a bush camp. Swimming in these lakes isn’t advisable: they’re home to hippos, crocodiles, and Zambezi sharks. But we did plenty of swimming in the ocean, playing in the waves and floating in little coves sheltered by outlying reefs and rocks. Jamie-girl was able to run 30 minutes down the beach in bare feet, dense vegetation on one side and dazzling blue water on the other side, without anyone in sight after the first 5 minutes. The emptiness and beauty of our surroundings were stunning.
Our Lonely Planet-Southern Africa guidebook calls this park “the jewel of the KwaZulu coast… some of the most beautiful (and quietest) beaches in South Africa.”
Our hosts, the owner of the camp and his friends, were great; sea fishermen with jaw-dropping shark stories, generous personalities, and a rugged old land-cruiser truck to haul us around on the tricky sand roads of the Park. This group of South Africans basically included us in their Christmas activities, taking us to the beaches, sharing their camp kitchen, campfire, huts, and beautiful screened-in camp dining room. We made some good friends and good connections to guides who know the KwaZulu area like their backyard, and we’re definitely returning for more. It took us 3-4 hours to get there, and our total cost for the entire 4 days—rental car, groceries, lodging, everything—came to about $100 (US) per person.
I didn’t do any surfing, partly because I had no board and the nearest surf shop was about 1-1/2 hours south of the Park, and partly because I had no idea what we were going to find out there. It’s quite remote, no surfers were in the water, and around sunset the tiger sharks come out to feed—3 to 5 meter-long beasts with a dangerously curious nature. But I did get my saltwater fix by playing in shore break until I felt truly broken, and by getting enough saltwater up my nose for my sinuses to feel normal again. Ocean water temp: mid-70s. perfection. The place was hard to leave.
One of the coolest features of this place, aside from the gorgeous empty beaches, was it’s so-called “sand forest.” Imagine miles and miles of big sand dunes, covered with a multi-layered canopy tree forest and beautiful grass meadows—all this plant life growing directly on sand dunes. You could dig down and all you found was more sand, no actual brown dirt. Apparently there’s enough consistent rain and drizzle to support the forest despite the water’s rapid drainage through the sandy ground. There are lots of mangrove, fig, raffia-palm, acacia, and other trees in this forest, and some kind of fern/palm species that takes four hundred years just to get as big as a bush. All the roads winding through it are deeply-rutted sand tracks.
After parking our rental car at our host’s home in the nearest town to the Park border, we rode in the back of his old truck for about an hour over these crazy roads just to get to his bush camp. And then it was another 30 minutes’ bumpy and beautiful drive from there out to the nearest beach. By the time we got to the sand we were so far off the proverbial map that it felt like we’d time traveled. The beach was a nesting area for loggerhead and leatherback turtles, and there was a little research station built into the hill out on the point; other than that, there wasn’t a structure in sight. The shallow water was topaz blue, the sand was the color of tanned skin and fit perfectly between my toes, and the breeze was fresh and light.
Amazingly, the heat wasn’t at all oppressive, thanks to a bit of cloud cover and rain that came and went during the first few days, blocking some of the intensity of the African sun’s direct rays. It’s truly amazing what the sun can do to a person down here, and we’re getting smarter: we escaped getting burned while on the beach. We’d expected extreme humidity and heat, but we managed to get some relatively mild conditions. Our host said we’d lucked out.
For New Year’s Eve we’ll be joining some other PCVs and close friends at a backpacker’s lodge in Swaziland’s Mlilwane Wildlife Sanctuary. It’s supposed to be a really nice and low-key lodge with a pool and private rooms (Heidi/Xtophe and Fed/Lekha: the description of this place reminds me of that great hostel in San Jose, Costa Rica). It’s not far from home-- we’ll just stay a few days there, but I’m looking forward to it.
Then, at the end of January or the beginning of February we’re planning to take one more little trip before summer goes away. We’ll take some days and go to Durban, which is also on the KwaZulu section of South Africa’s eastern coastline—just much further south than Kosi Bay. It’s known for great surf breaks and swimming beaches in the summer (that’s now), but it’s too crowded to properly enjoy during the holiday season. So we’re waiting until school starts up again and things calm down before going. While there, we’ll get some boards and catch some much-needed waves, stay in a room near the beach with indoor plumbing (the opulence!), jog along the beach promenade like in San Diego, explore the Indian spice markets Durban is known for, and maybe even go out to eat at a restaurant.
Anybody want to come along? I’ll make you a deal: you pay for your airfare, I’ll rent you a board AND buy you dinner. I’m serious—I’ll do that. Think about it… let me know.
Happy New Year everybody. We love you and miss you all, and we miss all the great traditions of gathering and celebrating with friends and family that make this time of year so special for us.
Thanks for your thoughts and prayers, your gifts and cards, your support and encouragement.
Q&A: an epidemic of confusing numbers
There is a lot of confusion and conflicting information regarding the rates of HIV infection in Swaziland, so I’ll try to clarify some things and give you the most up-to-date numbers we have. We work closely with groups that gather the authoritative figures on this stuff, including NERCHA and the in-country Baylor Clinic doctors, so I’m pretty confident about the accuracy of this info. Actually, I’m far more confident than pretty… but that’s for me and my therapist to work out. On to the Q&A.
Question: What percentage of the population in Swaziland is infected with HIV?
You’d think this would be a pretty straight-forward question and answer, but there are actually a few different ways to measure the epidemic’s scope within a given population and that’s why you sometimes see conflicting numbers. Let me define a few terms first.
First of all, there is the rate of HIV “incidents,” which counts only the number of new HIV cases, and there’s the rate of “prevalence,” which counts all existing HIV cases. We use the prevalence numbers, as they give a more complete picture of the epidemic. So all the numbers I’ll be quoting will be prevalence rates.
There are really 3 main rates measuring HIV prevalence in Swaziland’s population: the overall rate, which includes babies and grandpas and everyone in between; the 15-49 rate, which is the age group most sexually active in a population—and includes the so-called “productive population” of income-earners and consumers; and then there’s the ANC rate, which stands for “antenatal care” and looks exclusively at the HIV rate among pregnant women using health clinics during their pregnancy.
The overall rate is usually the smallest number because it includes lots of people who aren’t even sexually active—like babies and elderly. The ANC rate is always the highest number because it’s measuring a group of women (who always have higher infection rates than men) who are obviously sexually-active AND have obviously had unprotected sex (thus the pregnancy). That’s why the 15-49 year-olds rate is popular among health educators and practitioners: it includes both men and women, pregnant or not, within the largest demographic segment of sexually-active adults. So you have 3 main HIV rates (there are plenty more, believe me, but these are the big 3), all slightly different and all frequently used without explanation. So without further ado, here are the statistics-- remember these correctly and you’ll be better informed than most health workers in Swaziland.
Question: can you please confuse me even more by throwing more numbers and categories at me?
Sure. Here you go… Swaziland’s ANC rate, at 39%, is actually down from it’s peak of 42.6% in 2004. So nearly half of all pregnant women here were HIV positive 4 years ago—and this recent decrease may well be more of a “leveling off” trend than an actual long-term decline. Currently the mother-to-child transmission rate is 14%, meaning that about 14% of babies born to HIV-positive moms are becoming infected. And that’s much too high—that rate should be below 5% with proper treatment and precautions.
Still reading, huh? Okay, here’s more. A closer look at that 15-49 rate shows that among 30-35 year-olds in Swaziland the HIV infection rate is currently a staggering 43%. This reveals an important feature of the HIV epidemic here: it’s killing off an entire generation. My generation, in fact. If I was a 33-year old Swazi man instead of a 33-year old American man, I could rightly assume that close to half of my peers—certainly half of my female friends-- were infected with HIV, and that many of them would not know their status, would not seek treatment and would die within a decade.
It’s also interesting to note that female infection rates are always higher than male ones. It’s basic anatomy: they’re just more susceptible to the HIV virus. In Swaziland’s 15-49 age group, the female HIV prevalence rate is currently 31%, whereas the male rate is 20%-- a very significant difference. Among Swaziland’s overall rate, 22% of the women and 15% of the men are HIV positive.
Question: I heard that tuberculosis (TB) is a bigger killer in Swaziland than HIV/AIDS… is that true?
It is true that TB kills more people than full-blown AIDS in Swaziland. But there is an important connection between HIV infection and TB infection: they often go hand-in-hand. So in many cases it’s hard to say that a person died from either one or the other. The sad thing is, TB is curable.
That brings us to the HIV-TB co-infection rate, of which Swaziland has the highest in the world: 81%. This rate tells us the number of TB patients who are infected with the HIV virus. In Swaziland most of the people infected with HIV do not actually die of AIDS; it takes a while to develop full-blown AIDS (the CD4 count needs to drop below a certain threshold before you even officially have AIDS), and other “secondary opportunistic” diseases often kill them first. Of all these secondary opportunistic diseases to which HIV-positive people are susceptible, TB is by far the biggest killer. TB is really, really common here. So for these reasons and more, the HIV-TB co-infection rate is important.
That 81% number is the prevalence of HIV infection among newly-diagnosed TB patients. What it means to us as PCVs is, when we come across someone with TB, we can be relatively sure that they’re HIV positive and therefore need treatment immediately, or else they’ll die quite rapidly-- their immune system doesn’t stand a chance against full-blown TB. But in rural areas, that’s much easier said than done. In fact, one need not be HIV-positive to die of TB here, just weak and isolated from proper treatment.
One recent case is that of Gogo (grandma) Nkambule. We first met her on a homestead visit back in the middle of November. She walked up to us, talked with us in English for a while about her situation (70 years old and trying to care for 5 or 6 little kids with no income after their father dropped them at her house 5 years’ prior). She was complaining of a nighttime cough and occasional pain in the side of her chest. We both immediately suspected TB, of course, but she said that it wasn’t TB, that she was negative for TB, and we simply had no means of getting her to a hospital. We did not know her HIV status, but at 70 and facing food scarcity problems she was clearly vulnerable to infectious diseases, with or without HIV.
Then after one month we visited her homestead again, delivering 15kg of rice from the Red Cross, and this time she was bed-ridden, blankets and a pillow on the dirt floor of her hut, with an older daughter tending to her. She’d severely deteriorated—ankles swollen, unable to walk, coughing persistently, barely able to talk with us. She’d been to a hospital and we looked at the medications they gave her, which revealed that she’d been diagnosed with TB (for some reason, she still did not think she had it). Jamie gave her some tips to reduce the swelling in her ankles and encouraged her to take the meds faithfully. We left after about 15 minutes. Today I learned that last night, 8 days after that visit, they buried her. She probably died a few days prior to that (so, around Christmas day)—just over a month after being able to walk and talk and care for her grandkids.
So death by TB can happen quickly for those already weakened, whether by age or malnourishment or HIV. And of course our fear is that the little kids she was caring for have contracted TB (patients with full-blown TB spread it to an average of 10-15 people). They’ll now be moved to another relative’s nearby homestead, where it’s possible that TB will continue its spread through that family. This is how a TB epidemic spreads so rapidly—and add to that the over-crowded public busses and khumbis, often the only means of getting to a hospital.
Question: I heard that the life expectancy in Swaziland is like 21 years old or something… is that true?
No, thankfully it’s not that bad. But Swaziland’s life expectancy rate is indeed among the lowest (if not THE lowest—I’m not sure) in the world. Again, you have some competing numbers to contend with, so I’ll tell you what I know.
Apparently there are 2 basic measurements of life expectancy used by the World Health Organization (WHO): the basic life expectancy rate and the healthy life expectancy rate. I suppose the latter rate is looking at how long the average person lives in relatively good health—so maybe terminally ill people are not factored into this number… I don’t know. Look it up and let me know—it’s a new term to me. Anyway, these numbers are estimating the average age that a person born this year can expect to reach. So here they are, as currently reported by WHO:
Question: how can a baby born to an HIV-positive mother be HIV-negative?
In fact it’s quite common that HIV-positive women give birth to perfectly healthy HIV-negative babies. Most babies of these women are actually born HIV-negative. Apparently, that placenta really does an amazing job at isolating the baby and its fluids from things like infected blood. Don’t ask me how. Fetuses develop their own unique blood supply and it stays separate from mommy’s blood. But where viral transmission can—and does—occur is during the baby’s delivery and during the initial year of feeding.
Here’s the crazy thing: breast milk carries the HIV virus, but it can pass through a newborn’s digestive tract without ever infecting it—especially if mommy’s HIV is being properly managed—and will nourish the baby just as well as HIV-negative breast milk. Where mommy and baby run into trouble seems to be when mommy MIXES formula and HIV-positive breast milk. The way our Baylor Clinic pediatric doctor friends explain it, a newborn’s digestive system is still fragile and forming and can be “scraped” or injured very easily. Breast milk is perfectly designed to be processed by that fragile tract, but formula can actually create tiny little micro-tears and cuts as it passes through their gut—which normally would not bother anything; but when you add HIV-positive breast milk into that damaged little tract, the infection rate jumps up dramatically—the virus gets into the blood stream. So what doctors in the know are currently recommending for HIV-positive mothers (in addition to adhering to their treatment) is that they either breast feed exclusively OR use formula exclusively, but they should never combine the two (“mix feed”). But many Swazi women don’t know this—or do not understand it—and figure that formula feeding is best if they’re HIV-positive. But formula is expensive here, and soon the mom runs out of it and resorts to breast-feeding. That’s part of the reason Swaziland’s mother-to-child infection rate is 14% while it’s just 5% in Botswana, where they’ve managed to spread the good word about exclusivity in newborn feeding practices. Ideally, the HIV-positive mommy would breastfeed exclusively (no formula) for the first 6 months, then after that switch to formula and other baby food (no breast milk!), if possible.
Question: What percentage of the population in Swaziland is infected with HIV?
You’d think this would be a pretty straight-forward question and answer, but there are actually a few different ways to measure the epidemic’s scope within a given population and that’s why you sometimes see conflicting numbers. Let me define a few terms first.
First of all, there is the rate of HIV “incidents,” which counts only the number of new HIV cases, and there’s the rate of “prevalence,” which counts all existing HIV cases. We use the prevalence numbers, as they give a more complete picture of the epidemic. So all the numbers I’ll be quoting will be prevalence rates.
There are really 3 main rates measuring HIV prevalence in Swaziland’s population: the overall rate, which includes babies and grandpas and everyone in between; the 15-49 rate, which is the age group most sexually active in a population—and includes the so-called “productive population” of income-earners and consumers; and then there’s the ANC rate, which stands for “antenatal care” and looks exclusively at the HIV rate among pregnant women using health clinics during their pregnancy.
The overall rate is usually the smallest number because it includes lots of people who aren’t even sexually active—like babies and elderly. The ANC rate is always the highest number because it’s measuring a group of women (who always have higher infection rates than men) who are obviously sexually-active AND have obviously had unprotected sex (thus the pregnancy). That’s why the 15-49 year-olds rate is popular among health educators and practitioners: it includes both men and women, pregnant or not, within the largest demographic segment of sexually-active adults. So you have 3 main HIV rates (there are plenty more, believe me, but these are the big 3), all slightly different and all frequently used without explanation. So without further ado, here are the statistics-- remember these correctly and you’ll be better informed than most health workers in Swaziland.
- The overall rate of HIV prevalence: 19% (that’s the highest national overall rate in the world.)
- The 15-49 rate of HIV prevalence: 26% (that’s the latest from Demographic Health Survey, from May 2008)
- The ANC rate of HIV prevalence: 39% (that’s from the national sero-sentinel surveillance study—remember, just pregnant women in this number).
Question: can you please confuse me even more by throwing more numbers and categories at me?
Sure. Here you go… Swaziland’s ANC rate, at 39%, is actually down from it’s peak of 42.6% in 2004. So nearly half of all pregnant women here were HIV positive 4 years ago—and this recent decrease may well be more of a “leveling off” trend than an actual long-term decline. Currently the mother-to-child transmission rate is 14%, meaning that about 14% of babies born to HIV-positive moms are becoming infected. And that’s much too high—that rate should be below 5% with proper treatment and precautions.
Still reading, huh? Okay, here’s more. A closer look at that 15-49 rate shows that among 30-35 year-olds in Swaziland the HIV infection rate is currently a staggering 43%. This reveals an important feature of the HIV epidemic here: it’s killing off an entire generation. My generation, in fact. If I was a 33-year old Swazi man instead of a 33-year old American man, I could rightly assume that close to half of my peers—certainly half of my female friends-- were infected with HIV, and that many of them would not know their status, would not seek treatment and would die within a decade.
It’s also interesting to note that female infection rates are always higher than male ones. It’s basic anatomy: they’re just more susceptible to the HIV virus. In Swaziland’s 15-49 age group, the female HIV prevalence rate is currently 31%, whereas the male rate is 20%-- a very significant difference. Among Swaziland’s overall rate, 22% of the women and 15% of the men are HIV positive.
Question: I heard that tuberculosis (TB) is a bigger killer in Swaziland than HIV/AIDS… is that true?
It is true that TB kills more people than full-blown AIDS in Swaziland. But there is an important connection between HIV infection and TB infection: they often go hand-in-hand. So in many cases it’s hard to say that a person died from either one or the other. The sad thing is, TB is curable.
That brings us to the HIV-TB co-infection rate, of which Swaziland has the highest in the world: 81%. This rate tells us the number of TB patients who are infected with the HIV virus. In Swaziland most of the people infected with HIV do not actually die of AIDS; it takes a while to develop full-blown AIDS (the CD4 count needs to drop below a certain threshold before you even officially have AIDS), and other “secondary opportunistic” diseases often kill them first. Of all these secondary opportunistic diseases to which HIV-positive people are susceptible, TB is by far the biggest killer. TB is really, really common here. So for these reasons and more, the HIV-TB co-infection rate is important.
That 81% number is the prevalence of HIV infection among newly-diagnosed TB patients. What it means to us as PCVs is, when we come across someone with TB, we can be relatively sure that they’re HIV positive and therefore need treatment immediately, or else they’ll die quite rapidly-- their immune system doesn’t stand a chance against full-blown TB. But in rural areas, that’s much easier said than done. In fact, one need not be HIV-positive to die of TB here, just weak and isolated from proper treatment.
One recent case is that of Gogo (grandma) Nkambule. We first met her on a homestead visit back in the middle of November. She walked up to us, talked with us in English for a while about her situation (70 years old and trying to care for 5 or 6 little kids with no income after their father dropped them at her house 5 years’ prior). She was complaining of a nighttime cough and occasional pain in the side of her chest. We both immediately suspected TB, of course, but she said that it wasn’t TB, that she was negative for TB, and we simply had no means of getting her to a hospital. We did not know her HIV status, but at 70 and facing food scarcity problems she was clearly vulnerable to infectious diseases, with or without HIV.
Then after one month we visited her homestead again, delivering 15kg of rice from the Red Cross, and this time she was bed-ridden, blankets and a pillow on the dirt floor of her hut, with an older daughter tending to her. She’d severely deteriorated—ankles swollen, unable to walk, coughing persistently, barely able to talk with us. She’d been to a hospital and we looked at the medications they gave her, which revealed that she’d been diagnosed with TB (for some reason, she still did not think she had it). Jamie gave her some tips to reduce the swelling in her ankles and encouraged her to take the meds faithfully. We left after about 15 minutes. Today I learned that last night, 8 days after that visit, they buried her. She probably died a few days prior to that (so, around Christmas day)—just over a month after being able to walk and talk and care for her grandkids.
So death by TB can happen quickly for those already weakened, whether by age or malnourishment or HIV. And of course our fear is that the little kids she was caring for have contracted TB (patients with full-blown TB spread it to an average of 10-15 people). They’ll now be moved to another relative’s nearby homestead, where it’s possible that TB will continue its spread through that family. This is how a TB epidemic spreads so rapidly—and add to that the over-crowded public busses and khumbis, often the only means of getting to a hospital.
Question: I heard that the life expectancy in Swaziland is like 21 years old or something… is that true?
No, thankfully it’s not that bad. But Swaziland’s life expectancy rate is indeed among the lowest (if not THE lowest—I’m not sure) in the world. Again, you have some competing numbers to contend with, so I’ll tell you what I know.
Apparently there are 2 basic measurements of life expectancy used by the World Health Organization (WHO): the basic life expectancy rate and the healthy life expectancy rate. I suppose the latter rate is looking at how long the average person lives in relatively good health—so maybe terminally ill people are not factored into this number… I don’t know. Look it up and let me know—it’s a new term to me. Anyway, these numbers are estimating the average age that a person born this year can expect to reach. So here they are, as currently reported by WHO:
- Average "healthy" life expectancy in Swaziland: 33 years old for men, 35 for women.
- Average life expectancy (which must include the sick and dying, right?): 41 years for men, 43 for women.
Question: how can a baby born to an HIV-positive mother be HIV-negative?
In fact it’s quite common that HIV-positive women give birth to perfectly healthy HIV-negative babies. Most babies of these women are actually born HIV-negative. Apparently, that placenta really does an amazing job at isolating the baby and its fluids from things like infected blood. Don’t ask me how. Fetuses develop their own unique blood supply and it stays separate from mommy’s blood. But where viral transmission can—and does—occur is during the baby’s delivery and during the initial year of feeding.
Here’s the crazy thing: breast milk carries the HIV virus, but it can pass through a newborn’s digestive tract without ever infecting it—especially if mommy’s HIV is being properly managed—and will nourish the baby just as well as HIV-negative breast milk. Where mommy and baby run into trouble seems to be when mommy MIXES formula and HIV-positive breast milk. The way our Baylor Clinic pediatric doctor friends explain it, a newborn’s digestive system is still fragile and forming and can be “scraped” or injured very easily. Breast milk is perfectly designed to be processed by that fragile tract, but formula can actually create tiny little micro-tears and cuts as it passes through their gut—which normally would not bother anything; but when you add HIV-positive breast milk into that damaged little tract, the infection rate jumps up dramatically—the virus gets into the blood stream. So what doctors in the know are currently recommending for HIV-positive mothers (in addition to adhering to their treatment) is that they either breast feed exclusively OR use formula exclusively, but they should never combine the two (“mix feed”). But many Swazi women don’t know this—or do not understand it—and figure that formula feeding is best if they’re HIV-positive. But formula is expensive here, and soon the mom runs out of it and resorts to breast-feeding. That’s part of the reason Swaziland’s mother-to-child infection rate is 14% while it’s just 5% in Botswana, where they’ve managed to spread the good word about exclusivity in newborn feeding practices. Ideally, the HIV-positive mommy would breastfeed exclusively (no formula) for the first 6 months, then after that switch to formula and other baby food (no breast milk!), if possible.
Q&A: lack of ocean puts Swazi pirates at unfair disadvantage
Q&A: lack of ocean puts Swazi pirates at unfair disadvantage
This time I’ll focus on regional instability and crises, and the impact (or lack thereof) they have on Swaziland and our life here thus far.
Question: Has the political, economic, and public health crises in Zimbabwe impacted life in Swaziland?
Nope. Zimbabwe dominates the news here, especially the BBC show “Focus on Africa,” but otherwise we’ve felt no effects of the ongoing multiple emergencies in that country.
While Swaziland does indeed share borders with South Africa and Mozambique—both bordering countries of Zimbabwe—it does not share any direct border with Zimbabwe. Those fleeing Zimbabwe for one reason or another are mainly flooding into South Africa, and really have no reason to come in large numbers to Swaziland: there are no jobs here. In fact, Swazis are flooding into South Africa, too, as are Mozabiquans and Botswanans and Namibians and Zambians… the basic rule for this southern-most African region is this: when crisis strikes, those affected flee to South Africa if they can. That’s why South Africa has such a serious illegal immigration problem—and xenophobia-fueled hatred and violence aimed at black foreigners in South Africa has been on the rise for some time. Luckily for Swazis, their native language, siSwati, is widely spoken in SA and it’s so similar to Zulu (spoken by many South Africans) that they’re rarely (if ever) singled out as targets of violence. Plenty of Swazis live and work legally in South Africa.
As for the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe, the fear is that it’ll spread down the rivers and into the other countries through which those rivers pass. But again Swaziland is not in danger, as Zimbabwe’s south-flowing rivers all pass into Mozambique and South Africa without connecting significantly to any Swazi watersheds.
In general, any unrest in the region is of course bad news for the countries in that region, so Swaziland isn’t totally isolated from the situation in Zimbabwe. There may be some national economic/trade impacts or tighter restrictions at Swazi borders for Zimbabwe citizens… but we as PCVs here in Swaziland haven’t noticed anything different at all, and I don’t really expect that we will. We didn’t plan on traveling to Zimbabwe, anyway, as it’s been a no-go zone for quite some time before we ever arrived in the region.
Question: Have you felt any impacts from the situation in the Congo and along the Congolese- Rwandan border?
Not at all. Those countries are a long way away from us or any countries surrounding us, and that’s primarily an ethnic/land scarcity crisis carried over from issues and causes surrounding the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s. Swaziland has no Hutus, no Tutsis, no Congolese rebel militias or any socio-cultural connections to the people of that war-torn region. Like anybody else, we just hear about it on the news.
Question: any Somali pirates threatening Swaziland?
I wish: it would mean we had a coastline. And plus, I’d probably be able to pick up some pretty authentic pirate costumes at the local second-hand stores. Sadly, there aren’t even any siSwati words for “Arrgh” or “ahoy” or “matey.”
This time I’ll focus on regional instability and crises, and the impact (or lack thereof) they have on Swaziland and our life here thus far.
Question: Has the political, economic, and public health crises in Zimbabwe impacted life in Swaziland?
Nope. Zimbabwe dominates the news here, especially the BBC show “Focus on Africa,” but otherwise we’ve felt no effects of the ongoing multiple emergencies in that country.
While Swaziland does indeed share borders with South Africa and Mozambique—both bordering countries of Zimbabwe—it does not share any direct border with Zimbabwe. Those fleeing Zimbabwe for one reason or another are mainly flooding into South Africa, and really have no reason to come in large numbers to Swaziland: there are no jobs here. In fact, Swazis are flooding into South Africa, too, as are Mozabiquans and Botswanans and Namibians and Zambians… the basic rule for this southern-most African region is this: when crisis strikes, those affected flee to South Africa if they can. That’s why South Africa has such a serious illegal immigration problem—and xenophobia-fueled hatred and violence aimed at black foreigners in South Africa has been on the rise for some time. Luckily for Swazis, their native language, siSwati, is widely spoken in SA and it’s so similar to Zulu (spoken by many South Africans) that they’re rarely (if ever) singled out as targets of violence. Plenty of Swazis live and work legally in South Africa.
As for the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe, the fear is that it’ll spread down the rivers and into the other countries through which those rivers pass. But again Swaziland is not in danger, as Zimbabwe’s south-flowing rivers all pass into Mozambique and South Africa without connecting significantly to any Swazi watersheds.
In general, any unrest in the region is of course bad news for the countries in that region, so Swaziland isn’t totally isolated from the situation in Zimbabwe. There may be some national economic/trade impacts or tighter restrictions at Swazi borders for Zimbabwe citizens… but we as PCVs here in Swaziland haven’t noticed anything different at all, and I don’t really expect that we will. We didn’t plan on traveling to Zimbabwe, anyway, as it’s been a no-go zone for quite some time before we ever arrived in the region.
Question: Have you felt any impacts from the situation in the Congo and along the Congolese- Rwandan border?
Not at all. Those countries are a long way away from us or any countries surrounding us, and that’s primarily an ethnic/land scarcity crisis carried over from issues and causes surrounding the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s. Swaziland has no Hutus, no Tutsis, no Congolese rebel militias or any socio-cultural connections to the people of that war-torn region. Like anybody else, we just hear about it on the news.
Question: any Somali pirates threatening Swaziland?
I wish: it would mean we had a coastline. And plus, I’d probably be able to pick up some pretty authentic pirate costumes at the local second-hand stores. Sadly, there aren’t even any siSwati words for “Arrgh” or “ahoy” or “matey.”
Q&A: old, earnest prayers
In this entry I’ll try to address some of the questions about our access to basic infrastructure—water, electricity, transportation, that sort of thing. It can be confusing because on the one hand you’ve read about the water shortages and difficulties here but on the other hand our garden seems to be doing okay and we’re not often thirsty… so what gives? I’ll try to explain this, among a few other apparent conundrums.
Question: If there’s such an awful water shortage in Swaziland, how are you growing carrots and tomatoes and cabbage and everything else?
I’ll start with the simple answer, then move on to the more in-depth ones. Basically, it comes down to our easy access to drinking water on the homestead—not “garden” water, but drinking water. This allows us to prioritize our water usage differently than those who must collect and haul ALL their water, whether for drinking or bathing or watering plants. So the water that we collect and haul (when there isn’t enough rain to do the watering for us) can be devoted exclusively to watering our veggies. But the water collected and hauled by homesteads without such an onsite water source must be used according to resource-scarcity prioritization: indoor water uses (drinking, bathing, washing dishes) always trump outdoor water uses (laundry, watering plants and animals). And here’s the thing… about 70-75% of the neighboring homesteads fall into this water-scarcity category of prioritizing. They’re hauling unclean water from surface sources (streams, seeps) hundreds of meters from their homes, and the difficulty of this daily task demands that they only use water for the most essential things. So our homestead’s borehole/water tap located on our homestead (about 10 meters from our home) frees us up to use our “collected” water exclusively for gardens. And we never use the borehole water on our plants (but we do use it for laundry). That’s the micro-view reason. Now I’ll pull the camera back a little and offer some broader views of the situation.
There are two main seasons here in Swaziland: a cool, dry one (winter) and a hot, wet one (summer). Winter months are generally from May-November (ish) and summer lasts from December-April. There is actually a fall and spring too, but they’re quite short and not nearly as distinct as the ones we get in, say, Ashland, OR or Silvis, IL. So most people just refer to the dry season and the wet season.
We’re currently in summer, the hot, wet season, so rains come more frequently than in winter months (along with plenty of thunder and lightning). But Swaziland is full of different climates, and while one place gets rain another place just around the corner gets none. Even within our own chiefdom, there is a “lowveld” region that’s lower in elevation, much hotter, and much much drier. There aren’t any community gardens over there because there isn’t enough accessible water to keep them up—and they get only a fraction of the summer rains that we get. They are only about 30 minutes’ drive down the dirt road from our garden.
Entire regions of Swaziland are facing prolonged, severe drought for the past 5-10 years or so. The Lubombo region is most widely effected by this ongoing drought. The soils have been devastated and their old water sources are depleted. It just stopped raining with any frequency (or volume) over there, and people are literally starving. Add to that rampant poverty and unemployment and the worst HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world, and Lubombo is truly suffering. That region is only about an hours’ bus ride away from us. That’s one of the problems with having no large-scale water-collection and delivery systems: while one neighbor might have access to drinking water, another one just over the hill can’t even grow beans.
We have PVC friends living in Lubombo communities right now, and I’m pretty sure they’re not growing large gardens. We are fortunate that Zombodze gets rain during the wet season—that used to be true for all of Swaziland, but now it’s very regional. In general, the highveld regions get plenty of rain, the midveld (where we live) gets enough in certain areas, while the lowveld gets little to none at all. So the lower the elevation in Swaziland, the greater the drought and human suffering.
That’s the bigger picture. Here’s the more localized, Zombodze picture. The trick with gardening around here is this: plant the seeds just before summer begins and struggle for a while to water the little guys. That way, when the summer rains finally come you’ll have seedlings and it’ll be a good time to transplant (if necessary) and get the plants to maturity by around Christmas time—which will allow you to have two full crop cycles before the dry months come again. We’re doing just that; for the first few months after planting we carried heavy buckets of water from a source up the hill to our plot in the community garden, just like everyone else. Once the rains came in late November to early December, we didn’t have to carry the water like that, but instead collected from little spigots inside the garden, which are connected to a stream-fed water trench on the hill above the garden (this little water-delivery system only works when it rains and needs a complete overhaul—one of the projects I hope to do while here). Or we collect the rainwater in a big bucket that we have and use that water on days when it doesn’t rain. In this manner, we’ve been able to grow our veggies, as have about 20 or so others in this garden. There’s a fence around it, so it’s protected from animals as well.
I would point out, however, that the only thing we’ve yet eaten from our own garden are a handful of baby carrots that we thinned last month to make room for other carrots to grow large. So we’re not exactly living off our plants yet—and we’re fortunate not to have to try.
But even in our community garden the water is very unreliable. In fact as I write this, we’re getting the first rain we’ve had in at least 10 days—and our plants have been suffering. The wet season/dry season pattern that everyone relies on to grow food has become so unreliable and unpredictable (especially regarding when the summer rains arrive and the duration between summer rain storms) that people commonly lose their seedlings and crops. It’s one thing to collect and haul water from a few hundred yards away when you’re only needing to water a dozen or so rows of seedlings; but when you have an entire plowed hillside of maize—or when you’ve already transplanted all those seedlings and now have hundreds of separate plants of each variety in many dozen different rows to water—it’s next to impossible to manually water it all. So when the summer rains don’t come, gardens and crops are lost—and most of these gardeners are not doing it for fun; they’re not hobbyists, they’re growing food to live on and to feed their kids (and in countless cases, their dead neighbor’s kids). So not getting rain during the rainy season is really disastrous. We’re not sure which of our plants are going to make it—if it hadn’t rained today we were going to begin trying to haul buckets of water up to the garden, but we wouldn’t have been able to properly soak the dry plants like they needed,
Luckily, maize is a great drought-resistant crop, and it also happens to be the Swazi’s staple food. So with or without today’s rain, the big maize fields probably would not be completely lost. But what suffers with less rain is the size and productivity of the maize crops. Less maize at the end of summer means no surplus to sell for income, and quite possibly food shortages for homesteads during the latter-half of the dry months. It’s important to consider that the two summer crop cycles are, for most homesteads, meant to provide their staple food source for the entire year. Two growing cycles doesn’t leave much room for error… or erratic weather patterns. And it’s also important to point out that where families are trying to live off maize alone, malnutrition is rampant. Veggie gardens provide crucial nutrients that everyone needs and deserves, and yet in times of water shortage (which is at least half the year in Zombodze and all year in worse-off areas) those are the most difficult gardens to grow. Trench gardening, which is a great water-minimal technique perfect for such situations, is being taught by organizations and PCVs in many communities here, and we certainly hope it helps the high malnutrition rates.
Homestead gardens, as opposed to the community garden we’re working in, are even more susceptible to water shortages. Very few homesteads here in Zombodze have a bore hole or underground water tap—in fact, we live on one of only two or three that we’ve seen—and so those families rely on hauling water (buckets, wheelbarrows) for both drinking water and gardening water. Since watering one’s children is far more important than watering one’s cabbage, such homesteads simply do not even try to keep even a modest veggie garden. They plant a crop of maize when the rains come (3 straight rainy days is the sign to plow) and are at the mercy of the weather. Over the past 5 years or so, the weather has shown precious little mercy.
But right now the maize fields have sprouted up all around us. The fields we walk through to go to the schools or the little stores or the community hall or the garden are all striped with green leaves, and along with everyone else here we pray for days exactly like today: rainy and wet. In fact, if you want to pray for Swaziland, pray for rain to fall on parched lands; it’s possibly among the oldest of all earnest prayers, and it’s still quite relevant here.
Question: do you have indoor plumbing or electricity in your home?
We don’t have indoor plumbing but we do have electricity. Two plugs, one in each room, and two lights, one in each room. We bought a small electric oven (larger than a toaster oven but not by much) with two burners atop it. We also have a two-burner propane stove and a tank of propane, supplied to us by the Peace Corps. If/when the power goes out (and it flickers a lot) we can always use the propane. We don’t have a refrigerator, but I keep a little milk container in the main house’s mini-fridge, and that’s been enough so far.
Many PCVs here in Swaziland do not have electricity. It just depends upon what’s available at the site you’ve been assigned to, and you really have no idea what you’ll have (or not have) until getting the assignment. All through training, no one knew anything about their permanent sites—not where it would be or what kind of house structure would be there. Ours turned out to have electricity and a bore hole/water tap on the homestead. We’re thankful for that, but also know that we’d have been fine without such conveniences (in fact we told the staff as much when they asked about what kinds of things we hoped for in a site).
We fetch our water from a spigot located about 10 yards behind our home. We use a couple of large water containers with handles, fill them up and store them under our countertop. Some of it goes in the water filter for drinking, some of it goes in the dishwashing bowls, some of it goes in the little hanging shower bag. There’s nothing particularly complicated or even uncomfortable about this setup anymore, we’re so used to it that I don’t even think about indoor plumbing (except when dreaming up ideas for building a summer rainwater-collection system that would deliver water through a pipe in the wall to our shower area… maybe next year).
And of course we don’t have an indoor toilet, we use the pit toilet latrine out on the edge of the homestead. We share it with the rest of the family.
Question: do you ever get to see any TV?
Our family has a TV in one of the main homes and watches it a lot—one Swazi channel and a handful of South African channels—and that’s the norm for Swazi homes with electricity. We rarely watch anything with them, but I’ll occasionally stop in when I hear a football match playing, or to try and catch a news broadcast. Back in our training village (eKhiza) I used to watch the nightly Swazi news with my homestead father every night, from 7-7:30pm. I wouldn’t understand a word they’d say.
Nowadays we try to get our news from shortwave radio broadcasts and internet sources when in town. I guess we could get a TV if we wanted, having electricity, but honestly, neither one of us misses TV in the least and we haven’t even considered the idea. We do like to get DVDs to watch on our computer, either via care packages (thanks!!) or from trading with other PCVs. There’s quite a movie and books trade going on amongst us PCVs.
Question: how do you get around? By car, by bus, by bicycle?
We either walk or take public transportation. We do not have bikes, though if we’d needed them Peace Corps would have provided money for them. We found that we just didn’t need them in our community because most places we’ll be working are so close to our homestead.
PCVs are not allowed to drive vehicles of any kind while serving in-country—not a car or truck or moped or motorcycle, nothing. Too many fatalities in the past. And Swaziland is not a safe place to drive, anyway. So we rely primarily upon minibus taxis called khumbis to get anywhere that’s too far to walk, like to Nhlangano for grocery shopping. These khumbis are packed with people—I mean, really packed. From Zombodze to Nhlangano it’s cheap, E8 one-way (about 80-90 cents US) and the khumbis run frequently. Most khumbis have a sticker inside that says their maximum capacity is 14 or 15, but they rarely run without 18 passengers. One Sunday our homestead brother’s soccer team hired a khumbi to take them all to a game in a neighboring sub-chiefdom, and we were invited to come along. I saw the same sticker inside—15 passengers maximum—but counted 26 people piled into this thing. Jamie-girl sat on my lap and I hung part of my body out the window. The funny thing is, after the game we ADDED one other guy who needed a ride back to Zombodze. So 26 very sweaty, happy (because we won) guys and exactly one woman (sitting on my lap) all piled into our slow-moving, music-blaring khumbi. There are mooments here when there’s absolutely no mistaking that we are in fact in Africa. That was certainly one of them—and the cool thing was, we also felt at ease and at home among these friends.
We’ve written a big report about the Zombodze community, documenting all sorts of issues from infrastructure to HIV/AIDS issues, and I’ll try and email it as a .pdf to those who are interested. Maybe I can somehow attach it to this blog for anyone to access… we’ll see.
That’s all for now.
Hambani kahle!
Question: If there’s such an awful water shortage in Swaziland, how are you growing carrots and tomatoes and cabbage and everything else?
I’ll start with the simple answer, then move on to the more in-depth ones. Basically, it comes down to our easy access to drinking water on the homestead—not “garden” water, but drinking water. This allows us to prioritize our water usage differently than those who must collect and haul ALL their water, whether for drinking or bathing or watering plants. So the water that we collect and haul (when there isn’t enough rain to do the watering for us) can be devoted exclusively to watering our veggies. But the water collected and hauled by homesteads without such an onsite water source must be used according to resource-scarcity prioritization: indoor water uses (drinking, bathing, washing dishes) always trump outdoor water uses (laundry, watering plants and animals). And here’s the thing… about 70-75% of the neighboring homesteads fall into this water-scarcity category of prioritizing. They’re hauling unclean water from surface sources (streams, seeps) hundreds of meters from their homes, and the difficulty of this daily task demands that they only use water for the most essential things. So our homestead’s borehole/water tap located on our homestead (about 10 meters from our home) frees us up to use our “collected” water exclusively for gardens. And we never use the borehole water on our plants (but we do use it for laundry). That’s the micro-view reason. Now I’ll pull the camera back a little and offer some broader views of the situation.
There are two main seasons here in Swaziland: a cool, dry one (winter) and a hot, wet one (summer). Winter months are generally from May-November (ish) and summer lasts from December-April. There is actually a fall and spring too, but they’re quite short and not nearly as distinct as the ones we get in, say, Ashland, OR or Silvis, IL. So most people just refer to the dry season and the wet season.
We’re currently in summer, the hot, wet season, so rains come more frequently than in winter months (along with plenty of thunder and lightning). But Swaziland is full of different climates, and while one place gets rain another place just around the corner gets none. Even within our own chiefdom, there is a “lowveld” region that’s lower in elevation, much hotter, and much much drier. There aren’t any community gardens over there because there isn’t enough accessible water to keep them up—and they get only a fraction of the summer rains that we get. They are only about 30 minutes’ drive down the dirt road from our garden.
Entire regions of Swaziland are facing prolonged, severe drought for the past 5-10 years or so. The Lubombo region is most widely effected by this ongoing drought. The soils have been devastated and their old water sources are depleted. It just stopped raining with any frequency (or volume) over there, and people are literally starving. Add to that rampant poverty and unemployment and the worst HIV/AIDS epidemic in the world, and Lubombo is truly suffering. That region is only about an hours’ bus ride away from us. That’s one of the problems with having no large-scale water-collection and delivery systems: while one neighbor might have access to drinking water, another one just over the hill can’t even grow beans.
We have PVC friends living in Lubombo communities right now, and I’m pretty sure they’re not growing large gardens. We are fortunate that Zombodze gets rain during the wet season—that used to be true for all of Swaziland, but now it’s very regional. In general, the highveld regions get plenty of rain, the midveld (where we live) gets enough in certain areas, while the lowveld gets little to none at all. So the lower the elevation in Swaziland, the greater the drought and human suffering.
That’s the bigger picture. Here’s the more localized, Zombodze picture. The trick with gardening around here is this: plant the seeds just before summer begins and struggle for a while to water the little guys. That way, when the summer rains finally come you’ll have seedlings and it’ll be a good time to transplant (if necessary) and get the plants to maturity by around Christmas time—which will allow you to have two full crop cycles before the dry months come again. We’re doing just that; for the first few months after planting we carried heavy buckets of water from a source up the hill to our plot in the community garden, just like everyone else. Once the rains came in late November to early December, we didn’t have to carry the water like that, but instead collected from little spigots inside the garden, which are connected to a stream-fed water trench on the hill above the garden (this little water-delivery system only works when it rains and needs a complete overhaul—one of the projects I hope to do while here). Or we collect the rainwater in a big bucket that we have and use that water on days when it doesn’t rain. In this manner, we’ve been able to grow our veggies, as have about 20 or so others in this garden. There’s a fence around it, so it’s protected from animals as well.
I would point out, however, that the only thing we’ve yet eaten from our own garden are a handful of baby carrots that we thinned last month to make room for other carrots to grow large. So we’re not exactly living off our plants yet—and we’re fortunate not to have to try.
But even in our community garden the water is very unreliable. In fact as I write this, we’re getting the first rain we’ve had in at least 10 days—and our plants have been suffering. The wet season/dry season pattern that everyone relies on to grow food has become so unreliable and unpredictable (especially regarding when the summer rains arrive and the duration between summer rain storms) that people commonly lose their seedlings and crops. It’s one thing to collect and haul water from a few hundred yards away when you’re only needing to water a dozen or so rows of seedlings; but when you have an entire plowed hillside of maize—or when you’ve already transplanted all those seedlings and now have hundreds of separate plants of each variety in many dozen different rows to water—it’s next to impossible to manually water it all. So when the summer rains don’t come, gardens and crops are lost—and most of these gardeners are not doing it for fun; they’re not hobbyists, they’re growing food to live on and to feed their kids (and in countless cases, their dead neighbor’s kids). So not getting rain during the rainy season is really disastrous. We’re not sure which of our plants are going to make it—if it hadn’t rained today we were going to begin trying to haul buckets of water up to the garden, but we wouldn’t have been able to properly soak the dry plants like they needed,
Luckily, maize is a great drought-resistant crop, and it also happens to be the Swazi’s staple food. So with or without today’s rain, the big maize fields probably would not be completely lost. But what suffers with less rain is the size and productivity of the maize crops. Less maize at the end of summer means no surplus to sell for income, and quite possibly food shortages for homesteads during the latter-half of the dry months. It’s important to consider that the two summer crop cycles are, for most homesteads, meant to provide their staple food source for the entire year. Two growing cycles doesn’t leave much room for error… or erratic weather patterns. And it’s also important to point out that where families are trying to live off maize alone, malnutrition is rampant. Veggie gardens provide crucial nutrients that everyone needs and deserves, and yet in times of water shortage (which is at least half the year in Zombodze and all year in worse-off areas) those are the most difficult gardens to grow. Trench gardening, which is a great water-minimal technique perfect for such situations, is being taught by organizations and PCVs in many communities here, and we certainly hope it helps the high malnutrition rates.
Homestead gardens, as opposed to the community garden we’re working in, are even more susceptible to water shortages. Very few homesteads here in Zombodze have a bore hole or underground water tap—in fact, we live on one of only two or three that we’ve seen—and so those families rely on hauling water (buckets, wheelbarrows) for both drinking water and gardening water. Since watering one’s children is far more important than watering one’s cabbage, such homesteads simply do not even try to keep even a modest veggie garden. They plant a crop of maize when the rains come (3 straight rainy days is the sign to plow) and are at the mercy of the weather. Over the past 5 years or so, the weather has shown precious little mercy.
But right now the maize fields have sprouted up all around us. The fields we walk through to go to the schools or the little stores or the community hall or the garden are all striped with green leaves, and along with everyone else here we pray for days exactly like today: rainy and wet. In fact, if you want to pray for Swaziland, pray for rain to fall on parched lands; it’s possibly among the oldest of all earnest prayers, and it’s still quite relevant here.
Question: do you have indoor plumbing or electricity in your home?
We don’t have indoor plumbing but we do have electricity. Two plugs, one in each room, and two lights, one in each room. We bought a small electric oven (larger than a toaster oven but not by much) with two burners atop it. We also have a two-burner propane stove and a tank of propane, supplied to us by the Peace Corps. If/when the power goes out (and it flickers a lot) we can always use the propane. We don’t have a refrigerator, but I keep a little milk container in the main house’s mini-fridge, and that’s been enough so far.
Many PCVs here in Swaziland do not have electricity. It just depends upon what’s available at the site you’ve been assigned to, and you really have no idea what you’ll have (or not have) until getting the assignment. All through training, no one knew anything about their permanent sites—not where it would be or what kind of house structure would be there. Ours turned out to have electricity and a bore hole/water tap on the homestead. We’re thankful for that, but also know that we’d have been fine without such conveniences (in fact we told the staff as much when they asked about what kinds of things we hoped for in a site).
We fetch our water from a spigot located about 10 yards behind our home. We use a couple of large water containers with handles, fill them up and store them under our countertop. Some of it goes in the water filter for drinking, some of it goes in the dishwashing bowls, some of it goes in the little hanging shower bag. There’s nothing particularly complicated or even uncomfortable about this setup anymore, we’re so used to it that I don’t even think about indoor plumbing (except when dreaming up ideas for building a summer rainwater-collection system that would deliver water through a pipe in the wall to our shower area… maybe next year).
And of course we don’t have an indoor toilet, we use the pit toilet latrine out on the edge of the homestead. We share it with the rest of the family.
Question: do you ever get to see any TV?
Our family has a TV in one of the main homes and watches it a lot—one Swazi channel and a handful of South African channels—and that’s the norm for Swazi homes with electricity. We rarely watch anything with them, but I’ll occasionally stop in when I hear a football match playing, or to try and catch a news broadcast. Back in our training village (eKhiza) I used to watch the nightly Swazi news with my homestead father every night, from 7-7:30pm. I wouldn’t understand a word they’d say.
Nowadays we try to get our news from shortwave radio broadcasts and internet sources when in town. I guess we could get a TV if we wanted, having electricity, but honestly, neither one of us misses TV in the least and we haven’t even considered the idea. We do like to get DVDs to watch on our computer, either via care packages (thanks!!) or from trading with other PCVs. There’s quite a movie and books trade going on amongst us PCVs.
Question: how do you get around? By car, by bus, by bicycle?
We either walk or take public transportation. We do not have bikes, though if we’d needed them Peace Corps would have provided money for them. We found that we just didn’t need them in our community because most places we’ll be working are so close to our homestead.
PCVs are not allowed to drive vehicles of any kind while serving in-country—not a car or truck or moped or motorcycle, nothing. Too many fatalities in the past. And Swaziland is not a safe place to drive, anyway. So we rely primarily upon minibus taxis called khumbis to get anywhere that’s too far to walk, like to Nhlangano for grocery shopping. These khumbis are packed with people—I mean, really packed. From Zombodze to Nhlangano it’s cheap, E8 one-way (about 80-90 cents US) and the khumbis run frequently. Most khumbis have a sticker inside that says their maximum capacity is 14 or 15, but they rarely run without 18 passengers. One Sunday our homestead brother’s soccer team hired a khumbi to take them all to a game in a neighboring sub-chiefdom, and we were invited to come along. I saw the same sticker inside—15 passengers maximum—but counted 26 people piled into this thing. Jamie-girl sat on my lap and I hung part of my body out the window. The funny thing is, after the game we ADDED one other guy who needed a ride back to Zombodze. So 26 very sweaty, happy (because we won) guys and exactly one woman (sitting on my lap) all piled into our slow-moving, music-blaring khumbi. There are mooments here when there’s absolutely no mistaking that we are in fact in Africa. That was certainly one of them—and the cool thing was, we also felt at ease and at home among these friends.
We’ve written a big report about the Zombodze community, documenting all sorts of issues from infrastructure to HIV/AIDS issues, and I’ll try and email it as a .pdf to those who are interested. Maybe I can somehow attach it to this blog for anyone to access… we’ll see.
That’s all for now.
Hambani kahle!
Q&A: no bear-hugs, please.
Q&A: no bear-hugs, please.
In this second installment of answering some of the many questions we’ve received (and confusions we’ve encountered) about Swaziland and our experience here, I’ll focus on the government structure: Chiefs, the King, the parliament and other elected officials. It seems confusing because Swaziland has both an active King with semi-monarchical powers and elected representatives. But it’s relatively easy to describe and I’ll give it a try.
Question: Who is the King and what’s he like, and have you met him?
The King is His Majesty King Mswati III, son of the late King Sobhuza II (who was the world’s longest remaining monarch at the time of his death in 1982), and he is the last remaining monarch in all of Africa. Mswati III was selected from Sobhuza’s hundreds of sons (he had 120 official wives) to succeed his father at the young age of 16 years old. Today he is 40 and currently has 13 wives himself. He is greatly admired by a vast majority of Swazi people, though political opposition groups (which are banned here) have recently expressed their displeasure with his monarchic role in Swazi government.
No, we have not met him and will not likely ever meet him. It’s a small country, but not that small. And even if we did get an audience with him, we’d not be able to look directly at him, as a matter of cultural respect. This is not a “ceremonial” King like in England or elsewhere, this is a full-fledged real-real absolute monarch and there are a number of things one does and does not do in his presence. Remember when the Queen of England came to the US recently and was bear-hugged warmly by an American in the adoring crowd? I recall that she and her guards were so gracious and the whole incident was kind of endearingly humorous,,, a similar incident here in Swaziland would not involve such a happy ending.
The Swazi governmental system was initially formed when Swaziland gained independence from Britain in 1968, but the national constitution that formed it was mostly a British document and was dissolved in 1973 by King Sobhuza II. In 1977 a new constitution was written by the Swazi Parliament and it gave the King absolute power over all matters of State. He died in 1982 and Mswati III became King in 1986. As pressure grew within Swaziland to extend basic principles of democratic representation in its government, King Mswati III signed a new national constitution in 2003, which set up parliamentary elections and elections for regional leaders as well. The new constitution also solidified the traditional centers of power, maintaining the Chiefdom system and preserving the King’s powers to direct governance (for example, he appoints a large number of Senators as well as all Ministers of the various government departments, and he still has far-reaching veto power and budgetary control).
Question: who’s the head of your community—a Chief, a Headman, an MP, the King, or…?
Well, I guess the King is the true head of all Swazi communities, but he doesn’t do so in-person. Practically speaking, the community leadership is divided into two interactive parts: the older, traditional system of Chiefs and Headmen and the King, and the more modern, political government of representatives—mainly the Minister of Parliament (MP) and the Indvuna, both of whose work falls under the King’s control, too, but in a different way.
The King’s interests are represented primarily by the local Chief, who works with a group of community Headmen called the Inner-Council (each little area in the Chiefdom has its own Headman). This Council meets twice a week to settle local disputes and provide counsel to leaders of various projects. Anything we do in the community will first be approved by this Inner-Council, and they can help us with lots of different things. We have an advantage in this regard, because we are staying on a Nsibandze family homestead; the Chief is a Nsibandze.
The MP and Indvuna are elected officials, with national and local elections occurring every 5 years. 2008 was one of those years. Here in Zombodze we have both a brand new Minister of Parliament (MP) and a new Indvuna. The MP represents local interests in the National Parliament (in the Capital city of Mbabane), and the Indvuna serves here in Zombodze as a regional official who heads the “Indkhundla” (perhaps best described as a state, like Oregon; so the Indvuna might be like a Governor, but with much, much less power). The Indvuna works with the Chief and his inner-council of local Headmen to deal with regional programs and development issues—and this is where the new, political representative government meets the older, traditional style at the community level. We work very closely with both our MP and Indvuna, and seek approval, advice, and assistance from the Chief and his Headmen. Clear as mud? Ya, it’s a bit confusing, but then again, try to explain our US system sometime—most all government structures are complicated.
The only simplifying governmental feature here in Swaziland is this: the King has final say over anything he wants; it’s just that he chooses to delegate this “final say” power to lots of officials, some of them directly appointed by him and others directly elected by the people. But ultimately, all of them are subject to his (and his powerful council of advisors’) will.
Interesting sidenote: our Indvuna is the first disabled person in Swazi history to attain the office. He is a T-12 paraplegic, bound to a wheelchair after being injured 10 years ago in a serious South African mining accident that killed all but a few workers. There is no Swazi equivalent to the U.S.’s ADA, so basic accessibility issues can be quite challenging for him. He founded an advocacy group for people with disabilities in the Zombodze area and that’s where he got his start in leadership and community organizing. We are privileged to get to work with him on a wide variety of community projects—and hopefully one that involves modifying some of our community areas and buildings for wheelchair accessibility (mostly just sidewalks and ramps).
Question: Do you ever work with national officials or the US Embassy?
Our work projects will mainly focus on the Zombodze Chiefdom, so it’s the local officials that we’ll be working most closely with. But we are also well acquainted with Swaziland’s new Minister of Health and Social Welfare: he is the founder and president of a non-profit organization called NATICC, which is based close by (Nhlangano) and works on HIV/AIDS counseling and testing, and lots of prevention/education projects. He is the brand new MP for the Nhlangano district (called Shiselweni 2) and was subsequently appointed Minister of Health by King Mswati III—all VERY good news for our work and for HIV/AIDS efforts in Swaziland as a whole.
The US Embassy is run by the Department of State (headed by the Secretary of State), which is a completely different department as the US Peace Corps. So we don’t work with them, but of course they would support us in emergencies just as they would for any US citizen.
As PCVs, we are invited guests of King Mswati III and his government, and our only involvement in governmental activity, whether local or national, is strictly for the purposes of assisting Swazis with their struggle against HIV/AIDS and issues arising from the epidemic. We are not in any way politically active, nor do we take any public position on political matters. That role is for our US Ambassador and the US Embassy. We’ve met the US Ambassador, Maurice Parker, a handful of times now (a career diplomat, not a Presidential appointee, so he’s not going anywhere when the Obama Administration takes over), and we really like him and his wife. In fact, one of his kids did the Peace Corps years ago—so he’s an ex-PCP (Peace Corps Parent) and has a real heart for us. We ask him all kinds of things, from the mundane to the controversial, about our role as PCVs and our country’s role here in Swaziland. Be assured that the US’s position on matters of State and issues of democratic reform here in Swaziland are being properly (even forcefully) communicated by the Embassy Staff and Ambassador Parker—he has his job and we have ours.
There is a charitable “Ambassador’s Fund” that sponsors all kinds of development-related projects in Swaziland, and we may eventually work with one or more of them, but otherwise our roles as PCVs are very, very different from any State Department positions.
That’s all on the government stuff.
Hambani kahle, bamngani bami.
In this second installment of answering some of the many questions we’ve received (and confusions we’ve encountered) about Swaziland and our experience here, I’ll focus on the government structure: Chiefs, the King, the parliament and other elected officials. It seems confusing because Swaziland has both an active King with semi-monarchical powers and elected representatives. But it’s relatively easy to describe and I’ll give it a try.
Question: Who is the King and what’s he like, and have you met him?
The King is His Majesty King Mswati III, son of the late King Sobhuza II (who was the world’s longest remaining monarch at the time of his death in 1982), and he is the last remaining monarch in all of Africa. Mswati III was selected from Sobhuza’s hundreds of sons (he had 120 official wives) to succeed his father at the young age of 16 years old. Today he is 40 and currently has 13 wives himself. He is greatly admired by a vast majority of Swazi people, though political opposition groups (which are banned here) have recently expressed their displeasure with his monarchic role in Swazi government.
No, we have not met him and will not likely ever meet him. It’s a small country, but not that small. And even if we did get an audience with him, we’d not be able to look directly at him, as a matter of cultural respect. This is not a “ceremonial” King like in England or elsewhere, this is a full-fledged real-real absolute monarch and there are a number of things one does and does not do in his presence. Remember when the Queen of England came to the US recently and was bear-hugged warmly by an American in the adoring crowd? I recall that she and her guards were so gracious and the whole incident was kind of endearingly humorous,,, a similar incident here in Swaziland would not involve such a happy ending.
The Swazi governmental system was initially formed when Swaziland gained independence from Britain in 1968, but the national constitution that formed it was mostly a British document and was dissolved in 1973 by King Sobhuza II. In 1977 a new constitution was written by the Swazi Parliament and it gave the King absolute power over all matters of State. He died in 1982 and Mswati III became King in 1986. As pressure grew within Swaziland to extend basic principles of democratic representation in its government, King Mswati III signed a new national constitution in 2003, which set up parliamentary elections and elections for regional leaders as well. The new constitution also solidified the traditional centers of power, maintaining the Chiefdom system and preserving the King’s powers to direct governance (for example, he appoints a large number of Senators as well as all Ministers of the various government departments, and he still has far-reaching veto power and budgetary control).
Question: who’s the head of your community—a Chief, a Headman, an MP, the King, or…?
Well, I guess the King is the true head of all Swazi communities, but he doesn’t do so in-person. Practically speaking, the community leadership is divided into two interactive parts: the older, traditional system of Chiefs and Headmen and the King, and the more modern, political government of representatives—mainly the Minister of Parliament (MP) and the Indvuna, both of whose work falls under the King’s control, too, but in a different way.
The King’s interests are represented primarily by the local Chief, who works with a group of community Headmen called the Inner-Council (each little area in the Chiefdom has its own Headman). This Council meets twice a week to settle local disputes and provide counsel to leaders of various projects. Anything we do in the community will first be approved by this Inner-Council, and they can help us with lots of different things. We have an advantage in this regard, because we are staying on a Nsibandze family homestead; the Chief is a Nsibandze.
The MP and Indvuna are elected officials, with national and local elections occurring every 5 years. 2008 was one of those years. Here in Zombodze we have both a brand new Minister of Parliament (MP) and a new Indvuna. The MP represents local interests in the National Parliament (in the Capital city of Mbabane), and the Indvuna serves here in Zombodze as a regional official who heads the “Indkhundla” (perhaps best described as a state, like Oregon; so the Indvuna might be like a Governor, but with much, much less power). The Indvuna works with the Chief and his inner-council of local Headmen to deal with regional programs and development issues—and this is where the new, political representative government meets the older, traditional style at the community level. We work very closely with both our MP and Indvuna, and seek approval, advice, and assistance from the Chief and his Headmen. Clear as mud? Ya, it’s a bit confusing, but then again, try to explain our US system sometime—most all government structures are complicated.
The only simplifying governmental feature here in Swaziland is this: the King has final say over anything he wants; it’s just that he chooses to delegate this “final say” power to lots of officials, some of them directly appointed by him and others directly elected by the people. But ultimately, all of them are subject to his (and his powerful council of advisors’) will.
Interesting sidenote: our Indvuna is the first disabled person in Swazi history to attain the office. He is a T-12 paraplegic, bound to a wheelchair after being injured 10 years ago in a serious South African mining accident that killed all but a few workers. There is no Swazi equivalent to the U.S.’s ADA, so basic accessibility issues can be quite challenging for him. He founded an advocacy group for people with disabilities in the Zombodze area and that’s where he got his start in leadership and community organizing. We are privileged to get to work with him on a wide variety of community projects—and hopefully one that involves modifying some of our community areas and buildings for wheelchair accessibility (mostly just sidewalks and ramps).
Question: Do you ever work with national officials or the US Embassy?
Our work projects will mainly focus on the Zombodze Chiefdom, so it’s the local officials that we’ll be working most closely with. But we are also well acquainted with Swaziland’s new Minister of Health and Social Welfare: he is the founder and president of a non-profit organization called NATICC, which is based close by (Nhlangano) and works on HIV/AIDS counseling and testing, and lots of prevention/education projects. He is the brand new MP for the Nhlangano district (called Shiselweni 2) and was subsequently appointed Minister of Health by King Mswati III—all VERY good news for our work and for HIV/AIDS efforts in Swaziland as a whole.
The US Embassy is run by the Department of State (headed by the Secretary of State), which is a completely different department as the US Peace Corps. So we don’t work with them, but of course they would support us in emergencies just as they would for any US citizen.
As PCVs, we are invited guests of King Mswati III and his government, and our only involvement in governmental activity, whether local or national, is strictly for the purposes of assisting Swazis with their struggle against HIV/AIDS and issues arising from the epidemic. We are not in any way politically active, nor do we take any public position on political matters. That role is for our US Ambassador and the US Embassy. We’ve met the US Ambassador, Maurice Parker, a handful of times now (a career diplomat, not a Presidential appointee, so he’s not going anywhere when the Obama Administration takes over), and we really like him and his wife. In fact, one of his kids did the Peace Corps years ago—so he’s an ex-PCP (Peace Corps Parent) and has a real heart for us. We ask him all kinds of things, from the mundane to the controversial, about our role as PCVs and our country’s role here in Swaziland. Be assured that the US’s position on matters of State and issues of democratic reform here in Swaziland are being properly (even forcefully) communicated by the Embassy Staff and Ambassador Parker—he has his job and we have ours.
There is a charitable “Ambassador’s Fund” that sponsors all kinds of development-related projects in Swaziland, and we may eventually work with one or more of them, but otherwise our roles as PCVs are very, very different from any State Department positions.
That’s all on the government stuff.
Hambani kahle, bamngani bami.
Q&A: Sounding Smart
I want to use these next 4 or 5 blog entries to answer some common questions we’ve received and to clarify a few confusing details about where we are and what we’re doing. This first focuses on the Swazi language.
Question: Is it siSwati or Swahili you’re speaking in Swaziland, and what’s the language like?
We’re learning siSwati, not Swahili. Swahili is typically spoken in Kenya and many places north of us, but no Swazis speak (or would even understand) Swahili. siSwati is in the Bantu language group and is similar to Zulu and its regional variants, which is widely spoken in Southern Africa. They’re so similar in fact that learning one means you can pretty well understand both. Zulu has more types of clicks than siSwati, which primarily uses just a few (or at least variants of a few, depending on which letter follows the click). This fact makes it easy for us to distinguish spoken Zulu: it’s more click-heavy. Anyway, Swazis speak siSwati, not Swahili. That’s a lot of S’s to keep straight, I know, but doing so will provide you with two more S’s: sounding smart.
Question: can you guys make those click sounds yet? What other sounds are different or difficult?
Yes, we can in fact now properly pronounce the clicks in siSwati and don’t have too much trouble saying the words that include them. But it’s taken a great deal of practice and when reading or using an unfamiliar word it still sometimes trips us up. To try it, just place the middle of your tongue on the roof of your mouth (or place the front of your tongue directly behind your front teeth, depending upon usage), and create a kind of suction that, when you force your tongue down and away from your mouth’s roof, makes a click sound. To say “no” in siSwati, which is spelled cha the “ch” is a version of this click: you pronounce the hard C sound at the same time that you make the above-described click. Then you follow it with an a (pronounced “ah”). The hard part is making the click and the C-sound at the same time, but it is possible—the far back of the tongue makes the hard-C while the middle/front of the tongue makes the click.
There are also a lot of sounds that linguists call “lateral fricatives,” which sound a bit like soft, slurred Z’s, and resemble a buzzing hum in the mouth. HL and DL are the most common such sounds in siSwati, as in the town name Nhlangano or the word kudla (to eat) or kudlala (to play). The DL sound has more of the Z sound whereas HL is more breathy and S-like. Some non-siSwati speakers pronounce the HL just like the English “Shl,” which gets them in the same phonetic ballpark I suppose… but it still sounds pretty funny: “I’m going to Shlangano today after our meeting” is just enough off-kilter to be hilarious. Anyway, what’s fairly easy about siSwati for us English speakers is that it uses the same alphabetic letters, and most of those letters represent familiar sounds.
Question: are you fluent siSwati speakers yet?
As of the end of 2008 we are by no means fluent siSwati speakers. Not even close. English is commonly spoken here (in fact Swazi schools use English to teach all subjects and English is the official language of governmental business/operations) so we can usually get by just fine. But in the rural areas, community meetings, and on many individual homesteads, English is rarely used or understood—and that’s where our language training comes in. siSwati is a beautiful, sing-songy sounding language, and some of the grammar/conjugation rules actually enhance the alliteration and rhymes within phrases. We like it—but it’s still hard for us to speak or understand it. We are at the beginner-intermediate level, and we’ve hired a tutor to help our continued language learning; a local high school girl who comes over every week or so for one or two hours. She’s great—in fact her first name is Patience. I’m not speaking figuratively, and that’s not what her name translates into, that’s really her name: Patience. Having a tutor named Patience is like having a dentist named Gentle. It’s reassuring.
Question: can you teach me a few things to say in siSwati?
Here are a few siSwati phrases, sayings, and figures of speech for you to practice and impress (or utterly confuse) your friends. K’s sound like English G’s, C’s are clicks and HL’s /DL’s are fricatives, as described above.
Angisati siSwati – I do not know siSwati
Kulungile — it’s okay/alright
Ngiyabonga kakhulu – I thank you very much
Wemukelekile -- You are welcome
Ngicela emaswidi? – may I please have some candy?
Uyangiphatamisa – you are bothering me.
Ngipuma eMelika futsi kitsi kukaSeattle – I am from America and my family home is at Seattle.
We like to walk in/on the mountain– sitsandza kuhamba ensambeni
Umfati wami (or: Umkami) – my wife
Indvodzami – my husband
Uyasebenta kakhulu engadzeni namuhla, make! – you are working very hard in the garden today, mother!
Akamuhle lilanga liphuma – she is as beautiful as the sun.
Akamubi wehlula emanti – he/she is so ugly that even daily facial lotions can’t change him/her.
Angihambisani nalentfo – I am not of the same opinion.
Indendende – it’s a long lousy and boring speech.
Kuba munyu kwetibunu – to be tired of sitting on your butt for a long time in the same place Yincane nayitekwako – It’s a big long story that cannot be described.
Kandlula wafa -- there is no food to offer you; we have nothing.
Mehlo madzala – long time no see [“mehlo” is eyes].
Muhle sengatsi akayi ngaphandle – she’s so beautiful that you’d think she doesn’t use the toilet.
Kulola matinyo – to wait impatiently to eat promised meat.
Lizizi – describes a person who likes meat a lot
Okumhlophe! – all the best; best wishes!
And this last one you might already recognize from reading this blog:
Hambani kahle, bamngani bami -- goodbye/go well, my friends.
Question: Is it siSwati or Swahili you’re speaking in Swaziland, and what’s the language like?
We’re learning siSwati, not Swahili. Swahili is typically spoken in Kenya and many places north of us, but no Swazis speak (or would even understand) Swahili. siSwati is in the Bantu language group and is similar to Zulu and its regional variants, which is widely spoken in Southern Africa. They’re so similar in fact that learning one means you can pretty well understand both. Zulu has more types of clicks than siSwati, which primarily uses just a few (or at least variants of a few, depending on which letter follows the click). This fact makes it easy for us to distinguish spoken Zulu: it’s more click-heavy. Anyway, Swazis speak siSwati, not Swahili. That’s a lot of S’s to keep straight, I know, but doing so will provide you with two more S’s: sounding smart.
Question: can you guys make those click sounds yet? What other sounds are different or difficult?
Yes, we can in fact now properly pronounce the clicks in siSwati and don’t have too much trouble saying the words that include them. But it’s taken a great deal of practice and when reading or using an unfamiliar word it still sometimes trips us up. To try it, just place the middle of your tongue on the roof of your mouth (or place the front of your tongue directly behind your front teeth, depending upon usage), and create a kind of suction that, when you force your tongue down and away from your mouth’s roof, makes a click sound. To say “no” in siSwati, which is spelled cha the “ch” is a version of this click: you pronounce the hard C sound at the same time that you make the above-described click. Then you follow it with an a (pronounced “ah”). The hard part is making the click and the C-sound at the same time, but it is possible—the far back of the tongue makes the hard-C while the middle/front of the tongue makes the click.
There are also a lot of sounds that linguists call “lateral fricatives,” which sound a bit like soft, slurred Z’s, and resemble a buzzing hum in the mouth. HL and DL are the most common such sounds in siSwati, as in the town name Nhlangano or the word kudla (to eat) or kudlala (to play). The DL sound has more of the Z sound whereas HL is more breathy and S-like. Some non-siSwati speakers pronounce the HL just like the English “Shl,” which gets them in the same phonetic ballpark I suppose… but it still sounds pretty funny: “I’m going to Shlangano today after our meeting” is just enough off-kilter to be hilarious. Anyway, what’s fairly easy about siSwati for us English speakers is that it uses the same alphabetic letters, and most of those letters represent familiar sounds.
Question: are you fluent siSwati speakers yet?
As of the end of 2008 we are by no means fluent siSwati speakers. Not even close. English is commonly spoken here (in fact Swazi schools use English to teach all subjects and English is the official language of governmental business/operations) so we can usually get by just fine. But in the rural areas, community meetings, and on many individual homesteads, English is rarely used or understood—and that’s where our language training comes in. siSwati is a beautiful, sing-songy sounding language, and some of the grammar/conjugation rules actually enhance the alliteration and rhymes within phrases. We like it—but it’s still hard for us to speak or understand it. We are at the beginner-intermediate level, and we’ve hired a tutor to help our continued language learning; a local high school girl who comes over every week or so for one or two hours. She’s great—in fact her first name is Patience. I’m not speaking figuratively, and that’s not what her name translates into, that’s really her name: Patience. Having a tutor named Patience is like having a dentist named Gentle. It’s reassuring.
Question: can you teach me a few things to say in siSwati?
Here are a few siSwati phrases, sayings, and figures of speech for you to practice and impress (or utterly confuse) your friends. K’s sound like English G’s, C’s are clicks and HL’s /DL’s are fricatives, as described above.
Angisati siSwati – I do not know siSwati
Kulungile — it’s okay/alright
Ngiyabonga kakhulu – I thank you very much
Wemukelekile -- You are welcome
Ngicela emaswidi? – may I please have some candy?
Uyangiphatamisa – you are bothering me.
Ngipuma eMelika futsi kitsi kukaSeattle – I am from America and my family home is at Seattle.
We like to walk in/on the mountain– sitsandza kuhamba ensambeni
Umfati wami (or: Umkami) – my wife
Indvodzami – my husband
Uyasebenta kakhulu engadzeni namuhla, make! – you are working very hard in the garden today, mother!
Akamuhle lilanga liphuma – she is as beautiful as the sun.
Akamubi wehlula emanti – he/she is so ugly that even daily facial lotions can’t change him/her.
Angihambisani nalentfo – I am not of the same opinion.
Indendende – it’s a long lousy and boring speech.
Kuba munyu kwetibunu – to be tired of sitting on your butt for a long time in the same place Yincane nayitekwako – It’s a big long story that cannot be described.
Kandlula wafa -- there is no food to offer you; we have nothing.
Mehlo madzala – long time no see [“mehlo” is eyes].
Muhle sengatsi akayi ngaphandle – she’s so beautiful that you’d think she doesn’t use the toilet.
Kulola matinyo – to wait impatiently to eat promised meat.
Lizizi – describes a person who likes meat a lot
Okumhlophe! – all the best; best wishes!
And this last one you might already recognize from reading this blog:
Hambani kahle, bamngani bami -- goodbye/go well, my friends.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Hello pen pals at Oak Creek School!
We have a bunch of new pen pals: students at Oak Creek School in Cornville, Arizona (which is close to Sedona and Cottonwood), and we just wanted to say: hello and Happy Holdays, Cornville! You all should be getting letters from us very soon. We've enjoyed reading all your letters-- full of great questions and very well written-- and we thank you for writing us.
To everyone else, our friendship with this class is via the Coverdell WorldWise School program, which is offered through the Peace Corps. It gives us a chance to share our expeiences with a classroom back in the US-- and we love it.
To everyone else, our friendship with this class is via the Coverdell WorldWise School program, which is offered through the Peace Corps. It gives us a chance to share our expeiences with a classroom back in the US-- and we love it.
Never leave home without your loin cloth
Sanibonani bonkhosi...As Christmas approaches we're preparing to do something that we haven't done since arriving here: leave the country. We are joining some fellow PCVs and going to South Africa's Kosi Bay National Park, which is on the coast right below the SA/Mozambique border. The Indian Ocean will be warm, the weather will be sweltering, and we'll be going through the bug spray-- and we cannot wait.
I took the above pic while at the local Incwala ceremony, which is kind of hard to explain. It's basically the primary "male" ceremony of the Swazi culture. We went there with some guys from our homestead and community, thinking that we'd just be watching, but in true Swazi style they asked us to join in. There was a part for women as well as men so we both got in line and mimicked the motions of those beside us. It was great but somewhat embarrassing: We had no idea what was going on-- and of course that day was the one time I (Tim) left home without my loin cloth... it's not often that shorts and a T-shirt makes you feel over-dressed for the occasion. Still, it was pretty cool to be included, and next year we'll have some of the chants and "dance" steps down.
Over the past month or so, we've had some actual community development/support work to do. On Thanksgiving we helped out with a local event for pre-school aged kids, most of whom were orphans/vulnerable children from the chiefdom's NCPs. They had a drama competition around the theme of "challenges at home" or something (imagine: tiny kids acting out family dramas like poverty and abuse... it was heartbreaking and adorable). Hundreds showed up, probably because beef was on the lunch menu. More recently, we helped out with a Red Cross food-aid effort in our chiefdom. We helped put the "recipients" list together and then jamie-girl accompanied the MP and other local officials when the Red Cross distributed it. It was quite a scene, with more than 1000 men, women, and children lining up in the heat to receive bags of rice and cooking oil (donated by Taiwan/World Vision this time). It was one of those, "you know you're in Africa when..." moments. And that same day I (Tim) was back at our local umphakatsi (chief's homestead and community gathering center) for a much-anticipated groundbreaking: we're beginning construction on a small community soup kitchen for the NCP (neighborhood care point, which feeds OVCs). The Zombodze MP (Member of Parliament) has so far been great to work with, and he managed to secure some funding for the project. One of our goals for the next few years is to make sure that every NCP site in our chiefdom (there are about 8) has a structure to store and lock up their food and conduct little classes or educational sessions for the OVCs they feed every day. Currently they all have some kind of firepit, but only about half have an enclosed, lockable structure.
Jamie-girl has been working to implement a community calendar of events and has made great progress on that in the past few weeks, as well as an effort to get important health information on the bulletin board of our local Clinic. School will be back in session by the end of January and we'll both be active there, starting up student clubs that target career and life skills guidance counseling, as well as a small-business/Jr. Entrepeneurs project with a partnering NGO.
Training is over, folks-- let the work begin!
It's hot these days. Our garden is growing and expanding-- over 80 tomato plants alone!-- and we have spent some sweaty afternoons weeding the beds, planting corn, and clearing new beds for transplants. Thing is, there's almost always a breeze and it's downright pleasant in the shade. The evenings are beautiful. We do need more rain (haven't had any all week), but otherwise we're fine with Zombodze's summer weather... so far. They say January is blistering. But you know, ever since spending May in India (and a sampling of Phoenix in summertime), nothing has really felt unbearably hot. I think our internal thermometers were permanently altered.
We sure miss everyone this Christmas season and wish you all a very merry holiday season. We'll not likely get back online until after the new year, so everyone take care until then!
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Pictures of Home
I thought ya'll might be wondering what our place looks like. We live in a two-room hut. The front room is our library, living room, and kitchen. The back room has our computer desk, clothes closet, bed, and bathroom. It's a small space, but we've managed to make it feel homey and not too cluttered. Let your imaginations run wild if you want to continue to create your own idea of how we are living, but this is the reality for those of you who want a peace of mind!
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Alive and Well
Hi
everyone! It's been a while, I know. We've been busy. Election nite was spent with fellow PCVs in the capital city, Mbabane, watching the returns come in on CNN (we rented out a hostel with sat. TV) and it was a pretty amazing experience. But since then we've been busy visiting homesteads in our community and collecting information for a big report/study we wrote on Zombodze. That's finished (for now), though the visits will continue-- just not at such a furious pace.The final component of our PCV training was a week-long event in Manzini: 5 days of training on proposals and project funding options, NGO networking, and just sharing info/ideas with the rest of our PCV family. It was exhausting but oh so fun, as we all got to stay together in a dormitory (at a convent). But now we're headed back to site, and we're excited about the opportunities that this training session revealed.
The rains have arrived and our garden has really taken off. we transplanted beets, tomatoes, and cabbage a few weeks ago, and everything's growing like crazy. It's a lot of fun to be in the garden, and now that the big report is completed we'll be able to hang out there a bit more. the landscape has shed its drab dry-season colorings for beautiful green fields and gardens. And the afternoon thunderstorms make for great sunsets. Lots of new baby goats and cows on the homestead, and fruit trees are beginning to show their potential, especially the peaches and mangoes.
For Thanksgiving we'll be joining some close friends/fellow PCVs at their homestead up in the hills. Their homestead raises turkeys. We have much to be thankful for this year.
More later-- just wanted to let you all know that we're still healthy and happy.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Election season in Swaziland is over
Sept. 21- jamie-girl, here...
Life here is Zombodze has undergone a few changes this past week. The last school term of the year started on Monday. Groups of maroon-uniformed boys and girls are walking to class every morning while I am out jogging. The term began a week later than planned due to recent celebrations on September 6th marking Swaziland and the King’s 40th birthdays. As a result of the school children’s return to class, the bo-make market near school has increased their supply of chips, emaswidi (candies), and frozen juice, i.e. colored sugar water, sort of like a snow cone, which they sell in sandwich bags. The children bite a small hole in the corner of the bag to carefully suck the liquid on their lunch break or their long walk home. Children frequently ask Tim and I to give them “emaswidi”—even adults boldly make the request. I suppress the urge to say, “I can’t give you emaswidi, but I can give you information about HIV/AIDS, support groups, and where to get tested. All you are asking of me is for candy-- really? I haven’t done a very good job explaining to you why I am here. Please, ask me for more.” Zombodze has a history of outsiders coming into their community, and recently, much of that relationship has been centered on food handouts and other foreign aid reliefs as drought and poverty have hit Swaziland. So, the concept of us facilitating community driven improvements and building their capacity is something we will need to explain as we continue to interact with community members.
Elections, which take place on a 5-year cycle, were also held this past week across Swaziland. It has been exciting to be here during this time. Swazis are increasingly vocal about their struggle with unemployment, rising food prices, and growing numbers of orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs). They are definitely demanding the government’s attention. People lined up for at least 200 meters to vote in Zombodze on Friday. Police officers were present to monitor peaceful protesters, but otherwise the day was without incident in our community. From our standpoint, the completion of elections provides us with the person we will be partnering with as we propose community development projects during our service.
Zombodze elected the first disabled representative in the country’s history. He is a T12 paraplegic who was injured about 20 years ago in a mining accident in South Africa. He recovered for a year in Pretoria before returning to Swaziland. He has devoted his life to advocating for the marginalized disabled population of Swaziland and actively partnered with many organizations to secure equipment and wheelchairs for the disabled. He has formed a group of nearly 300 people with disabilities. Incredibly, I am the first physical therapist he has ever met in Swaziland. I’m planning to make myself available to his group when they meet to help in any way I can. It’s amazing to me that of all the places in the world, Peace Corps sent us to Swaziland, and of all the sites in Swaziland, we were assigned to a community in which a community leader has an organized group of people with disabilities that I am in a position to help. I have to believe that is not just coincidence. I wasn’t anticipating doing much work directly related to physical therapy, but now that the opportunity has presented itself, I am wishing I had brought more materials!
Also this past week, we finished planting our second garden with the bo-make and joined the struggle to water our seeds. We have trenches of cabbage, onion, carrot, beet and tomato, as well as individual holes with green peppers. Tim and I are withholding our enthusiasm at this point until we actually see sprouts of green poke up from the soil. We don’t have much confidence in our gardening capabilities. We have faithfully done what we were instructed to do by knowledgeable Swazis: form trenches, sprinkle manure and fertilizer in them along with the seeds, cover the seeds with long bunches of dried grass to retain the scarce moisture we are providing them, and water everyday. It sounds relatively simple, but we remain doubtful. Providing water everyday has been our challenge. We are learning that the trench system that supplies water to our two gardens is not regulated between the OVC and bo-make groups. There appears to be no schedule to allow either reservoir to adequately fill up, leaving lots of water stranded in the trench and wasting the valuable, scarce resource of water that each of them is depending upon. We are hoping that our involvement in both places will help us to be viewed as neutral as we work toward a solution to allocate the water effectively.
Finally, the weather has also been unpredictable and changing. I guess Spring usually is. The sky fluctuates from hot and sunny to cloudy and rainy in a matter of hours. The wind is our one constant, but even it is erratic, blowing from various directions each time we venture outside. Truth be told, we’ve been experiencing more dreary days with thunderstorms or drizzle than anything else the past few weeks. It is more pacific northwest than the pacific northwest, if that is possible (On this point, my husband respectfully disagrees. I am not qualified to make such a statement). The difference being that the muddy ground is mixed with animal waste and the temperature outside is the same as indoors. I’ve been drinking more hot drinks than I probably should and we crawl into bed early to take advantage of our blankets. On the up side, watering the garden has been easier.
Life here is Zombodze has undergone a few changes this past week. The last school term of the year started on Monday. Groups of maroon-uniformed boys and girls are walking to class every morning while I am out jogging. The term began a week later than planned due to recent celebrations on September 6th marking Swaziland and the King’s 40th birthdays. As a result of the school children’s return to class, the bo-make market near school has increased their supply of chips, emaswidi (candies), and frozen juice, i.e. colored sugar water, sort of like a snow cone, which they sell in sandwich bags. The children bite a small hole in the corner of the bag to carefully suck the liquid on their lunch break or their long walk home. Children frequently ask Tim and I to give them “emaswidi”—even adults boldly make the request. I suppress the urge to say, “I can’t give you emaswidi, but I can give you information about HIV/AIDS, support groups, and where to get tested. All you are asking of me is for candy-- really? I haven’t done a very good job explaining to you why I am here. Please, ask me for more.” Zombodze has a history of outsiders coming into their community, and recently, much of that relationship has been centered on food handouts and other foreign aid reliefs as drought and poverty have hit Swaziland. So, the concept of us facilitating community driven improvements and building their capacity is something we will need to explain as we continue to interact with community members.
Elections, which take place on a 5-year cycle, were also held this past week across Swaziland. It has been exciting to be here during this time. Swazis are increasingly vocal about their struggle with unemployment, rising food prices, and growing numbers of orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs). They are definitely demanding the government’s attention. People lined up for at least 200 meters to vote in Zombodze on Friday. Police officers were present to monitor peaceful protesters, but otherwise the day was without incident in our community. From our standpoint, the completion of elections provides us with the person we will be partnering with as we propose community development projects during our service.
Zombodze elected the first disabled representative in the country’s history. He is a T12 paraplegic who was injured about 20 years ago in a mining accident in South Africa. He recovered for a year in Pretoria before returning to Swaziland. He has devoted his life to advocating for the marginalized disabled population of Swaziland and actively partnered with many organizations to secure equipment and wheelchairs for the disabled. He has formed a group of nearly 300 people with disabilities. Incredibly, I am the first physical therapist he has ever met in Swaziland. I’m planning to make myself available to his group when they meet to help in any way I can. It’s amazing to me that of all the places in the world, Peace Corps sent us to Swaziland, and of all the sites in Swaziland, we were assigned to a community in which a community leader has an organized group of people with disabilities that I am in a position to help. I have to believe that is not just coincidence. I wasn’t anticipating doing much work directly related to physical therapy, but now that the opportunity has presented itself, I am wishing I had brought more materials!
Also this past week, we finished planting our second garden with the bo-make and joined the struggle to water our seeds. We have trenches of cabbage, onion, carrot, beet and tomato, as well as individual holes with green peppers. Tim and I are withholding our enthusiasm at this point until we actually see sprouts of green poke up from the soil. We don’t have much confidence in our gardening capabilities. We have faithfully done what we were instructed to do by knowledgeable Swazis: form trenches, sprinkle manure and fertilizer in them along with the seeds, cover the seeds with long bunches of dried grass to retain the scarce moisture we are providing them, and water everyday. It sounds relatively simple, but we remain doubtful. Providing water everyday has been our challenge. We are learning that the trench system that supplies water to our two gardens is not regulated between the OVC and bo-make groups. There appears to be no schedule to allow either reservoir to adequately fill up, leaving lots of water stranded in the trench and wasting the valuable, scarce resource of water that each of them is depending upon. We are hoping that our involvement in both places will help us to be viewed as neutral as we work toward a solution to allocate the water effectively.
Finally, the weather has also been unpredictable and changing. I guess Spring usually is. The sky fluctuates from hot and sunny to cloudy and rainy in a matter of hours. The wind is our one constant, but even it is erratic, blowing from various directions each time we venture outside. Truth be told, we’ve been experiencing more dreary days with thunderstorms or drizzle than anything else the past few weeks. It is more pacific northwest than the pacific northwest, if that is possible (On this point, my husband respectfully disagrees. I am not qualified to make such a statement). The difference being that the muddy ground is mixed with animal waste and the temperature outside is the same as indoors. I’ve been drinking more hot drinks than I probably should and we crawl into bed early to take advantage of our blankets. On the up side, watering the garden has been easier.
things that creep and crawl
Oct06- The other day we were moving brush and making some temporary repairs to a fence around one of the gardens, and Jamie-girl spotted a rain spider crawling along one of the gum tree branches. From leg-tip to leg-tip, this thing was around 8-10cm long, and the only spiders I’ve ever seen bigger were the tarantulas in Arizona. The good news is, it didn’t bite Jamie-girl. The somewhat bad news is, we’ll likely see these things quite often. Our little plant/animal guide to Swaziland says they’re common, widespread, and have “mild venom.” The word “mild” there is really overshadowed by that other word, you know? So I guess from now on we’ll exercise “mild caution” when handling brush.
Coincidentally, I had just been thumbing through the spider section of that book the night before seeing the rain spider (which is the only reason I could identify it), and its description caught my eye not because of the “mild venom” comment but because of two other words: “enter houses.” That’s the last thing I wanted to read; if something’s gonna be big and creepy and venomous, let it stay outdoors-- the last thing I want it to do is “enter houses.” And reading through the rest of the book’s section on local invertebrates further convinced me to step up my efforts (which had already begun) to seal up any little holes and cracks in the walls. We found some ants on the floor a few days back and that launched an effort to find and block their thoroughfares. While doing this I happened upon a modest-sized black spider in the corner behind our food shelving, and as it managed to elude the little wad of toilet paper which I so bravely wielded, it occurred to me (for the thousandth time now) that I’m in Africa—which meant that this was some kind of African spider I was pitting myself against, and perhaps I was outmatched.
It seems to me, if you want to make scarier an animal already kind of scary to begin with, add the locative description of “African” to its name. Example: bees can be kind of dangerous, I guess, but what about Africanized bees? Downright frightening. Or scorpions—they already carry a fair amount of dread with their name, but consider to us North Americans how much more dreadful an African scorpion sounds. Which would you rather face on a dark night with nothing but a flashlight and a flip-flop: a North American scorpion or an African scorpion? Before you answer (and saying “neither” doesn’t count), consider the following description of the (African) buthid scorpion, excerpted from my guidebook: “runs fast with tail straight out, stings readily.” And yes, they too are “widespread.” Or consider the very next entry on my book’s page, the (African) liochelid , a “medium-sized” scorpion whose length—this must be a typo, please let this be a typo—ranges from “9 to 10 cm”. That’s like 3-4 inches, my fellow (metrically-challenged) Americans, And yes, of course it’s widespread—they’re all widespread.
I won’t even get into details on the snake section of our book, other than to say that it lists no less than 19 snakes common to our specific region/climate (so-called “montane grasslands”), 5 of which have a red skull-and-crossbones symbol next to its picture.
So anyway, back in the kitchen… the sudden awareness that I was dealing with an African spider got me thinking that perhaps it could be a more formidable foe than the North American varieties (of which, to be sure, there are downright nasty ones—black widows, brown recluse, Charlotte…). So I did what any sensible young (African) warrior would do: I got myself a bigger wad of toilet paper. And after I killed it I cracked open our Swaziland plants/animals guidebook to see if it was pictured. It wasn’t. But that rain spider was, and so was the sun spider (“medium-sized hairy spider-like creature [huh?] with enormous jaws but lacking venom”}, the banded-legged golden orb spider (“widespread, large spider…mild venom”), the golden-brown baboon spider (“widespread, large robust hairy spider… venom not dangerous to man”) and a few other excellent eight-legged reasons to seal up those cracks and always carry the flashlight to the outhouse after dark.
If you’ve read this far, you probably need a palette-cleansing image to counteract all the unnerving, creepy, itch-inducing descriptions to which I just subjected you. So here’s one, sticking with the African-as-descriptor animal theme: the striking African monarch butterfly, of which our book describes as “widespread, large-winged and brightly colored… flies all year.” They look just like the monarchs back home, except bigger. Picturing it? Feel better now? But wait— here’s my favorite detail about those pretty butterflies: “distasteful to birds because of poisonous chemicals stored in its body.” How cool is that? So, note to self: enjoy looking at the African Monarchs, but try to resist the temptation to pop them in my mouth.
The spiders, on the other hand, are apparently quite edible, and taste like (what else?) chicken.
Coincidentally, I had just been thumbing through the spider section of that book the night before seeing the rain spider (which is the only reason I could identify it), and its description caught my eye not because of the “mild venom” comment but because of two other words: “enter houses.” That’s the last thing I wanted to read; if something’s gonna be big and creepy and venomous, let it stay outdoors-- the last thing I want it to do is “enter houses.” And reading through the rest of the book’s section on local invertebrates further convinced me to step up my efforts (which had already begun) to seal up any little holes and cracks in the walls. We found some ants on the floor a few days back and that launched an effort to find and block their thoroughfares. While doing this I happened upon a modest-sized black spider in the corner behind our food shelving, and as it managed to elude the little wad of toilet paper which I so bravely wielded, it occurred to me (for the thousandth time now) that I’m in Africa—which meant that this was some kind of African spider I was pitting myself against, and perhaps I was outmatched.
It seems to me, if you want to make scarier an animal already kind of scary to begin with, add the locative description of “African” to its name. Example: bees can be kind of dangerous, I guess, but what about Africanized bees? Downright frightening. Or scorpions—they already carry a fair amount of dread with their name, but consider to us North Americans how much more dreadful an African scorpion sounds. Which would you rather face on a dark night with nothing but a flashlight and a flip-flop: a North American scorpion or an African scorpion? Before you answer (and saying “neither” doesn’t count), consider the following description of the (African) buthid scorpion, excerpted from my guidebook: “runs fast with tail straight out, stings readily.” And yes, they too are “widespread.” Or consider the very next entry on my book’s page, the (African) liochelid , a “medium-sized” scorpion whose length—this must be a typo, please let this be a typo—ranges from “9 to 10 cm”. That’s like 3-4 inches, my fellow (metrically-challenged) Americans, And yes, of course it’s widespread—they’re all widespread.
I won’t even get into details on the snake section of our book, other than to say that it lists no less than 19 snakes common to our specific region/climate (so-called “montane grasslands”), 5 of which have a red skull-and-crossbones symbol next to its picture.
So anyway, back in the kitchen… the sudden awareness that I was dealing with an African spider got me thinking that perhaps it could be a more formidable foe than the North American varieties (of which, to be sure, there are downright nasty ones—black widows, brown recluse, Charlotte…). So I did what any sensible young (African) warrior would do: I got myself a bigger wad of toilet paper. And after I killed it I cracked open our Swaziland plants/animals guidebook to see if it was pictured. It wasn’t. But that rain spider was, and so was the sun spider (“medium-sized hairy spider-like creature [huh?] with enormous jaws but lacking venom”}, the banded-legged golden orb spider (“widespread, large spider…mild venom”), the golden-brown baboon spider (“widespread, large robust hairy spider… venom not dangerous to man”) and a few other excellent eight-legged reasons to seal up those cracks and always carry the flashlight to the outhouse after dark.
If you’ve read this far, you probably need a palette-cleansing image to counteract all the unnerving, creepy, itch-inducing descriptions to which I just subjected you. So here’s one, sticking with the African-as-descriptor animal theme: the striking African monarch butterfly, of which our book describes as “widespread, large-winged and brightly colored… flies all year.” They look just like the monarchs back home, except bigger. Picturing it? Feel better now? But wait— here’s my favorite detail about those pretty butterflies: “distasteful to birds because of poisonous chemicals stored in its body.” How cool is that? So, note to self: enjoy looking at the African Monarchs, but try to resist the temptation to pop them in my mouth.
The spiders, on the other hand, are apparently quite edible, and taste like (what else?) chicken.
Past and Present in Zombodze
We aren’t the first Peace Corps Volunteers to live here in Zombodze. The last one was here for about a year back in 2005(ish). But about 25 years ago a young PCV named Dan Webber was placed here, and his influence and projects remain an important part of this community—and an important part of our own PCV experience thus far. What follows is a pretty cool story, folks, and it continues to unfold.
The first time we visited Zombodze we walked into the carpentry workshop and met the carpenters, a young man and an older man. When the older man learned that we were PCVs, he pulled down a framed black-and-white photo from the wall above his workbench and handed it to me. I saw in the photo two men shaking hands in front of a van with the words “Sebenta PC Training” written on its side. One of the men was a Swazi, dressed in traditional Swazi clothes, and the other was a young westerner with a big beard and an even bigger smile. The carpenter told us that the picture was taken back around 1982, and that the westerner in it was Dan Webber, a Peace Corps Volunteer who’d lived and worked here in Zombodze—and whose projects included constructing the very building in which we stood. In fact, all the buildings in that complex of workshops and stores are the result of Dan’s outstanding partnership work with the community.
As I held that picture and listened to our friend translate the carpenter’s account of how much Dan did for him and the community, I felt myself apart of something larger, and I knew, standing there, that I was right where I wanted to be. And though I’d already been in training in Swaziland for a few months, I think that might have been the moment my personal Peace Corps experience began: The gray-bearded carpenter (Mkhulu Twala is his name) returned the picture to its place on his wall, told us he was happy we’d arrived, and invited us to come visit him any time. We have.
It gets better. I told this story to a fellow PCV a week or so later, and she told me that in fact Dan Weber was on Facebook and had contacted some Swaziland PCVs regarding his old community of Zombodze. Later she gave us his email (thanks, S.), and since then we’ve been in direct contact with Dan (I think he even reads this blog—hi Dan!). He’s passed us some photos and an account of his time here back in the day (1981-83), including pics of Mkhulu Twala and other people in the community that he’d befriended and worked with. His experience in Zombodze was incredible—Dan built his own home here and he could speak fluent siSwati upon leaving, and the results of his community development work endure.
So we’ve been able to share those photos Dan sent us with Twala the carpenter as well as others who knew Dan, and we gave them updates about him. And it’s been an amazing thing to share: they are overjoyed. In turn, we’ve been able to send Dan some current photos of his old friends and exchange community info with him… this intercontinental, inter-generational exchange continues to develop, and it’s quite a meaningful experience for us. His longtime friends here in Zombodze are now our newest friends, welcoming us to Zombodze with open arms.
So thank you, Dan—siyabonga kakhulu, umfanfigile!
The first time we visited Zombodze we walked into the carpentry workshop and met the carpenters, a young man and an older man. When the older man learned that we were PCVs, he pulled down a framed black-and-white photo from the wall above his workbench and handed it to me. I saw in the photo two men shaking hands in front of a van with the words “Sebenta PC Training” written on its side. One of the men was a Swazi, dressed in traditional Swazi clothes, and the other was a young westerner with a big beard and an even bigger smile. The carpenter told us that the picture was taken back around 1982, and that the westerner in it was Dan Webber, a Peace Corps Volunteer who’d lived and worked here in Zombodze—and whose projects included constructing the very building in which we stood. In fact, all the buildings in that complex of workshops and stores are the result of Dan’s outstanding partnership work with the community.
As I held that picture and listened to our friend translate the carpenter’s account of how much Dan did for him and the community, I felt myself apart of something larger, and I knew, standing there, that I was right where I wanted to be. And though I’d already been in training in Swaziland for a few months, I think that might have been the moment my personal Peace Corps experience began: The gray-bearded carpenter (Mkhulu Twala is his name) returned the picture to its place on his wall, told us he was happy we’d arrived, and invited us to come visit him any time. We have.
It gets better. I told this story to a fellow PCV a week or so later, and she told me that in fact Dan Weber was on Facebook and had contacted some Swaziland PCVs regarding his old community of Zombodze. Later she gave us his email (thanks, S.), and since then we’ve been in direct contact with Dan (I think he even reads this blog—hi Dan!). He’s passed us some photos and an account of his time here back in the day (1981-83), including pics of Mkhulu Twala and other people in the community that he’d befriended and worked with. His experience in Zombodze was incredible—Dan built his own home here and he could speak fluent siSwati upon leaving, and the results of his community development work endure.
So we’ve been able to share those photos Dan sent us with Twala the carpenter as well as others who knew Dan, and we gave them updates about him. And it’s been an amazing thing to share: they are overjoyed. In turn, we’ve been able to send Dan some current photos of his old friends and exchange community info with him… this intercontinental, inter-generational exchange continues to develop, and it’s quite a meaningful experience for us. His longtime friends here in Zombodze are now our newest friends, welcoming us to Zombodze with open arms.
So thank you, Dan—siyabonga kakhulu, umfanfigile!
There are currently about 50 PCVs placed in all 4 regions of Swaziland. If there are any other Swaziland RPCVs out there reading this who’d like to find out if a current PCV is living in your old community, leave us a message and we’ll be happy to check it for you.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Address Update
We have a new mailbox closer to our site in Zombodze. You can send letters and packages to this address, but items sent to our old mailing address in Mbabane will still reach us. The old address is located at the Peace Corps HQ. The new address allows us to check our mail more frequently when we make trips into town.
PO Box 236
Nhlangano, S400
Swaziland - Africa
We are enjoying reading all the comments that you're leaving on the blog, even though we can't reply (SLOW connection speeds). Thanks everyone! We miss you! Keep in touch.
PO Box 236
Nhlangano, S400
Swaziland - Africa
We are enjoying reading all the comments that you're leaving on the blog, even though we can't reply (SLOW connection speeds). Thanks everyone! We miss you! Keep in touch.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
gardening begins
The reason we’re planting in 2 separate gardens is simple: we want a participatory presence in both places. One garden is run by an OVC group (Orphans and Vulnerable Children), and we hope to work with them on various projects. The other garden is the large "bomake," or mothers, garden—a community garden that our own make (pronounced mah-gay) belongs to, along with many others. At both gardens the main challenge is water. Both rely upon open trenches that carry water from a stream 1.5km away, and the trenches are full of sediment and their walls have eroded in a few critical areas (a few rainy season floods). So not much water reaches the garden reservoirs. The bomake garden actually has underground piping to deliver water to spigots in all parts of the garden… but the reservoir that feeds these pipes is all-but dry most of the time. This is an issue that we hope to work on during our time here, and being active members of these gardens marks the beginning of our involvement.When those small reservoirs are dry, everyone must either haul water to their plots by hand or else coax a trickle down the trenches with a shovel or a hoe until enough water gathers in the pit to fill a bucket or two (this second option only applies to the OVC garden). These water difficulties have diminished overall participation in the gardens, thereby keeping affordable and healthy food from many kitchen tables in Zombodze.
As we have recently witnessed first-hand, there is nothing quite so desperate as a family lacking in food and water. Here, the two necessities seem to go hand-in-hand: without an adequate supply of water, how can one grow food? By comparison, washing clothes or dishes or even bathing in clean water seems a luxury: one bucket bath could water perhaps 5 rows of carrots. I’m thankful that our homestead has the means for its own water tap and well—we never go without water or its benefits. But I think that our work in the gardens will give us some real-life appreciation for what water scarcity means for small-scale food production.
As I write this, I keep thinking of the little misters in the produce sections of grocery stores back home. And I cannot help but consider the comparative extravagance of it: our grocery stores continuously water crops after they’re picked, usually with a little thunder-and-rain soundtrack. Why do they do this? Maybe it’s aesthetic-- moist produce does look tastier. Or maybe wet produce doesn’t spoil as quickly… I don’t know. If anyone knows, please tell me. But I was always convinced they did this little misting routine because wet produce weighs more (and therefore sells for more) than dry produce, and the trickery of it always bothered me a little. Now, thinking about it with the Zombodze gardens in mind, it bothers me for other reasons.
Jamie-girl meets a dog
Jamie-girl, here… Well everyone, I’ve done it once again. Why are menacing insects and animals so attracted to me? I sure would like to figure it out. I guess the stories I get to tell because of the attention I receive from them are my compensation (as long as my encounters aren’t too serious). In New Zealand, it was a spider. In Swaziland, it was a dog.
I’ve been able to run as much as I want here in Swaziland, which has been a pleasant surprise. I was expecting to give it up or at least be very restricted in my exercise routine because women don’t really do any recreational sports here—or even wear pants for that matter! In the rural communities, traditional dress for the ladies is long skirts and dresses. However, my training community—and now, my permanent community—has been receptive to my habit of jogging. I have actually met several people rather quickly because I am jogging all over the countryside and people inevitably want me to stop and talk to them. As you can imagine, I am 
quite a strange sight—a white girl in trousers running for no apparent reason other than to "be healthy." The concept is foreign to them—life here is strenuous enough. There is no need for additional activity. The women in particular are tirelessly performing chores as well as shouldering the responsibility of raising their children. Many mothers carry their young child on their back as they walk long distances to fetch 25L containers of water or balance large loads on their heads. I’m in awe of their physical strength.
Oh, I should briefly explain the role of dogs in Swaziland. Rural families keep dogs for protection and security, not as pets. The concept of an animal owned for companionship is not part of a Swazi’s relationship with their animals; they are food or safety or money. Dogs are raised to guard valuable assets, like maize, or keep strangers away. Anyway, early in our pre-service training, I was on one of my afternoon jogs. In the past, curious dogs followed me along their fence for a short distance, but ultimately returned to their naps in the sun. This time, as I was passing a couple of dogs from a homestead, they barked and paralleled me along their fence as usual, but instead of losing interest, they found a hole in their fence and continued to pursue me. One of them nipped at my feet and bit my leg. The damage wasn’t very bad—a couple of teeth broke the skin and a swollen bruise surrounded the area. It was bleeding, but didn’t require stitches. However minor the assault was, this was a problem. I was worried about rabies. It is not uncommon to encounter dogs in the rural areas that have not received their shots. I tried to ask the family if their dog had gotten its treatment, but it was unclear, most likely no.
As luck would have it, we were scheduled to begin our series of rabies immunizations the next day. Ugh! Even if we had already started the series, an actual bite from an animal suspected of having rabies requires an additional immuno-globulin injection directly into the wound within 24 hours. Like I said, lucky me. I spoke with our medical officer and a Peace Corps vehicle was sent immediately to pick me up and take me to Mbabane for treatment. Jamie tagged along for support and the possibility of spending the night in a nice B & B called Gloria’s that we had already heard wonderful things about from the group ahead of us (some rumors about hot showers and TV).
Upon arriving at the hospital, we learned that apparently the immuno-globulin injection is scarce in Swaziland. In fact, a vial of it couldn’t readily be located. Our medical officer used all her connections to track down the elusive serum. At one point there was even talk of crossing the border into South Africa if circumstances didn’t materialize in Swaziland. This would have been a bit complicated since our government-issued passports were still being processed for work visas and my personal passport didn’t have an entry stamp for Swaziland. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that worst-case scenario. A couple of vials were discovered and I was scheduled to get treatment the next day. Let me just say, I have been poked a number of times for different immunizations—several in the few weeks prior to this incident—but nothing compares to receiving an injection directly into an open wound. The doctor had to massage it into the area too. I didn’t look, but I could feel my leg twitching even though the doctor was trying to be as gentle as possible. In addition to the immuno-globulin shot, I had to go for 5 or 6 more rabies injections over the next several weeks. I can honestly say I don’t flinch anymore when a needle is being pointed into my arm. I learned one of my earliest Swazi lessons: it is a good idea to carry rocks or a big stick when running to scare the dogs. I have a scar to prove it.
I’ve been able to run as much as I want here in Swaziland, which has been a pleasant surprise. I was expecting to give it up or at least be very restricted in my exercise routine because women don’t really do any recreational sports here—or even wear pants for that matter! In the rural communities, traditional dress for the ladies is long skirts and dresses. However, my training community—and now, my permanent community—has been receptive to my habit of jogging. I have actually met several people rather quickly because I am jogging all over the countryside and people inevitably want me to stop and talk to them. As you can imagine, I am 
quite a strange sight—a white girl in trousers running for no apparent reason other than to "be healthy." The concept is foreign to them—life here is strenuous enough. There is no need for additional activity. The women in particular are tirelessly performing chores as well as shouldering the responsibility of raising their children. Many mothers carry their young child on their back as they walk long distances to fetch 25L containers of water or balance large loads on their heads. I’m in awe of their physical strength.Oh, I should briefly explain the role of dogs in Swaziland. Rural families keep dogs for protection and security, not as pets. The concept of an animal owned for companionship is not part of a Swazi’s relationship with their animals; they are food or safety or money. Dogs are raised to guard valuable assets, like maize, or keep strangers away. Anyway, early in our pre-service training, I was on one of my afternoon jogs. In the past, curious dogs followed me along their fence for a short distance, but ultimately returned to their naps in the sun. This time, as I was passing a couple of dogs from a homestead, they barked and paralleled me along their fence as usual, but instead of losing interest, they found a hole in their fence and continued to pursue me. One of them nipped at my feet and bit my leg. The damage wasn’t very bad—a couple of teeth broke the skin and a swollen bruise surrounded the area. It was bleeding, but didn’t require stitches. However minor the assault was, this was a problem. I was worried about rabies. It is not uncommon to encounter dogs in the rural areas that have not received their shots. I tried to ask the family if their dog had gotten its treatment, but it was unclear, most likely no.
As luck would have it, we were scheduled to begin our series of rabies immunizations the next day. Ugh! Even if we had already started the series, an actual bite from an animal suspected of having rabies requires an additional immuno-globulin injection directly into the wound within 24 hours. Like I said, lucky me. I spoke with our medical officer and a Peace Corps vehicle was sent immediately to pick me up and take me to Mbabane for treatment. Jamie tagged along for support and the possibility of spending the night in a nice B & B called Gloria’s that we had already heard wonderful things about from the group ahead of us (some rumors about hot showers and TV).
Upon arriving at the hospital, we learned that apparently the immuno-globulin injection is scarce in Swaziland. In fact, a vial of it couldn’t readily be located. Our medical officer used all her connections to track down the elusive serum. At one point there was even talk of crossing the border into South Africa if circumstances didn’t materialize in Swaziland. This would have been a bit complicated since our government-issued passports were still being processed for work visas and my personal passport didn’t have an entry stamp for Swaziland. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that worst-case scenario. A couple of vials were discovered and I was scheduled to get treatment the next day. Let me just say, I have been poked a number of times for different immunizations—several in the few weeks prior to this incident—but nothing compares to receiving an injection directly into an open wound. The doctor had to massage it into the area too. I didn’t look, but I could feel my leg twitching even though the doctor was trying to be as gentle as possible. In addition to the immuno-globulin shot, I had to go for 5 or 6 more rabies injections over the next several weeks. I can honestly say I don’t flinch anymore when a needle is being pointed into my arm. I learned one of my earliest Swazi lessons: it is a good idea to carry rocks or a big stick when running to scare the dogs. I have a scar to prove it.
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