Waiting at my bus stop, with my students, in these winter morning
hours. Cold. Dark. Our breath dancing around us. One of my students
leans in and whispers to me, "Did you hear about Thuli?" Thuli: the 16
year old girl I've been trying to help. Her parents died of AIDS and
now she's living alone with no food. She had told me about her Aunti
coming home on the weekends and kicking her outside to sleep with the
dogs. She told me about her older boyfriend she has sex with so he
will continue to give her food and money. She told me she didn't want
to rely on him anymore for these things. I connected her to SWAGAA
(Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse). They gave her a years worth of
food. "Simphiwe. Thank you. Now I don't have to rely on him for
things. I wanted to stop having sex." The last thing she told me, she
smiled and said, "I can be a real Christian now."

"What about Thuli?" I ask.
"She got pregnant. She hasn't been back to school in over two weeks.
We think it may have been one of the teachers who impregnated her."
"Why isn't she in school still?" I ask knowing the answer. Here, in
Swaziland, when a girl gets pregnant she is no longer allowed to
attend that school again. She has to wait until her child is born and
then find another school. A punishment, a warning, a lesson to all
young girls. But what about the young men? Well, of course, they can
stay. Some head teachers allow the girl to come back and write her
exam (to finish each grade you must pass a final exam). This gives her
the chance to finish whatever grade she's in without actually taking
the classes the rest of the year. I know our head teacher and I know
he won't even allow that much for her. I also know Thuli wouldn't want
to finish the school year and face the ridicule of her classmates.

"Everyone’s talking. She tried to self-abort and fell sick." The girl tells me.
I remember Thuli called me last week. I missed the call and forgot to
return it. She was reaching out to me and I wasn't there for her. I
wasn't there for her.

But I can be there now. I have to plead with the head teacher to let
her come back and ATLEAST write her exams so she doesn't have to take
this grade again. It'll take a lot on my end. I've heard stories of
him impregnating school girls and paying them money for sex. He's told
me stories of young girls seducing older men. "This is why I am happy
you are here Simphiwe. Teach these girls how to act like ladies." He,
like many here, point fingers at the girls. Let’s not forget his
constant attention on my non existent breasts. He never takes me
seriously. But I know his weakness. Young, white, foreign, men. I can
use my PCV friend and co teacher. I become invisible, tits and all,
when standing next to my male friend in front of this head teacher. So
I will bring him with me to beg for Thuli's education.

Today, however, without him, I go to the deputy head teacher (vice
principal). She works out at the gym with me and I would even call her
a friend. I ask if we can talk in private. I keep things anonymous for
now. I tell her about teachers sleeping with students. She grabs my
arm, "I know about Thuli. Simphiwe, I want to help her, I do. But this
head teacher is so stubborn. He does nothing for these girls." I tell
her I want to bring SWAGAA to come and talk to the teachers and
explain to them the laws they are violating. There are laws out there
protecting these children, but in the rural areas they get lost along
the way and no one enforces them. "I'm worried there are people here
violating these laws." I point to the head teacher's office.
"Especially THAT one." She stands and closes the door. "I know
Simphiwe. I know." She takes a seat and continues, leaning in and
whispering."I know about him just as I know about our agriculture
teacher who was sleeping with Thuli and other girls. I have my
suspicions, but no proof. You know, the other day, the head teacher
beat these children for being tardy so badly that they couldn't sit
for a week. They showed me their rear ends. Open gashes and the skin
had turned green. I had to send them to the hospital. The hospital
told them they must go to the police, but they were too scared."

She shakes her head. "A neighboring school, their head teacher was
recently suspended for having sex with his students. One of them was
even his niece. She is schooling here now, and is even in one of your
classes. Since then, the Ministry of Education has sent the ROA to
come to schools in our area and tell them what has happened. He told
me he has heard stories about our school and our staff. When I told
the head teacher what the man told me he got very angry and shouted
that no one can over power him like that. He then blamed these girls
that tell on teachers. Then, during assembly, he gathered all the
students together and warned them not to call any help line or go to
the police. That he is allowed to strike children and if anyone
reports anything they are not allowed to come back to school. If you
want to bring SWAGAA here Simphiwe, we must make it seem like we did
not know they were coming. We cannot tell him anything."

I have to cut our discussion short. It's time for my classes to begin.
I arrange the chairs in a circle. Today I am not a teacher. I am a
friend. I shut the door and take a seat. I look at the back of the
door. Someone has drawn a teacher with a stick hitting a young child's
behind. The child is crying out. "Today I want to talk to you about
that." I point to the drawing. I tell my kids I am here for them. I
explain what abuse is. I explain confidentiality. "I know when I tell
you Swaziland carries the highest HIV rate in the world. You don't
believe me. I know when I tell you the average Swazi lives to be 33
years old. You don't believe me. When I tell you how it is in
Swaziland you don't believe me because I am not Swazi. And that's your
choice not to, and I completely understand. What does this young white
girl know? But, as an outsider, maybe you can believe me when I tell
you how it is OUT there. And what is going on in your schools is not
normal. And wrong. Abuse is universally wrong. Teachers sleeping with
students. Head teachers beating you so bad you can't even sit. This is
wrong and you need to know your rights." I explain to them what
happened in other schools in Swaziland. "Someone was brave enough to
speak out and the teacher was suspended. One voice can bring about
many and this is how change happens." As I'm telling them this though,
I feel like it's a lie. Here there isn't much power in one or even
many voices. There is little to no support out here. I have had many
meetings with SWAGAA about this. The idea of encouraging students to
speak out when there's no one there to listen. SWAGAA, in the city,
has a hard time reaching out to its other rural world. How am I going
to support them if and when they do speak out?

Back in the other world, I find Thuli at home. Her belly protruding
out of her torn and stained tee shirt. I hand her a coke.

"What happened Thuli?" I ask.
"I got pregnant." She won't even look up at me.
"Do you know who the father is?" I ask.
"Yes. The older boyfriend I told you about.
"But I thought because of the help you got you were going to leave him."
"I told him I was. I told him about the help I got from you and that I
didn't want to have sex with him anymore. We ended up having sex one
more time. A few weeks later, he kept asking me if I was pregnant. I
thought it was strange. How did he know I had missed my period? And
then I found out I was. I found out he had torn the condom before we
had sex. He didn't want me to leave him. He knew I didn't need him
anymore."

I walk home heavy with this lump in my throat, fighting back the
tears. What if I had never gotten her the help? What if I had never
came to Swaziland? What if I had done things differently? Would Thuli
be pregnant still? What if I hadn't intervened? I should have looked
closer.

Back to my primary school with three thousand books to
organize..alone. My school, two years ago, received 1500 books from
Wales. 1500 books sat in boxes collecting dust for two years. And I,
naive, got them 1500 more books from the US. Now, 3000 books sit in
boxes untouched, unloved. Twice a week I come and organize and clean
what I can. Without any help from the teachers, they tell me to hurry
up. "These children want to look at the new books. When are you going
to finish?" I tell them, "I'd probably be done if I actually had help
from staff." They laugh and walk away. Before Mid Service (the two
week workshop) I tell them not to touch any of the 300 books I have
organized on the shelves. "They are in order. We can't check any books
out until I have catalogued every book." I leave for two weeks. When I
return, I find books on the ground, on top of shelves, back in boxes,
out of boxes. An old, white, woman stands in the middle of the room
smiling. The head teacher introduces her as one of the people from
Wales who donated the books a few years ago. She leaves us alone to
talk.

The beaming woman shows me photos she had taken last week. "And as you
can see here they are checking out books to the students, every
Friday. Isn't that wonderful?" I pause. I could go one of two ways
with this. Let her go back smiling ignorantly or give her the reality
of the situation. Obviously these people from Wales are doing what
most charity organizations don't: monitoring and evaluating. They were
right to come here and see if their donations had actually done
anything. I watch her smile fade as I explain that these books have
been sitting in boxes for two years. That this is all a show. Next
time they should come unannounced. And that this parade of books has
actually taken my work back two weeks. There's an uncomfortable
silence.

It's half past ten. Lunch time. The students run outside with their
bowls in hand. Sour porridge for lunch. The staff and head teacher
enter the room. "Why are they eating only porridge today?" I ask the
head teacher.
"We have no more food Simphwie."
"But what about (insert NGO name)'s donations?"
"They only provide for the first and last terms... we always run out
in the second."
It blows my mind that this organization isn't providing food right
now. This isn't harvesting season. Nothing is growing. This is winter,
when we need food the most. School food is most of these students’s
ONLY meal for the day. Sour porridge. A watery slime leaks through the
children's fingers as they watch through the windows.

The lady from Wales is leaving tomorrow and the staff wants to show
their appreciation for the books. This organization had also paid for
one of the teachers to go to Wales for two weeks and watch how they
are teaching there. "When are YOU going to take one of us to the USA
Simphiwe?!" They laugh. I know this teacher has learned nothing over
there. I've watched teacher after teacher go to workshop after
workshop, paid for by outside help, on how to provide psycho-social
support to their students. How to engage the students. How to spot an
OVC or a child in need. I ask them what they learned when they get
back. One teacher draws a circle on the board.
"I learned what psycho-social support is."
"So, what's the circle for?" I ask.
"It's a cycle.. like a circle... you know cycle social support." The
topic of the seminar.. Psycho Social Support.. and she couldn't even
give me the definition of it.

The staff brings in traditional Swazi attire for the old lady from
Wales. They dress her up and do a little song and jive for her. A
child brings in a tray full of food, coffee, and tea. They sit to eat.
I look outside. Children watching through the windows with their food
snot in hand and empty stomachs.

We, as non African spectators, need to open our eyes.

NGOs litter this area. Money jumping out of foreigner’s pockets. It's
never enough. 15 billion for water canals and irrigation piping. Water
pouring into the sugar cane fields. Promised water taps on every
homestead will have to wait until the sugar has drunk. 15 billion
spent to bring in workers from neighboring countries: Mozambique,
South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Young hardworking men away from their
families. Away from their wives. Their camp site built directly across
the street from my primary school.

"I watch them Simphiwe." A teacher tells me. "Young girls coming out
of these camps. Our female students with money in their hands. They
hand over the cash to their mothers and aunties. I watch the men, with
cars and money, picking up young girls and driving off."

15 billion spent to bring water to a desperate community. Their money, their
labor, their disease.

Outside health organizations assigning us to do their data collection
for them. "Is what we're doing.. effective? Are the people getting the
food they need?" They ask us what they are doing wrong. A volunteer
says to me, "These organizations have absolutely no data on these
children. There is no monitoring and evaluating. They throw the money
and the food at these people and have no idea where it's going.
There's talk they want to pull out. I'll be so pissed if we do all
their data collection and then they just leave these people." Unmilled
maize thrown at the impoverished. Unmilled maize which they then have
to take to a mill and pay to be milled. With what money? Food
literally dumped off the back of pick up trucks and then being sold by
others. Never touching the hands of those who really need it.

"The Japanese came in and spent all this money building my community
an electric water system. Millions of dollars spent on a system that
provides water only if you can afford the electric bill every month.
All that money spent and no one uses it. We still walk miles and miles
for our water."

World Cup just around the corner. A volunteer working with a clinic
tells me, "There is so much TB in this area and people are spreading
it like crazy. We've asked for tents. Somewhere to separate those with
tuberculosis. The infected are going home to those with compromised
immune systems and spreading it which is killing them. But the
government won't allow us to get tents. With all the world cup
footage, with all eyes on southern Africa, they don't want this
country looking like a 'refugee camp'. So thousands will suffer."

An African tells me how much he loves President Bush for all the money
he's given to his continent. Funding, which we as volunteers can use
but only if we jump through its ignorant obstacles. To get the funding
we must preach an unrealistic message. Funding for a price. For a lie.

As volunteers, we are all stand ins for any foreigner who comes to
Africa trying to "help". Many of us have ignorantly, naively, and
idealistically traveled here with such a black and white, sweet and
sour, wrong and right interpretation of African reality. Aid work in
Africa, we are realizing, is grey. Is messy. Is forever changing. One
year ago, we finally felt alive.. free from school and the 9-5... in
what seemed like this exciting new world. But soon we became the
wide-eyed non-African spectator watching humankind succumb to its
worst instincts. We wanted to change things, but as a peace corps
volunteer you can't help but witness and get sucked into one trashy
development plan after another. You become a constant apologist for
the things you cannot change. For the things you did not see a year
ago. And for the things you will not see until a year from now when
you are on that plane and out of here.

Volunteers, aid workers, teachers... the foreign help, the foreign
money, are in this fight for Swaziland's survival. We are stuck in a
forest and we can only see the trees in front of us; unaware of
the bigger picture. The more time you spend here, however, you start to see past
the trees. You start to notice the donations collecting dust in a
corner, the water that never gets to the people, the food that gets
stolen and sold, the workshops to a deaf audience, the millions, the
billions wasted. And this is the nature of aid work. You can't just
click on a website and see a picture of smiling African babies, their
arms outstretched, and say.. wow they're changing people's lives. You
watch footage of Africa.. the turtle drums playing in the background.
Colorful. Tropical. It gets you thinking; maybe I should go to
Africa... and help.

We need to take a closer look.

I need to take a closer look.

I think about the past year. What have I done? Who have I touched?
Changed for the better? Have I monitored or evaluated any of my
actions? I remember Nonjaboliso. Thirteen years old. Raped by her HIV
positive grandfather. Cared for her parents until they died.. AIDS.
Then deprived of food and forced into bed with her grandfather. I
remember getting her out of there. I remember walking onto her
homestead and feeling in my gut something was wrong. I remember
shaking the old man's hand with thoughts of ripping his dick off. I
remember the threats and the warnings. "He is a witch Simphiwe. Stay
away." I remember the snake in my hut that night. I remember taking
Nonjaboliso to the half way house. Watching her cry while she told the
police her story. That was almost 9 months ago. And I’ve only been
back to see her once.

I last saw Nonjaboliso in January and I need to know, did I do the
right thing? Did my actions help? Is she finally living up to her
name- Nonjaboliso "Happiness"? I walk through Manzini up the long hill
to the chained fence that locks these unwanted children in. A young
boy wanders to me. He smiles and grabs my hand. His swaying movements
and constant humming show me his disability. The unwanted. "This one's
disturbed." A woman tells me. "He's dumb. Can't talk." The young boy
grabs my hand and puts it on the lock around the gate. He wants out.
He points to the sky and says, "Da da." He walks me to little naked
babies in the corner who cry at the sight of me. Someone turned inside
out; I’d scream and cry too if I saw me. Another woman walks towards
us. She remembers me. "Simphiwe. It's been a while." We shake hands.

"You're here to see that girl. The dark one?"
"Nonjaboliso. Is she here?"
"She left Simphiwe. In February. We got her a good home. A boarding
school with all her friends. Up north."
I smile.
"Is she happy?" I ask.
"Very happy Simphiwe." She smiles.
Tears start to collect in the corner of my eye and I ask, "Then I did the right
thing? Taking her away from her home?"
"Of cours!" She laughs and slaps me on the back.
"Was she still wearing the necklace I gave her?"
A St. Christopher pendant I put around her neck before I said goodbye.
"He protects you while you're away from home Nonjaboliso. He will
protect you while we're apart."
"It's still around her neck." The woman affirms me.

I walk down the hill. Back to town. People stare, wondering what this
white girl is doing in this part of town. I may never do anything
sustainable here . Maybe I won't change anyone. Maybe I won't help a
single person before I go. But Nonjaboliso, coming here for two years
was worth being able to reach out to her. Coming here will all be
worth it knowing she is out there with her name, and she's smiling
again.

Tonight I lie in bed thinking of all the OVCs (Orphaned Vulnerable
Children) out there. Their parents dead from this virus. They left
their babies alone, in the hands of relatives who promised to take
care of them but have failed to do so. I think of Nonjaboliso's story.
She lived on her grandfather's homestead with her parents when they
fell sick. Her mother chased away by her grandfather because she
wouldn't sleep with him. Her husband too sick to notice. She dies away
from her husband and child on her parent's homestead. She never sees
her daughter again. Nonjaboliso's father close to death. She's at his
side. She cleans his infected thrush. With a rag, she wipes away the
maggots coming out of his mouth. He begs his father to take care of
his daughter once he is gone. Nonjaboliso's father dies and the real
nightmare begins for her.

The ghosts of dead parents, I hope they can't see what's happening to
their babies. Does her father know, she's smiling now?

My phone rings. It's my Proud African.
"Simphiwe. Vula emehlo." He laughs.
"What?" I ask.
"Are your eyes open yet?"
"I'm getting there." I tell him. "I'm beginning to see."