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.”