Stigmatizing Stigma (and also Nginemidlwane!)

So the other day I was sitting in the Deputy Head Teacher’s office (he was gone) busy doing nothing when two Form 4 (Grade 11) boys walked in to ask me questions about sex and HIV and other things they can’t talk to their normal teachers about. They asked me about ARVs and how do ARVs work? (There are reverse transcriptase and protease inhibitors.) Do they cure HIV? (No, they just slow the progression of the virus.) Can you still spread HIV if you’re taking ARVs? (Even with treatment, it is still possible to spread HIV to others.) Why do people wait to start taking ARVs? (You don’t start taking ARVs in Swaziland until your CD4 count is 200 or lower, which can be up to 10 years after infection.) How long can you live once you start taking ARVs? (Ten years is pretty standard, but it depends on a lot of other factors.

At this point, they did some math. If you are infected for 10 years before you have to take ARVs, and if you can live on ARVs for about 10 years, a person who is infected with HIV when they’re 20 can live to be 40 years old. Or, the way they put it, “If I don’t get infected until I’m 20, I’ll live just as long as I would even if I never got HIV.” At this point I was horrified for 2 reasons: (1) Something has gone terribly wrong in this country that a 17-year-old boy doesn’t plan on living past 40 (the life expectancy is 31), and (2) Maybe eliminating stigma is a bad thing…

Okay, I do still have a heart…but I also have a brain. Stigma causes all sorts of bad things—people refuse to test for fear that they’ll be positive and others will shun them, women are afraid to disclose their status to their husbands for fear they’ll be blamed, people on ARVs don’t take them when they have company or when they’re traveling for fear of being found out, people who choose to be openly positive are alienated by those who are not openly positive, etc.—but I honestly think that a certain level of stigma is required to make people afraid of getting HIV in the first place. Why waste your time and money with condoms when the worst thing that could happen is that you’d get a disease that everyone else has and that won’t do anything worse than inconvenience you twice a day when you have to take pills? How do I teach my students that they should treat people with HIV just like they treat anyone else, but that they should try their best to never become one of those people because it’s bad to be like them? That’s a dilemma…

Can you imagine if we, as a society, completely destigmatized teenage pregnancy? What if every health teacher and guidance counselor told high school students that getting pregnant when you’re 15 is no big deal, that you can live a completely normal life, that 1 in 4 people in the country have kids before they’re 18 and it’s not the end of the world for them? What if parents sat their kids down and told them that they would be okay with it if they had a kid before they graduated high school? What incentive would high school students have NOT to have sex, or what incentive would they have to use contraception? Honestly, that’s kind of what it’s like in Swaziland. And kids have lots of sex. And lots of 17-year-olds have kids. Because there’s nothing bad that happens to you if you do (and, in fact, it proves your fertility so it’s a good thing for marriage prospects).

I don’t know that I’m going to change what I’m teaching, but I am having something of a personal crisis about whether my anti-stigma lessons are doing more harm than good. Maybe I’ll just try to emphasize the “visualizing your future” lesson where students think about how different their lives would be with and without HIV. But maybe in rural Swaziland—where nobody has jobs, nobody gets educated, nobody lives to meet their grandchildren except those born to their 17-year-old daughters—getting HIV doesn’t really make your life any worse than it would have been otherwise. Why bother trying not to get it?

Wow, that’s depressing.

In other news, life is going well. This week I’m teaching the “ABCDEFG Model” of prevention (Abstain, Be faithful, Condomise, Delay sexual debut, Educate yourself, Fight stigma, Get tested) and I’m taking entries for the HIV prevention art competition that PEPFAR is paying for. I’m also working in my own garden and that of the NCP (the place where they feed orphans) so that me and the orphans in my community can eat more than just carbs. The small business thing at Hluti Central HS has been put on hold for a week for some sort of track meet that justifies canceling school all week (after last week school was cancelled for a teacher strike). Also, after MUCH waiting, I SHOULD have the list of kids who need sponsorship after one final meeting today…hopefully. I saw the list on Monday so I know it exists, but apparently it has to be finalized in a meeting with the chief today (Wednesday), so hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to post more information.

Also, NGINEMIDLWANE (ngee-nay-mee-dluh-WAA-nay). I have puppies! My mother/grandmother warned me that Bokhi would look kind of confused or have glazed-over eyes before she went into labor, and on Tuesday afternoon when I came home from the school she was acting kind of weird. (I couldn’t tell about the cloudy eyes thing because she only has one eye and it’s pretty cloudy all the time because she’s 9 years old.) It was a week early, but she had the puppies in the afternoon and I know at least 2 of them survived. She has them hidden away in a stack of thatch that my family intends to use on the kitchen roof so I haven’t been able to steal them and put them in my house yet, but this morning I got a good look at two tiny little white fuzzy heads so I know there are at least 2 of them. And I know who the baby daddy is (he’s the more attractive of the boys I saw her having relations with)…I’ll post pictures whenever I get a good look at them. And, most importantly, Bokhi is doing well. I was worried since it’s about like a 65-year-old woman having babies, but she’s happy and busy being a good mom (this is litter number 8 so she’s had lots of practice).

That’s all for today. Happy Belated Daylight Savings Time, even though we don’t have that here. Instead we have no concept of time whatsoever.

Love from the Swaz!


Mukelo, Kwanele and Xolile with the newest addition to the homestead, who I've named "Baby Goat." Original, I know. They think it's hilarious to sneak the goat into my house through my burglar bars when I'm busy doing work at my table so that I don't notice him unti he starts crying. I'm sure there's something unsanitary about that, but I enjoy the company.


Hlengiwe and the "Alphabet Tree" my parents sent. They love it! And it's really funny when they get to "Z" because they call it "zed" and they get into an argument with it, saying "no, zed!"

Me and Beth at KFC on the day of its grand opening in Nhlangano. Beth went home this week, which means that our group is down to 29 from its original 36. And 5 of them were in Shiselweni region, which means we're down to only 3 of us in the south of the country. Sad, sad.

Dear Group 7,

Sanibonani and congratulations on your invitation! Now that all the paperwork is done, you have time to obsess about packing and all the other things you have to do before June 20-somethingth when you leave for staging. Let the panic begin! You’ll be getting a “staging packet” sometime between now and when you leave, but just in case you’re anything like I was last year and you want to know NOW what you’ve gotten yourself into, maybe this will help.

First things first: Swaziland. Hopefully you know that it’s a tiny little country in Southern Africa between Mozambique and South Africa with a nearly 100% homogenous Swazi population. It’s an absolute monarchy led by His Majesty King Mswati III (one of the richest political leaders in the world), who took the throne in 1986, and there is a fledgling movement toward democracy that probably will not be realized until the king dies since political parties are technically illegal. It’s a very conservative country politically, religiously and culturally. Just about everyone you meet is Christian (sometimes belligerently so) and you will be asked probably every day if you have “been saved.” (It’s not so bad, though. I’m not Christian and I’ve made it this far.) Especially in the rural areas, women have very few rights (including the right to wear pants) and female volunteers will learn very quickly how to diffuse sexual harassment. A lot of traditional beliefs also still exist in the rural areas, including some beliefs that are particularly helpful in spreading HIV (like the cutting of babies with a razor blade, polygamy, traditional healers who use blood-letting to cure things, traditional healers who say they can cure HIV, multiple concurrent sexual partners even for married men, intergenerational sex, etc.) In the rural areas, most people are unemployed and survive on subsistence farming and animal husbandry. The education system is the exam-based model typical of former British colonies with lots of problems: it’s expensive and therefore inaccessible to many people in rural areas, teachers become teachers mostly because of guaranteed employment and not because they love teaching, there’s a high failure rate so many students don’t complete high school until their mid-20s, there’s no continuous assessment so students don’t do homework, there are frequently strikes of teachers and/or students for silly things, etc. Hopefully you also know that Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV of any country in the world, which is somewhere between 26% and 43% depending on what statistic you’re using. There are a lot of problems created by HIV, too, including the prevalence of OVCs (orphans and vulnerable children), restructuring of the traditional family, kids who can’t go to school because they are needed to take care of sick relatives, etc. Medical care in most communities is lacking, and even where it’s considered “good” the services offered are very basic and some patients have to walk many hours to get to the clinic. Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) is technically free for all people with a CD4 count below 200, but all patients must go to 1 of 6 ART initiation centers for the first 3 months of their treatment, which is financially impossible for many rural Swazis. All things considered, Swaziland is considered a “middle income country,” meaning that it’s ineligible for a lot of foreign assistance that’s only made available to poorer countries. If you took the royal family out of the equation, though, Swaziland is a low income country. There are a lot of NGOs and IOs that work here, including UNESCO, World Food Program, Doctors without Borders (MSF), Elizabeth Glaser, World Vision, USAID, UNAIDS, Baylor Clinic, etc.

Swaziland is a completely unique country, which lends itself to a completely unique Peace Corps experience. First of all, Swaziland is small, which means that the 50 or so volunteers who are here at the same time are really close geographically and otherwise. I think we all live within an hour of another volunteer and we’re all within 3 hours of the office and the “big city” of Mbabane. Since all of us are Community Health and HIV/AIDS Education volunteers, we are able to work together on some projects and to share programming ideas with each other. (Or, if you don’t want to hang out or work with other people, that’s an option too.) The in-country staff is really great and very supportive of and patient with all the ridiculous logistical, programming, cultural, linguistic, medical and otherwise random questions you could possibly think to ask. And, since the country is small, they’re really accessible. Even though we’re all, technically, doing the same job, your actual work depends largely on what you want to do and what your community is willing to work with you on. For example, some of us teach Life Skills (HIV/AIDS, nutrition, decision-making, goal-setting, career planning, drugs and alcohol, etc.) at primary or high schools, some work with a local person to do workshops and mobile testing in their communities, some work with church leaders to do HIV education, some work with other NGOs to produce educational materials or run after-school programs, some run sports or drama clubs to teach youth about HIV and others volunteer at a clinic. You can do any combination of those things, or whatever else you’re comfortable doing. (And, trust me, by the time you get to your community you’ll be comfortable with a lot more than you think you are now.) Just know that, in all likelihood, nobody is going to show up and invite you to do these things. You have to be really self-motivated to find work in most communities, but once you do it’s really rewarding. And once you get to know your community it’s not as difficult as it sounds, either!

As far as living conditions, we all live on homesteads with Swazi families. A traditional “homestead” houses an extended family, usually including a Babe (father), Make (mother) or two (polygamy, remember?), lots of kids and maybe grandparents, and consists of several buildings in a cluster of sorts. (With the high death rate this has changed a lot, so most of us have a big homestead consisting of a mix of remaining parts of several nuclear families.) Most of us have our own 1 or 2 room cement houses with a tin or thatch roof, but a few have a room or 2 connected to the main house (with their own entrance for security and privacy reasons). More than 50% of us have electricity (this is high for PC Africa), and some who don’t have electricity have a solar panel on their roof that charges a car battery that they use to run a light and/or computer (you can buy all of that here!). Even if you “have electricity,” sometimes it won’t work (like when it’s raining), so even though I have electricity I still have a back-up lantern and gas stove. We get our water from boreholes, rainwater collection or from “Jojo” tanks on the homestead (which a company will come out and fill), and since we don’t have running water we use a pit latrine and bathe in a basin. (Trust me, it’s easier than it seems.)

Depending on what you want to spend, where you live and how much work you want to do, you can pretty much eat whatever you want while you’re here. For the first part of training, you’ll be fed by your host family, which means you’ll be eating maize-meal porridge or rice, boiled chicken and some sort of overcooked vegetable (carrots, cabbage, spinach, pumpkin or beets) for dinner every night. You’ll probably have corn flakes with warm milk or oatmeal for breakfast and an egg sandwich for lunch, but you’ll be in town often enough to feed yourself real food. Once you move to site, you’ll be cooking on your own so you can eat whatever you’re willing to make. I eat a lot of pasta, grilled cheese, eggs, popcorn, PB&J sandwiches, fruit, rice and vegetables, toast, oatmeal and corn flakes, and if I have guests I cook meat. Some of us have refrigerators, but those of us who don’t just eat perishable things quickly so they don’t spoil or (like me) use their family’s fridge. A few of us also have vegetable gardens, and you can pretty much grow anything if you have the energy to goat-proof and consistently upkeep your garden. If you’re a vegetarian, the first couple of weeks may be difficult for you since nobody is going to understand what a vegetarian is, but once you’re on your own it will be absolutely no problem. If you don’t eat MSG you’ll have a harder time, since there’s MSG in absolutely everything. One challenge I have had here is in getting enough dairy in my diet, since Swazis don’t drink milk unless it’s spoiled (“emasi” they call it…ew). The medical office in Mbabane can give you calcium supplements (and anything else you will ever need, really), and at site you can drink and cook with powdered milk, which is kind of gross. In town (Nhlangano, Manzini, Mbabane, Matata) you can buy just about anything at the grocery store, and the grocery stores around Mbabane have a wide selection of things you can splurge on once a month if you want (brie). Also, Swaziland is great if you like avocados (there are about 6 kinds here and they’re really cheap) or mangoes (there are about 6 kinds here and they’re really cheap).

As far as wardrobe (this is where we get into what you should pack), it varies widely from one region to another and from one volunteer to the next. Which doesn’t help at all, I know. Swaziland is divided into 4 regions—Shiselweni, Lubombo, HhoHho and Manzini—and the climate depends on your region and your proximity to the mountains. HhoHho is rainy and cold, but still gets hot in the summer. Lubombo is hot and dry (we’re talking 115F) during the summer, but can get cool on winter nights. Shiselweni and Manzini regions are pretty moderate, with cooler temperatures in the mountains and more heat in the lowveld. Basically, there’s no way to plan for where you’ll be or what you need to wear while you’re here! Generally speaking, you should probably plan for anything from 30F (and when you live in a cement refrigerator and the cold is inescapable, 30F is a lot worse than in the US) to really hot (like 80 to 110F).

For Ladies: Generally speaking (and definitely during training), you SHOULD wear skirts that fall below the knee every day in your community, particularly if you’re doing anything in an official capacity. (Honestly, you don’t HAVE to but it’s strongly recommended, it’s considered disrespectful to wear pants and if you wear pants you’ll be the only one in your community.) This means if you’re teaching, introducing yourself to your community or anyone important, working at your chief’s homestead or doing any other work-related thing where you want people to take you seriously, pants are not allowed (especially the first few months). Fun, right? On your homestead it’s okay to wear pants (“trousers” as they call them) or capris, but when it’s hot outside you’re not really going to want to wear jeans with the amount of walking and sweating you’ll be doing. If you’re not comfortable wearing skirts, you can probably wear pants in your community after they’ve realized how un-Swazi you are in general, but you NEED a few good skirts! As far as tops go, boobs and shoulders aren’t sexy so you can pretty much wear whatever you want, including tank tops or tight shirts, in your community. The only exception is on the chief’s homestead or in church, where you’ll be expected to cover your shoulders. Generally when I’m working I wear below-the-knee skirts and nicer T-shirts (t-shirts with decorative necks, polo shirts or something else you would consider “business casual”) with flip-flops, and when it’s colder I have cardigans or long-sleeved shirts (tees, light sweaters, jacket-type things, etc.) to wear over my warm-weather outfits. Also, and I can’t believe I’m actually recommending this to you: leggings! I would never wear them in the US, but in Swaziland they are really handy to wear under skirts during the winter because it gets cold! Under ankle-length skirts you can wear pants to keep warm, but shorter skirts are more professional-looking with leggings. Since the weather is so unpredictable, layers are key! For exercising, shorts are fine as long as they’re knee-length and yoga pants or capris are perfect. Married women will sometimes be expected to cover their heads with wraps or hats (which you can buy here) as a sign of respect, especially in official community meetings where the chief or the chief’s inner council are present. (Don’t worry about this now!) For shoes, you can pretty much wear whatever you’d like. Most of us wear flip-flops or Chacos or Keens all the time (my Chaco Flips are my favorite shoes ever), and if you are buying any of those things let them know you’re a Peace Corps Volunteer because they’ll give you a discount! You should also bring nicer shoes (flats!) for important meetings or the first few weeks of training or when it’s cold, and maybe heels if you want to go “out” sometimes, but honestly every “club” here is pretty casual so it’s not really necessary.

For men, the dress code is a lot more relaxed. Guys can pretty much wear casual-ish khakis or even jeans in community for meetings, and shorts for less formal work-related things. Polo shirts or t-shirts are fine, but sometimes (training and meetings) more formal dress shirts will be required (but not a lot of them!). Dress shoes are good, but they don’t need to be anything fancy. Again, layers are key!! For dressier occasions, you can bring a jacket if you want but if you don’t have one I’m 99% sure you’ll never wish you had one. (Same for women, actually.) Since they don’t take up much space, maybe bring a tie or two just in case you need to dress up (for swear-in, definitely).

One thing that I wish I knew before I came (and Group 5 told me, I just didn’t listen) is that it gets cold. Cold, cold, cold. The winter here is June to August-ish, and even though it only gets down to 30F or so at night, it seems a lot more miserable than in the US because it’s absolutely inescapable. I’d DEFINITELY recommend bringing a fleece of sorts or a heavier hoodie or SOMETHING to keep yourself warm. My North Face Denali (they’re cheap on Ebay) is maybe my favorite article of clothing I have here.

Before you come, you’ll get a video and a packing list from Peace Corps so you’ll have a better idea of what to pack. I would say the crucial items are a fleece, Leatherman or similar tool, a backpack large enough to travel for a week (35-50 liters?), a quick-dry towel, headlamp, leggings (for women), and LAPTOP (if you have one). You should DEFINITELY bring your computer if you have one and if you’re not going to be heartbroken if it gets damaged by the power flow or dust…it makes it so much easier to write blogs, grant proposals, quarterly reports for Peace Corps and any other work-related things you have to do. You’ll be provided with a water filter so you don’t need to bring one of those (but a SteriPen might be useful when you travel if you already have one), and solar chargers aren’t really too necessary. You’ll buy a phone here so you don’t need to bring one from home. Just keep in mind that you’re moving here for your job, you’re not going camping, so you don’t need a whole lot of outdoorsy things. Bring clothes you’re comfortable in and things you’re used to using! And don’t tell Peace Corps I told you this, but the only baggage restrictions you really have are the ones provided by the airline, so if your total linear dimensions are over 63” but still within the allowable range for the airline, you’re fine! Just mind the weight because you’ll have to haul them around for a while…

All things considered, Swaziland is a pretty cool place. There’s enough South African influence here that you can buy just about anything you’d need in Mbabane or Manzini, but enough traditional culture that it’s still a completely new experience. Don’t stress over the details (or the siSwati), but if you have any questions at all, ASK! We’re all really excited to meet you and good luck with all the preparations that you’ll be doing between now and then…

Hambani kahle na Inhlanhla Lenhle!
Justine / Phindile

Ngilibhizi (nee-lee-BEE-zee)

That means “I’m busy” in siSwati, which I’ve had multiple occasions to say this week. I’ve been so refreshingly productive and, despite the fact that I fell asleep at 8 last night, I couldn’t be happier.

For starters, I had my second week of Life Skills classes and I’m really excited about the prospect for my future as a health/HIV/career guidance teacher. Turns out, it’s fun! This week I adapted the same lesson for all of my classes, but found that it wasn’t really necessary because even the 11th-graders didn’t know what the immune system was! (For real, these kids have had many years of biology in a country where an immune system-destroying disease is rampant, and they didn’t know what the immune system did! This is grievance number one I have with the education system.) Anyway, I gave a ten minute introduction to the inner and outer immune system components, then talked about macrophages, CD4s, B-cells, antibodies and T-cells and what they have to do with HIV. To demonstrate, I picked 12 kids out of the class to come up act out the different parts of the immune system and various invaders like TB, HIV, Flu and Malaria. Swazis are big on drama groups so they had a good time doing it, and by the end of the session the class knew exactly what was going on. Then we demonstrated what HIV does (it convinces Mr. CD4 to quit his job, and if he doesn’t it kills him) and how ARVs work in the body (they prevent HIV from being able to talk to Mr. CD4). Sure, it’s simplified, but it’s obviously more in-depth than what they’re getting in biology class. I also had several students approach me this week to talk to me privately about various HIV-related issues, which gives me a good insight into what they do and don’t know. Even some of the older boys asked me questions about HIV, which I was really surprised about. I’ve also gotten approval from the school and money from PEPFAR to host my HIV-related art competition at the high school, which is huge. It’s been a successful week!

I also taught Form 5 (Grade 12) English language this week because my lovely Deputy Head Teacher decided to go to Manzini to see a “preacher from America” who can cure HIV for a “donation” of 1200E. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was really adamant about paying some quack an exorbitant amount of money to give him false hope, so I agreed to teach his classes. We spent the week working on listening comprehension, which was a completely new concept to them despite the fact that a large portion of the exam they have to take to finish high school involves listening comprehension. I found a CD of 17 listening exercises in the deputy’s office and made my own worksheets out of the suggested assignments. We learned about Florence Nightingale, the Red Cross/Crescent and some guy’s travel arrangements for a trip to London. Or rather, about 40% of the class learned about those things and the rest just copied from their neighbor. We started the lesson each day with two vocab words (easy ones from the Oxford 3000 words English-learners should learn), and on Friday I gave them a simple test where they had to match the word with the definition. And they couldn’t do it. Or didn’t care to. I had two different versions of the test—one with letters A-J and one with K-T—and they so obviously copied from each other that some of the ones with the K-T test wrote the answers A-J on the answer part. It’s ridiculous! But it still didn’t help, since the average was a 40%. There were a few people who got 9 or 10 out of ten, but most got a 2 or less. Some left the whole test blank. And, honestly, what incentive do they have to try when the only grade that matters is the final exam? (Grievance number two with the educational system.) As a teacher who’s actually wants them to learn, it’s extremely frustrating for me. I could always turn in the names of the slackers to my deputy and he’d be happy to beat them all with a stick, but I personally don’t see how that helps. In fact, they beat every single student on the hand on Monday then half the kids in my class couldn’t write because their right hands were bleeding. Isn’t that counter-productive (and potentially spreading HIV)? (Grievance number three.)

I also taught my small business thing through TechnoServe on Friday, which was interesting. We had elections for all the management positions and had “report-backs” on market research assignments that not a single student completed. Okay then. Our top three final business ideas are (1) repairing desks (which the guy who’s co-facilitating with me did at his school last year, so he mentioned it to the class as an idea and they decided to copy), (2) tuck shop selling food and candy (of which there are already like 15 within walking distance of the school), and (3) painting the school (which is great if the school administration wants to pay us to do it). I’m personally rooting for number 3 because the other two are not original at all, but I have to meet with the notoriously unfriendly head teacher of the school on Monday to see what he thinks. The good news is, though, that since we now have a General Manager (Mfan’Khona Sihlengonyane is his name, which means “The boy is here” “we are beautiful” something something) I’m no longer in charge of running all the meetings! Yay! I’m just in charge of the money, and probably quality control if we end up painting (Mom has trained me well for the latter part).

In other news, today I’m in town to pick up my new external hard drive (I ordered the 500GB a month ago and he called Thursday and said they had it, but it’s a 320GB and he wants to charge me the same amount) and hopefully get a new anti-virus for my computer since it’s about to die. I also got a million packages this week, which means I’ve been watching about 2 movies a day (including Girls Just Want to Have Fun, The Devil Wears Prada, Flashdance, and Legends of the Fall which is amazing) and that I’ve neglected to do basic things like dishes and bathing. But it’s okay because Brandy sent me body spray so I still smell clean! It’s been a good week.

Next week I’ll be heading up to Mbabane for a meeting with PC about the youth support group we’ve been running for the past year and some. We had our last meeting on the 21st and the NGO that had offered financial support for the year showed up to tell us that they hadn’t been able to get any money. Great! And thanks for notifying us 2 hours before we needed the money! That’s how things go when you count on Swazi organizations, unfortunately. But we’ll figure it out, hopefully by our meeting on the 28th.

That’s all for today. I’m still working on Young Heroes, I promise. Things just take forever here. Unless I’m in charge.

Love from the Swaz!


Sisi Xolile and Bokhi. Bokhi is due sometime between the 18th and 21st of March, so I've cleared the week of all other responsibilities so I can be home when the babies are born.


This is the view from my latrine. There are maize fields everywhere!


Just to scare you (Erin and Group 7) this is the basin I bathe in. Or, rather, DON'T bathe in because lately it just seems like too much work. I smell lovely. :)

Topless Group 2 PCV sets unrealistic expectations for Swazi men

Yeah, that’s what the headline SHOULD have said. Below I’ve retyped an article printed in the Swazi Times (national, state-run newspaper). I’ve put all the important parts in bold so you can skip the rest if you want. All grammatical errors and odd phrasing are original, but Word has corrected the spelling (journalism is pretty sub-par here). You’ll have to Google it if you want the photos because it’s too pornographic for Blogger to let me post them. First, definition of terms:

--“Teka” (pronounced TAY-guh) is the first traditional ceremony of marriage. A woman who has gone through it has been “tekaed.” The ceremony involves being topless, not smiling, standing in a cattle kraal while older women tell you that marriage is hell and then performing rituals to prove that you’re capable of being subservient to your husband.

--An “Umlungu” is a white person. Originally it was derogatory (like the “n” word in the US) but now it’s used widely in place of my name. Example: “I love you, Umlungu.” Or “Hey Umlungu, give me sweets.”

--A “Zionist” is a member of a conservative sect of Christianity in Swaziland (not the same as in the US). There are different types of Zionists in Swaziland, but most speak in tongues, believe in faith healing, don’t eat pork and have really long church services where they wear uniforms, chant and sometimes bite/hit one another. (We’re not supposed to go to Zionist services.)

Umlungu from America Tekaed by Shy Zionist
By Lucky Tsabedze (Swazi Times, 7 February 2009; pg 1, 3)

MANZINI—A Zionist construction worker tekaed an American woman. The Zionist met Brenda Emelia Grabau at Bhawhini area, near Makayane in 2006. Calvin Kunene was at Bhawyini as a labourer for Anzo Constructions, a Matsapha based company.
“We were at Bhawyini as the construction company I worked for was building a house at Nyatsini Seconadary school. I worked as a bhucudaka, my duty was to make concrete mixture,” said the shy Kunene.
Kunene said he wanted to talk to Brenda when his eyes fell on her but he was scared to convey his feelings, something he described as part of the courting process. Apart from that, he says the skin colour sent shivers down his spine.
Kunene said he made acquaintance with Brenda, but the intention to ask Brenda out was not strong though he secretly harboured the thought.
“It happens that a male will want to talk to a girl about dating her but fear holds you back. It was the same thing with me,” said Kunene. “Then I took chances this one time when we met, it was more like a joke when I said it (I love you). She was friendly so that made it easy to talk to her. We begun to be friends and that is how we grew closer to each other,” said Kunene.
Kunene said the friendship continued until a stage when Brenda’s commitment made him believe they were more than friends. Brenda pleasantly surprised him when she visited Kunene’s sick father at the Mankayane Government hospital where he was admitted. “That took me by surprise,” he recalls.
“I could see that the friendship between us was strong, and was in fact getting even stronger. IT got to a point when my father died, that proved to be a turning point for me and Brenda. She traveled to my home, and was with me throughout the time of bereavement. She was cooking and that must have been a shock to some mourners because they didn’t partake in the cooking. She was the busiest!” said the proud husband.
The relationship has brought to life a child.

WHOA! Obviously, bi-racial marriage is rare in Swaziland. Even more rare is cross-cultural marriage. Bi-racial, cross-cultural TRADITIONAL marriage is absolutely unheard of. I guess it’s not a big deal except that (1) Brenda was a PCV in Group 2 who never informed Peace Corps that she was pregnant and just showed up to her Close of Service conference 7 months in, and (2) she’s pictured about 10” tall on the front page of the newspaper TOPLESS, exposing her enormous breasts and fantastic tan lines. Also, I don’t really understand how an American woman (particularly the liberal-minded type that usually joins the Peace Corps) could be okay with being described as “an official wife” of a Swazi man, as in one of the photo captions, rather than “the wife.” Does he plan on taking more wives? (The teka ceremony is usually only performed when the husband wishes to take more than one wife.) There are plenty of well-educated, progressive men in Swaziland who I could see a PCV marrying, but I can’t imagine that the Zionist family of a rural Swazi construction worker would be terribly progressive. Anyway, I guess I can’t judge because I don’t know actually know them, but I’m surprised. The cultural barrier, especially in traditional marriages, would be too much for me. But more power to them, I guess…and their daughter (Gretta) is adorable!

For completely selfish reasons, though, the article irks me. Since it was printed last week I’ve been approached by a number of men in my community who now have renewed hope that I will marry or at least have sex with them. Thanks for that. We PCVs joked about writing a letter to the editor informing all Swazi men that she’s the exception rather than the rule. Even if you tell me you love me (as Mr. Kunene did to Brenda) and if my skin colour “sends shivers down your spine,” I’m not interested in marrying you. In fact, if you say that to me I’ll probably lecture you on the difference between lust and love.

Anyway, in between my daily sexual harassment encounters, these past two weeks have been extremely busy and productive. It’s amazing. Here’s what’s going on in my life right now:

--I had my first two sessions of the small business program at Hluti Central High School on the 13th and 20th of Feb. TechnoServe, which sponsors the program, sent a few people down to supervise my first lesson, but they deemed me competent after 20 minutes and went home. It’s reassuring to know I at least LOOK like I know what I’m doing. The group seems fun, motivated and well-behaved, but we’re still having trouble coming up with a product we can manufacture and sell in our local communities. What do subsistence farmers in rural Swaziland buy? Floor polish, soap and candles. And unless we can make them cheaper than the factories, Make and Babe have no customer loyalty even to their own kids. Hm.

--I’m in Nhlangano on Friday and Saturday for the monthly youth support group meeting. It’s a big deal for us because for the first time it’s being funded by a Swazi organization and not PEPFAR! Yay for sustainability! We’re teaching a lesson and doing skits about overcoming obstacles to reach your goals. Hopefully it impresses the lovely donors who are coming to make sure they don’t want to back out.

--Despite the fact that I’m still don’t have the Ministry of Education’s Career Guidance curriculum, I’ve started teaching Life Skills classes at Florence. I have three classes a week (one each of 8th, 9th and 11th grades), for which the whole grade level is combined to make an enormous class of about 80 students. It’s a bit overwhelming, especially since there are more students than there are chairs and desks, but I’ll make it work. This past week, I did surveys to evaluate their baseline knowledge on HIV/AIDS, and I was surprised with some of the results. Other than the fact that one of my 11th-graders is 30, these stats surprised me:

38% of students are classified as “orphans or vulnerable children;”
12% of students are sexually active;
6% believe you can tell if a person has HIV by just looking at him/her (you can’t);
38% have a relative with HIV, yet…
38% say they would not be willing to share a meal with an HIV-positive person;
9% say it is unsafe for HIV-positive teachers to continue teaching; AND
67% say they would never buy food from an HIV-positive food vendor.

--In addition to my weekly Life Skills classes, I’m planning a school-wide, HIV-themed art competition. Students will submit creative things (advertisements, poems, posters, paintings, cartoons, comic strips, etc.) with some message about preventing HIV infection or encouraging people to get tested, and a panel of teachers will choose the most effective “art” to be painted on the bus shelter outside the school. Assuming it works (I’m still trying to get definite permission from the government, who owns the bus stop, and I’m not sure who we’ll get to actually do the painting…), I think it will be a really cool project. I’ll be sure to post photos if/when it actually happens.

--In a related project, I’m going to be painting a big world map on the side of one of the buildings at the high school. For some unknown reason, it’s something that a lot of PCVs do in Swaziland, and you can always tell if a PCV has worked at a school because there’s a map on the wall. I’ll be painting mine on the wall that faces the courtyard so that students can stare at it in the morning while they listen to the daily Scripture readings. The head teacher is really excited about the project, but everyone doubts my ability to paint anything. After all, I AM a woman. If the map goes well (and if I have extra supplies), hopefully the primary school will let me paint one too. And a big thanks to Mr. Brooks and his wife who unknowingly funded this project.

--Finally, I’m in the process of getting together a committee to submit a Peace Corps Partnership Program proposal to renovate and furnish a library at the high school. The teachers have been trying to start a library for some time, and it’s a project that they’re really committed to doing. Since I first mentioned the library as a possible project for me, the school has already hired someone to repair the water damage to the room, painted the walls in a lovely high-gloss blue and gotten a donation of about 500 books from World Vision. The proposal will, hopefully, purchase materials to build shelves, tables and chairs, and other necessary items to label the books, create a shelf list (like a card catalog) and devise some organized system of checking them out. The proposal can ask for as much as $5000, but the more we get donated the more money we’ll have left to buy books! When the proposal is submitted, it will appear on the Peace Corps website and anyone (hopefully you??) can go online and donate money to it. I’ll keep you posted on its progress.

In addition to the small business program, Life Skills classes, support group, art competition and library, I’m TRYING to set up a workshop with the local police station to do an HIV awareness training for all its officers and I’m helping teach 12th grade English at Florence. And I have ambitions of writing a bi-lingual children’s book explaining the basic biology of HIV. And Bokhi will be having puppies soon. It’s a good, busy life.

That’s all for today, methinks. I have a million other things to write and I somehow have to make a dinner out of 3 potatoes, a carrot, an egg and two tablespoons of apricot chutney. Preferably without dirtying any dishes. Sometimes it’s the little things that are the most challenging parts of this experience.

Love from the Swaz!
Justine/Phindile


This is the "bus shelter" I'm talking about painting. We'd use the whole rectangular flat surface inside the bus shelter.


Sisi Xolile and Mukelo playing with an umbrella on my homestead.

Sugar Daddies / South Africans Hate Republicans

Thursday afternoon, after a long day of work and errands, I boarded a kombi (mini-bus) at the Nhlangano bus rank for the 45 minute ride home. After waiting 40 minutes for the kombi to fill up, an older man climbed into the last remaining seat—the one next to me—so the kombi could leave. This man, who was relatively well-dressed but stank of beer, was busy mumbling to himself, so I did my best to ignore him. After about 15 minutes of fantasizing about the chicken curry and Bar One (Milky Way) I’d bought for dinner, the drunk man turned to me and said, in very good English, “you are very beautiful.” I ignored him, so he persisted. “I want to marry you. What must I give you so you will marry me?” I showed him the fake wedding ring I wear and told him I was married, but he wasn’t deterred. “Then I will just have sex with you.” WHAT? I responded, politely, with “angifuni,” which means “I don’t want you” in siSwati, so he considered his other options. “Then you must give me one of your sisters to have sex with.” WHAT?? I was in no mood to deal with this, so I just said “no” and continued to ignore him. Meanwhile, all the other men and women in the kombi thought this whole situation was very funny, even though I was obviously getting upset by it. Then the man started rubbing my thigh with his grubby little hands and rubbing his legs up against mine. Irritated, I pulled away (as far as I could in a 15-passenger van with 22 passengers in it). Then he grabbed my stomach and said I was “fatty boom-boom” (this is a good thing in Swaziland) and that I would give him many sons. And the whole time everyone else in the kombi was watching and laughing because it wasn’t them. Thanks, everyone.

Can you imagine a situation like that in the US? Can you imagine that you’re sitting on a MetroBus in DC and a man old enough to be your grandfather sits down next to you and starts telling you he wants to have sex with you (or your sisters) and that you’re so fat that you’re obviously very fertile? Can you imagine all the other passengers laughing out loud as he groped you inappropriately despite your obvious irritation and shoving him away? Can you imagine a man—even one who isn’t a stranger—trying to bribe you to marry him? No, that would never happen in America. Because women have rights, people have personal boundaries and sexual harassment is strongly discouraged. In Swaziland, it happens all the time. (As in just about every time I’m alone on public transport.)

Sadly, it’s a lot more than just irritating; it’s indicative of one of the ways HIV is spread in Swaziland. If I was a 14-year-old girl whose family couldn’t afford to pay my school fees, that man probably would have offered to pay my school fees in exchange for sex. Or if I was an unemployed 19-year-old girl, he probably would have offered to buy me a cell phone or a new pair of shoes. And because this man was older (meaning he deserves respect) and because he was well-dressed (a sign of wealth), the girls probably wouldn’t say no. And it’s not jus old men and young women, either, even though that’s most common. The phenomenon of “sugar daddies” and “sugar mamas” in Swaziland is a huge problem and one that I find myself extremely frustrated by. In the US, we teach our kids not to talk to strangers. As an HIV/AIDS educator in Swaziland, I’m teaching kids not to have sex with strangers in exchange for money or other goods. But how do I convince a girl, who rightly believes that education is the ticket out of poverty but can’t afford to go to school, that it’s a better life choice for her to be poor and uneducated but still have her dignity (and immune system) intact?

In other news, I love South African radio’s analysis of US Politics. They were taking about Obama’s economic stimulus package and made some comment like “Obama is having difficulty rallying support with Republicans who, rather than spend money on useful things like rebuilding roads and improving schools, would like the package to focus on tax relief for the upper class and giving money to the executives of businesses hardest hit by the financial crisis.” Haha. Even I think that’s unfair. No wonder South Africans think Republicans are fascists.

I think that’s all. I’m looking into MPH (Masters of Public Health) programs in the US, preferably with an international focus (more like International Health with a Public Health or Humanitarian Assistance focus). I’ve looked into all the usual suspects—Emory, NYU, Berkeley, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Tulane—and I’m in love with the program at Tufts, but if you’ve got any other suggestions, let me know! My research abilities are severely limited here because of the slowness of the internet.

Oh, and I’m still working on the Young Heroes thing. I promise. Things just take forever here. Except, I suppose, the natural progression from meeting someone to proposing marriage.

Salani Kahle (Stay Well),
Phindile

Death behind the curtain, the coolest backpack ever and other things

Monday afternoon I returned home from Hluti, (where I discovered a computer and printer run off a solar panel-charged car battery where I can print things for 4R per page) to find a rather life-threatening surprise in my house. As usual, all the little kids greeted me at the entrance of my homestead and fought over my hands so they could walk me to my house. I unlocked the door and, appalled by the moldy stuffiness of my house, immediately went to open the windows while all the kids snooped through my groceries. I was reaching up to open the curtains of the second window when one of the boys started screaming “Inyoka! Inyoka!” and all the kids ran out of the house screaming. Not really sure what was going on, I followed them out and around to the side of the house. Through the window, I could see a HUGE snake wrapping itself around the burglar bars of the window I had just been standing in front of. AHHHH! Sibongile, one of the women on the homestead, immediately rushed in with a stick and beat the thing to death (it took about 10 minutes and the snake kept trying to strike her) while everyone watched the spectacle through the window. When it was finally dead and its innards were splattered around my room (on the wall, the curtains, my mosquito net, my bed, my floor, a basin-ful of clean laundry, and a stack of books) I realized how scary the situation really was. The snake was a black mamba (as in extremely venomous), approximately 4 or 5 feet long, and I was 2 seconds away from opening the curtains and staring it in the face. AHHHH again! And now I’m ridiculously paranoid, even though I know there’s one less snake in the neighborhood than there was on Sunday when I didn’t even think about it. Since then, I’ve snake-proofed my house (put all the things lying around into zipped bags, blocked the gap under the door with a towel, sealed all the foods that could attract the mice that attract the snakes, etc.) and I’m getting something called “Cape Aloe Crystals” that apparently keep the snakes away. And from now on I’m opening my curtains with a stick and a little kid in the room.

Other things:

--I volunteered to facilitate an after-school program teaching entrepreneurial skills to Form 3-5 (Grade 10-12) students at Hluti High School (about 10 kilometers from my house) for the next 12 weeks. It’s run by TechnoServe, a US-based NGO that teaches technical skills to youth and adults throughout the world. The program I’m facilitating is called “JA Company,” where a group of about 30 students starts a company to learn about all the details involved in the process. For 11 weeks, they run every aspect of the company, including selling shares, developing and marketing a product, a corporate responsibility project, accounting, etc. It sounds easy enough, but I wonder how frustrating it will be teaching about developing a marketable product in a country where every shop sells the exact same thing for the exact same price and nobody understands market competition. Last year, the majority of the 28 participating schools decided to make floor polish, which is exactly what every unemployed, fruit tree-less Make in the whole country tries to sell. (But you’d be surprised how much floor polish this country consumes, what with their fixation on superficial cleanliness and all.) I’ll keep you posted.

--I watched The Lion King with my family the other day and I really don’t think they were as into it as me. I guess it’s tough when you don’t understand any of the dialogue. They did understand that Rafiki is a Sangoma (traditional healer who uses divination from the ancestors to determine the sickness and cure for a patient), since there are Sangomas in our community. BUT when Disney originally made The Lion King, they produced it in English, Spanish, Swahili and ZULU, which the kids on my homestead WOULD understand. I contacted Disney about it once and they said all the Zulu copies were “in the vault” for the next 20 years (um, okay), but if anyone ever happens upon a Zulu copy of The Lion King, I’ll buy it from you. Or from Ebay. Let me know.

--I hate the term “fall pregnant.” I was helping my sisi with her Grade 7 health class homework the other day and it was about reproductive health. One of the boxes offset from the page said something like “I have chosen not to have sex before marriage because I am afraid to get an STI that will make me unable to fall pregnant some day.” “Fall pregnant” to me seems synonymous to “become a victim of pregnancy,” which isn’t exactly something you would HOPE to do some day.

--When I got my invitation to Swaziland, Peace Corps included a section detailing the kinds of moral/ethical things I would have to deal with, including the fact that homosexuality is illegal, everyone is belligerently Christian, women have no rights, and students are beat with sticks at school. Things they didn’t warn me about: dogs are beaten for no reason at all (being a dog is enough to warrant abuse) and children are treated like an annoying burden that is not to speak until spoken to and they get beaten for every little annoying thing they do. For example, on Sunday morning I was washing my laundry outside while my 4-year-old sisi, Xolile, sat on a rock and practiced counting to ten with me. When I returned from hanging the first “load” (basin-ful) on the “line” (barbed-wire fence), one of the women on the homestead was beating Xolile with a stick for annoying me while I was trying to do my laundry. I tried to intervene and explain that I wasn’t bothered by it and that Xolile hadn’t done anything wrong, but it didn’t seem to help. I was so disturbed by the scene that I finally went back into my house and closed the door until the screaming stopped. How am I supposed to deal with that?

--As excited as I am about Obama being president, I think Swazis are too optimistic about what it means for them. Swaziland, as much of Africa, has a culture of nepotism. Case in point: The king is a Dlamini, as is every Prime Minister in the history of the country and every person appointed to a political office by the king. And every time somebody tells me they want to go to America (at least twice a week) they ask me if I know anyone important who could get them into university or get them a job, since that’s how you get a job in Swaziland. So, now that an African-American is president, Swazis are absolutely sure that his first priority in life is going to be giving money to Swaziland. Please see photo, below, for further evidence that Swaziland thinks Obama is awesome.


Yeah, that’s pretty much the coolest backpack ever, mostly because Obama is, in fact, “awesome.” And Bokhi sure loves wearing it. (L to R: Kwanele, Mukelo, Xolile)


We found this guy hanging out in a puddle after a thunderstorm. He looks like something out of The Lion King.


And this is where Bokhi lives when it's raining outside. She's not a very good guard dog.