top 10 highlights

Top 10 highlights, in no particular order, of our last three weeks or so here in Zombodze (not including the College Fair-- see previous post for that)...

1. Today while doing the laundry, Jamie-girl estimated that we only have to hand-wash all our clothes about 40 more times.  Her estimate is based upon doing it once per week… I suggested that if we only did it once every 2 weeks we’d get that number down to 20.  Sensing my lazy ulterior motives, she shook her head disapprovingly.  So 40 more times it is.  Summers are much easier for clothes-washing: less overall bulk, and virtually no pants or socks. But still, 40 seems like a big number to me. 

 2. With today’s afternoon weather akin to standing in front of a hair dryer, our clothes dried really, really quickly hanging on the line.  Maybe not a legitimate “highlight,” but exciting nonetheless.

 3. Down in the community garden, water now regularly gushes from the spigots.  Many men, women and children now use lengths of hose (connecting them to the spigots) to water their garden plots—compared to carrying the water one bucket at a time from a muddy seep 100 meters away.  It’s a miraculous difference.  I saw Grandfather Simelane using a sprinkler head the other day.  There is still work to do on the renovation project (repairing a few leaks, installing valves, replacing old/broken parts, improving upper reservoir, building concrete retention tanks in the garden), but the transformation is already apparent.  People are expanding their plots, new areas are being cleared, unwanted trees are being removed from within the fenceline… a new energy of optimism is palpable among the gardeners.  I like being there.

 4. Also in the garden, We planted a bunch of beans and in a few weeks we’ll plant more (staggered sowing will stretch out our harvest).  We’ve also planted more beets, carrots, tomatoes, potatoes… and our cabbage, corn and squash are off to good starts.

 5. Scooter, our favorite of the 5 homestead dogs, has injured his paw.  One of the pads is flayed open like a prawn, as though he stepped on a big piece of glass or something, and I cannot imagine he’ll heal up very easily.  But he’s always licking it and keeping it clean, and the wound actually seems to be improving.  We’ve seen him heal from nasty flesh wounds before, so maybe he’ll be back to his old self soon enough.  But these days he hobbles around on just three legs, which hinders his favorite pastime: harassing wayward cattle. 

 6. While hiking around on one of our favorite boulder-strewn mountaintops here in Zombodze, we had a little run-in with a snake.  I was standing on top of a rock under which it was hanging out.  It popped its head up and looked at me, and here’s the thing: it was the thin, hooded head of a cobra.  In an instant I hopped away to a different rock, and we watched from a distance as it slithered through the grass and vanished behind some other boulders.  Seeing a snake is not that rare, even big ones (this was well over 1 meter long and thick as my wrist), but this particular sighting merits special mention because, after consulting our trusty wildlife ID book, we’re about 80% sure it was a Mozambique spitting cobra, one of the so-called Big Seven (the 7 deadly snake species living in Swaziland).  Isn’t that a great, ferocious name?  It’s common and widespread here, though apparently less so in our specific climate region, and as its name promises, it has incredible ability to… I’ll quote from the book: “spit venom up to three meters at any threatening movement.”  3 meters, for the metrically challenged, is almost 10 feet-- and they aim for the eyes.  Apparently I didn’t constitute enough of a threat to the snake, standing on a rock 1 or 2 feet away from its head with a walking stick in my hand… and though I’m thankful of that, I’m also personally offended.  Not threatening enough??  I’ll have you know, I’m plenty threatening.  Let it be known: the Mozambique spitting cobra is both dangerous AND insulting.  Jamie-girl, having heard a “snake-like sound,” had avoided that rock altogether.  Smart girl.  Have I thanked you all for your thoughts and prayers lately?  Thank you.  Have I asked you to keep them up?  Please do.  I truly love having stories like this… but only because they end well. 

 7. As a result of the above experience, we had a rather careful and tense hike back down the boulders of what WAS our favorite local camping and hiking spot.  Not sure we’ll be pitching the tent up there again… bummer.

 8. H1N1, the swine flu, is making the rounds in Swaziland.  At last count, 13 PCVs had it.  They’re all gonna be fine, and we’re fine too, but the PC Office has placed overnight travel restrictions on us until things calm down.  The attention garnered by the swine flu in Swaziland has been a source of much frustration for us PCVs: we often struggle to raise awareness about the far more lethal threat of HIV/AIDS, all while this flu strain gets front-page coverage.

 9. The wives of all 4 married couples in our Group 6 recently got together and finalized the dates of our beach camping trip to Mozambique.  It’s 3 weeks away.  I’m counting the hours.  I now daydream about the warm Indian Ocean waters.

 10. Some friends of ours recently passed us a bunch of great African music, and we’re enjoying it.  Artists from all over the continent—Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, all over West Africa… it’s great stuff.  Ali Farka Toure, Baaba Maal, Dub Colossus, Ernest Ranglin, Habib Koite, Mandoza, Femi Kuti, Manu Dibango (African soul), and lots of stuff from West African jazz legend Fela Kuti. 

High School College Fair

Last week the local high school had its first ever College Fair, thanks to the efforts of Jamie-girl.  She managed to get representatives from 7 tertiary institutions operating in Swaziland to come and speak with all the Form 4 and 5 students (equivalent to US grades 11 and 12).  The school faculty was really pleased with the event and they now want to hold another one next academic year (hopefully the beginning of an annual thing).  The students here face challenges in getting reliable, first-hand info about their post-high school academic options, so this College Fair was very well received by them.  There were a few business/technical schools at the Fair that many students didn’t even know about—and since there’s only one university in Swaziland, those schools offer some important options. 

After the event I got a note from a student that really made our day: “Sir I don’t know where to start when telling your wife how thankful I am about the eye-opener college fair. I’m now looking forward to my future…”  So cool.  It turns out that formal and informal guidance counseling in the high school has proven to be a really valuable aspect of our work here.  Back in the US, teens and students can slip up a few times and still have some reasonable opportunities to get back on track, but here there’s just no room for error and those same little slip-ups can result in hopelessness about their future.  This student’s note was encouraging to us.

The next Royal Residence

Last week a local friend of ours was part of a Zombodze delegation that was summoned to meet with the King, His Majesty Mswati III, at his royal residence in nearby Embangweni.  And he came back with interesting news for the chiefdom.

 The king wants to build another royal residence here, on the grounds of Zombodze’s umphakatsi (the chief’s homestead and center of community life), and preparations will begin within the year.  What that means is this: once the residence is built, one of the queens will live here.  Not the Queen Mother, mind you, but one of the others.

 The king currently has 10 royal residences (and 13 wives,) the nearest one being about 25km away at Embangweni… so why build another one here at Zombodze?  Well, there happens to be a lot of historical significance to this particular location.  Our friend explained that the Zombodze umphakatsi is the site of what’s called a “royal kraal,” a kraal being a place where cattle are kept (read: corral).  And, according to our friend, this is actually where Swaziland’s first king lived, King Ngwane (which explains why Zombodze is more commonly known as Ngwane). 

 It goes back to ancient times, when the Swazi people parted ways with and warred against the Zulu and the Nkosi people.  This Chiefdom was where King Ngwane and his Swazi warriors established their territorial boundary with the Zulu.  In fact, the neighboring South African state, which we can see from our homestead, is called KwaZulu-Natal, “home of the Zulu.’  So the royal family from which King Mswati III descends has ancient ties to this specific location.  The first king (Ngwane) is apparently buried on the other side of a nearby hill.  And here in Southern Africa, ancestral connections are nothing less than spiritual connections. 

 Because of all this ancestral significance, the royal family often comes to Zombodze’s royal kraal to perform certain important rituals and ceremonies.  If there’s an election, for example, or some auspicious occasion requiring a certain ancestral ceremony they’ll come at night, do their thing, and then be gone before sunrise.  And I guess the King figures it would be much easier in all of this coming and going to have a royal residence here. 

 I’m sure we’ll be gone before the residence is completed.  It will undoubtedly change things for this community.  Having high fences and walls and armed guards at umphakatsi will be different, and having a Queen as a local resident will surely change public life here.  Perhaps certain community-development projects will be fast-tracked, and perhaps the local economy will get a boost… I don’t know.  But regardless, it’s exciting news for the Chiefdom and I think there’s a certain amount of community pride about the whole thing.  Which is good; everyone deserves to feel proud about where they’re from.

 By the way, if you happen to have a copy of Shaka Zulu, please send it our way.  We’d like to watch it now, as much of it apparently takes place in these surroundings.

Kombi Logic

Kombi (koom-bee): a privately owned and operated minivan taxi, specially modified and licensed for public transport, which adheres to specific routes (like a bus) and which is notorious for three common characteristics: blaring loud music, having mechanical problems of all possible varieties, and overloading passengers.

Over the past year we have grown accustomed to various routines and daily-life details we’d consider to be uncomfortable (or at least inconvenient) back home.  We hardly notice or even miss having running water inside our home, for example.  But relying upon kombis and busses for all our movement is still pretty annoying to me.  We’re now mostly numb to the various physical discomforts-- being cram-packed in them, breathing exhaust fumes, enduring loud (and really bad) music, having anxiety about the driver’s recklessness and the vehicle’s road-worthiness… these are all things we’re quite used to.  But what continues to frustrate us is how kombis and busses make otherwise easy errands difficult.  They can completely thwart one’s attempts at keeping schedules and plans, patience and sanity.  But sometimes they provide us with funny stories, and for that—and only that—I’m thankful to them.

Our kombi ride from Nhlangano back to Zombodze last week started out pretty typical: we went to the bus rank (a big parking lot for busses and kombis full of horns and hollering), got into the kombi marked ‘Zombodze,’ and proceeded to wait for it to fill up.  Official capacity was 15 but they rarely leave without having at least 17 passengers (driver not included), plus everyone’s bags and groceries piled into it.  And this time was no different in that regard.  We set out for our 35-minute ride with 17 passengers, and it was pretty comfortable by kombi standards: the music wasn’t very loud and it may have been overloaded but not ridiculously so; not circus-clown overloaded.

But as we left the paved highway and started heading down the dirt road that leads to Zombodze, a police truck passed us, then came to a stop in front of us.  And before our kombi could go around it, two policemen were motioning for us to pull over.  The usual spot-inspection of the kombi ensued, and the police counted 2 passengers too many.  So the driver got out and walked back to the police truck to do business while us passengers waited.  These things take time.  Everything takes time.

Eventually, the driver and his conductor (a guy who sits at the slider door and collects money) were given two choices: either they accept a ticket for E120 (or about US$15), representing E60 per violation, or… they pay the cops E30 in cash and go on their way.  So okay-- a typical roadside bribery situation, nothing unusual about that. 

The conductor and driver paid off the corrupt (and cheap) police and our kombi resumed its bumpy ride down the dirt road without having to unload any passengers.  And within a few minutes, the kombi stopped to pick up another passenger.  18 people inside, which meant that every “row” was now truly packed, but nothing we couldn’t endure for the remaining 10km or so.  But then the driver stopped to pick up another person, and then another one—making 20 passengers.  And that, I can tell you, is an unusually tight fit.  If you’re among 20 passengers packed into a standard-sized kombi and you didn’t previously know your benchseat-neighbor, you certainly know them now.       

Jamie and I weren’t the only ones who couldn’t help but laugh at the sudden turn of events—from being pulled over for overcrowding to being legitimately overcrowded in a matter of minutes.  What was the driver thinking?  Well, here’s the thing.  He’d never have loaded up 20 passengers had he NOT been pulled over and fined.  But since he was now down E30, he had a strong incentive to pick up as many passengers as possible, which is exactly what he did.  It’s kombi logic: he needed to earn back the money those police had taken. 

I’m pretty sure the irony was utterly lost on our driver.  By the time we reached Zombodze, I counted 21 passengers in the kombi—with the official capacity being 15 (driver not included).  One was a kid, and he didn’t take up too much space… but still, I think it was the second most crowded kombi I’ve ever been in.  All because we’d been pulled over for overcrowding. 

Some people here like to throw around the acronym, TIA, which stands for ‘This Is Africa.’  I don’t like to use it, mostly because as a volunteer for a Federal agency there are already enough TLA’s  (three-letter acronyms) in my life.  But if I did like to say TIA, I guess that kombi escapade would have been an ideal occasion: corrupt enforcement of vehicle overcrowding leads to an immediate increase in… overcrowding.

Reed Dance: video clip

Since our pics of the Umhlanga ceremony don't really do it justice, here's a short video clip to give you an idea of the event's movement and sound.  

Umhlanga (Reed) Dance

Last weekend we attended one of Swaziland’s two big, annual cultural events, the Umhlanga (Reed) Dance.  The main ceremony is held in Lobamba at the King’s royal residence, the official location of all Swazi cultural ceremonies.  But we just went to the regional one (which happens a few weeks later as the King travels to his other royal residencies throughout the kingdom replicating the ceremony).  The Reed Dance ceremony is for the young, maiden (virgin) women of Swaziland.  The traditions and symbolism behind it is fairly complex... from a spectator's point of view, it looks like a large parade or procession of girls and women in traditional wear dancing and singing for the king and his men.

Here are some pics, as it's hard to describe otherwise.  there were between 10,000 and 16,000 participants at this regional ceremony (the national one had about 80,000).  Red feathers worn in the hair indicates royalty-- in this case, the princesses. 

 

The pics don't do this event justice-- the sounds and movement of it are amazing.  We'll put together a short video to post for next time.  

Garden Project Update

We're staying in the capital city of Mbabane for the rest of the week for our mid-service medical and dental exams. This means we'll be spending a lot of time in the PC Office's Volunteer Lounge which has a couple of computers--a nice perk.

We wanted to provide everyone with an update regarding the community garden water project. Last week we finished digging the 730 meter trench and laid the pipe on thursday. We had a crew of 10-15 men, women, and children performing the work. The men joined the the pipe because that needed muscle and the women and children covered the pipe with dirt once it was in the ground. Now, the community garden spigots have water again! We call this "Phase I" of the project. When we return from our medical exams next week, we'll begin Phase II which involves installing flush valves and filters as well as fortifying some areas, namely at the headwaters of our source, for sustainability.

To be continued...

Down the Trenchline

Hi everyone-

Work has begun on the community garden's new water system. It's an all-volunteer labor project, and the community turnout has been good. This week the water pipe trench will be finished, and on Thursday we'll be placing and covering the new pipe. Anyway, this video shows work on the rockiest (and therefore most difficult) section of trench.-- a good volunteer turnout that day.