Watching Simphiwe Grow

3/23/2010

Four months left of service, and I begin the cleaning out the hut dance. Books, stacks of paper, who I was two years ago all over the place. Hidden, covered in dust and web. All the letters I wrote loved ones back home and never sent. I read outlines and proposals I once wrote. “I’m going to change the world!” Family trees. Line after line organizing all these strange faces. Connecting the dots. I had a plan. I had hope. Self-delusion. I didn’t know how this world worked back then, but I was determined to put it all back together. I thought I was fixing things. Some may have thought of it as meddling but I liked to think I was valuable. A resource, if you will. But I thought I knew everything back then.

No skills, no practical talents to help the people here. All I had was my voice. And an untrained one at that. I had a message to tell.

But they didn’t know that at first. Here I came, almost two years ago, floating down in my white cloud, glowing like some fairy like firefly. Feathered wings came out from my shoulder blades. Rays of light surrounded my head. Silver and gold confetti shook from hair, and followed my heavenly path.

We volunteers weren't born again. We were hatched. It was clean. It was smooth. We were beautiful eggs in each region of this country. Young and tender. Untouched. Innocence. We avoided that mess of being born. We were hatched and put here. We didn't have the wings to fly. To see the bigger picture. We had an infant's expected excitemnent. Ready to start life all over again with people who knew nothing of who were were back home. The mistakes we made. The people we hurt. We were given a key to this world. A connection and bridge to help us through the many hard passagways ahead. We are named. What shall they call me, I wondered. Tragedy? Confused? Will they call me Grief? A new beginning.

“You’re a gift.” They told me. “Simphiwe. We shall call you Simphiwe.”

It didn’t occur to me at the time, but I was covered with tiny fish hooks; worms dangling from the tips. I became bait. I became sex. I became bank deposit slips. I was an answer to their prayers. And I had no idea.

Their curiosity becomes obvious. It's in your face constantly now and you are aware you're prey. Fear always in the back of your mind. Will the predator come after you? Gazelle. Like a pack of wolves, will they howl in celebration over you and devour you alive? You are too clamarous. It's too late, you've given yourself away. They see your flaws now. So you pull out your wand. A whisk here, a flick there and the corruption would be gone. Eyes would be opened. And you have proven your name worthy. I am Simphiwe! You will shout.

Voila! I’d say. 2 years later and my debts will have been paid. My emotional problems solved. The boyfriend I once cheated on. The shirt from Lazarus I stole. That math test I cheated on. OK. All of the math tests I cheated on. All forgiven. Not only that, but my childhood sorrows, the ones that held me back,have been erased now. Now I can just get on with it.

But what is this “it”? What am I supposed to be getting on with? My life? Aren’t I living it RIGHT NOW.

My motives aren't as pure as they seem on here. They are darker. They are gloomier. I catch sight of myself, in that inward eye. I’m not so innocent. They’re in this forest and I just want to give up. Hide in the forest with them. Tune it out. Drink. Watch movies. Fantasize about what’s next, after these four months.

Why do you think YOU are now lost in this infinite forest? I continue to ask myself. Get on with “it”. This is IT. This is the path you’ve chosen. Live these next four months to the fullest. Don’t rush it. Just be. Live. And see. Vula emehlo. You still have a long way to go.

And now, no longer the answer to their prayers, I escape to town. I return to my community only to teach and work with the kids. I step foot on my homestead only to grab cleaner clothes. I want no part of this anymore. But the longer I spend away the more guilt I feel. The anxiety builds. The bus ride back to Siphofaneni, to the destination of drained trees, and I begin to panic. I always panic. What will gogo think of my absence? Will she say something? Will she call Peace Corps. Peace Corps rules. Only allowed away from site two consecutive days a month. I am a failure. I tell myself. I’m tired of this routine. I need to stay put. I know other volunteers judge. Meredith. The rule-breaker. Meredith. The socialite. Meredith the partier. Meredith. Friends with the locals.

My neighboring volunteer friends visit my homestead. They’re the ones who see. They meet my gogo, the children there, the homestead. “I don’t know how you put up with this.” They tell me. Partly easing my guilt. I’m not the crazy one. But the reassurance causes more anger. I visit other volunteer’s homesteads. “My family won’t stop talking about Simphiwe.” Volunteers tell me. “I think they love you more than me.” The family members greet us, welcome us, hug us. Other volunteers, apart of something. I am an orphan. Rejected.

As a volunteer we are reborn. We grow like a child does. Full of marvel and wonder, but lacking all awareness. We held onto our naive intellect. And we begin to grow, just as ever child does. Hormones are raging. Our hut walls begin to feel like a prison. We feel stuck. We feel paranoid. Everyone is against us. We want so much to fit in. But we can't. We're angry. Pissed off. The "I hate you mom" stage. But your mother is Swaziland. Many of us leave here as adolescents.

We swing from vanity and pride to whining self-doubt. "What do THEY know." We say. "Fucking Swazis. A nation of 15 year olds!" We criticize, we judge. We are trained, by Peace Corps, to walk into clinics with a piece of paper in hand (given to us by Peace Corps, signed by the Ministry of Health, saying we are allowed to work in these clinics)and ask the staff to give us work to do. "And what is your background in?" Some nurses will ask us. You huff and you puff, "How dare they. I am here to help them for free. They should immediately put me to work. They're lucky to have me." You walk into schools, signed paper from the Ministry of Education. "Were you a teacher back home?" They ask. "Of course." You say, knowing full well you worked with dogs, not children. "I'm better than any teacher here anyway." You think.

My language had turned to debris in my throat. My thoughts were no longer me. Who am I? I used to be humble. I used to be fair. I wanted to be a sociologist, an anthropologist, a psychologist. A person who fought to understand with humility. Who have we become?

Self-important. Self pretencious. I can no longer endure a social life in this crowd of volunteers anymore. Sitting around a cheap box of wine, hour after hour of bitching. Hatred. Cannot wait to leave this unreasonably intolerable place.

"I mean what do you expect. He's Swazi." My friend says to Mamba. Once we've dropped her off, I turn to Mamba and ask, "Does it bother you when she says that to you?" He looks confused. "Says what?" I explain, "When she speaks so little of.. Swazis."

He laughs. His pride flares up again and his big bright eyes look charmingly into my own. I can't help but twirl my fingers through his boyish hair.He begins, "You volunteers, cocky. You think you know everything about our world in two years. Come here. Conquering. Telling US how it is OUT there. I grew up OUT there. You think because you've spent a few months in the bush you can come to the city and talk at us like we don't know what's going on out there."

I think back to all the nasty things I've said and written to the kids growing up in the city of Mbabane. I try to defend, "Most Swazis live 'out there' Mamba. And it just shocks us that the kids in the city have no idea what THEIR people are going through." He turns, "Do you know what the kids growing up in the slums of New York are going through? Are you helping them? You guys think you've got it all figured out. If I even approach American girls here you throw your hand up in the air and assume I'm just trying to get a piece of your ass. Cocky. Cocky. Cocky." His brother nods in agreement. And I'm thinking about the first time I met Mamba. I actually wrote about it. The post was titled, "It takes a queen to notice one." He, myself, and my African Queen spent the entire night talking about life in Swaziland. I had learned so much from her. She inspired me. Mamba sat next to me, said a few words. Or had he said many words? Knowing him now, I can't imagine he had little to say. I had blocked him out. I assumed he only stayed behind to chat with us because he wanted.. me. And once African Queen left for the night, there he stood by my side, I turned to him and simply said, "It's NOT going to happen." Cocky. Cocky. Cocky.


"As much as we need to humble ourselves and understand that we don’t know everything about the Swazi world." I tell Mamba. "You need to understand YOU do not understand everything about the volunteer world. We spend three months in training where all they tell us is how bad the harrassment is going to be. Then three months at site, not allowed to leave. As much as you "grew up out there" you are not rural Swazi. You do not act like the Siphofaneni man. Three months of harrassment, then we're finally allowed to leave and witness the city life. By the time we get to you we have endured so much. So much you will never know." Mamba shrugs his shoulders. Finally, unable to argue against my words. "We can only continue to ask and learn from each other." I tell him. "I have already learned so much from you. I'm lucky to have met you." I tell him.

I don't think he'll ever know how much he's shown me. As another volunteer once put it, "Sometimes, as volunteers, we have the privledge to meet a person who is our bright light in this confusing darkness." I wish we had met earlier. or I, at least, had been willing to listen. But that is part of growing up. You can't force growth.

Everyday I try to face the unsettling realities about myself. Who I was. Who I've become.

I grew up to feel. I constantly need to feel- something- anything. Pain, joy, sadness, surprise. Take your pick, it didn’t matter. As long as it stirred something inside me. I was reactive. I was sponge. I soaked everything in. And I was born this way. I knew Africa, Swaziland, would give me the extreme sides of all of these emotions. But now, here at the source of it all, I feel more disconnected than ever. How did this happen? This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I was to integrate. To love. To connect. My host family would soon become family. We’d make dinners over the fire. We’d share stories of growing up. We’d laugh at the silly things we misinterpreted. We’d learn from each other. We’d grow together, not apart.

But that’s all I feel now, apart.

I was ready to pour my all into this. I know I have it in me to love the whole world. The whole country. The places I’ve visited, the people I’ve met along the way, they pour themselves into me as I have them. We share. We bond. We love. It’s my homestead, my host family, I now hide from. Constant discomfort. Constant stares. Constantly staying away. Seeking connection else where.

I have failed them, as they have failed me. The mood here has changed from one of dislike and disassociation to now hatred. And it’s mutual.

I go to our office, in the capital, to make copies for my class. Stella, Swazi staff, sits behind her desk. Stella’s been on my side this whole time, back when there were sides. Me vs. Peace Corps. The office pointing fingers my direction. “Why are you being harassed so much in Nkiliji? You must be doing something wrong.” They asked me. Stella, scared of American staff, tried, in her own way, to defend me. She was there the day they came to take me away. She stood by and watched as I said my tearful goodbyes to my family.

She sits behind her desk and smiles big as she always does when she sees me. “Meredith. Oh how I miss you.” I tell her I miss her more. “I know you hate me Meredith. Just like your family in Nkilji.” I’m confused, why, after a year is she bringing this up? “I know they didn’t understand why we took you away.” A Peace Corps driver walks in. “I remember that day.” He says. “I know you don’t remember, but I was there. I saw you. The whole family crying. Oh what a sight. So much love.” Stella shakes her head, “I know you hate me.” I put my hand on hers. “All is forgiven Stella. I’ve moved on and accepted the new situation I am in now. We’ve all learned from it. It’s ok.” I walk out before she can continue. I don’t want to re-live that day anymore.

But there are times when I don’t forgive. There are times I wonder how different my service would have been there instead of here. Would I still be so full of hatred? I hate that I was put here, on this desolate goat-infested desert, where no one loves or feels anything. I had something, and it was taken from me. I try to go back to Nkiliji when I can, but it just makes it harder to come back.


I once was a child here, and now a teenager. The more I let in, the more I let go, the more I feel and understand. Eventually the anger will dissolve. And I hope, when my time comes, I can fly out of here, in four months with a smile on my face. A feeling of no regret and extreme personal growth.

I walk outside this desert behind my hut and sit with the goats. I imagine fantastical creatures around me. I imagine magnolia's sweet smells. I decide how I want my future to unfold. Coming home to a loving boyfriend, in his underwear twisting the cork out of a nice bottle of red wine. Hello Sweetie. He'll say. Hello my love. I'll say back. Franklin, our bulldog sleeps on the hardwood floor. Stuffed and snoring. I've got two degrees and a job I love. Wednesday nights are martini Wednesdays with my girlfriends. Sundays I visit the parents. We eat salads from their garden and argue over petty politics. And every night i'll go to bed, exhale loudly and whisper to myself, "I love my life."

I shake myself out of it. No. I need to be here. I need to make the most of the here and now. With open arms and an open heart. I still have four months to learn and understand. I have a long way to go. I tell myself . But I'm starting now.

Skinny Love

3/14/2011


“We are stronger for all that we let in.”

Connection is something I’ve always sought out. I was grew up this way. I am fully aware, however, that connection has its costs. It can cause painful vulnerability and dependence. And in the end, you are at risk of the worst thing to come of reaching out: loss.

“I just visited my sisi, Polile, in the hospital.” Brook texts me. “Can you come over tonight?” Brook is, without a doubt, my best friend and also, without a doubt, another Peace Corps volunteer like myself. And her homestead sisi is dying of AIDS. Recently she has been diagnosed with TB. And I know Brook is not one to reach out. So when she casually asks me to come over, I hop on the next bus to her homestead. “Do you want me to go with you tomorrow to visit her in town?” I ask. We agree to go to the hospital the next morning. “I want to warn you Mere. It’s like something out of a civil war film. Cots filled with bodies. Unattended. I swear there was a dead body lying next to her. Hidden under the covers.” Tears collect in her eyes. As much as Brook thinks I can’t handle this. I need this. I need to be unnerved. I’m strong.

I’m the girl for the job. I think.

Let us open with the stereotypical third world hospital scene. Babies falling out of every corner. You walk into the lobby throbbing with florescent midday heat, and spot an obedient crowd with fidgety children in laps,waiting for visiting hours. The submissivness of the people here reeks of faith. And it's something, right now, you long for. To share their trustfulness. Their faith. That everything is going to be all right. But why must I believe. Because I NEED to? Their God is different than ours. Dictator. Authoratative. Turning us into beggars. But can you blame them? Needing some sort of control in this horrific world. Glory to God in the Highest. It's never been for me. I want the here and the now. The Earth and present. But it's moments like these, I wonder, will that suffice?

The hallways feel like arteries; pulsating with people who lead us to the heart: Polile. We stick out in this crowd and the people wonder what we’re doing in this governmental hospital. The white go to the private clinics. Are we volunteers? Nurses out of uniform? They wonder. We walk through doorway after doorway. Doorways where there are no doors. Open and exposed. Anyone could walk in. The female wing carries cot after cot of half dressed women, suffering. No air conditioning, not even a fan and it reeks of stale body. Mothers by their sides fan them as they sit and stare. No words exchanged. I’m going to have to bury my own daughter. They fear. I wonder, do they ever glance over to each other and ask, “What have we done wrong? They’re all dying on us.”

But we aren’t there yet. Brook and I continue to walk to the very back, pass these suffering skeletons, to the quarantined. “You’ll need a mask.” A nurse tells us. We put our shields on. We are ready for battle. The masks cover our nose and mouth, plastic covering our eyes. I’m already finding it difficult to breath. Anticipating. We open the door and we’re in. Brook sees Polile in the back and goes to greet her and her mother. I’m at a stand still. So many of them. Pain in their eyes. I am sure the dead have climbed in from their graves. Motionless skeletons. Enormous eyes are all that’s left of them. They stare at you with captivative horror, and a splash of hope. As if you’re about to pull out a syringe from your pocket. You carry the cure. You are here to end their suffering, they hope. And when you leave all they will see is your amputated arms, your rotten stumps with nothing to give them. What a tease, they will think.


Their bodies. Trembling leaves. Their bodies. Dying. Trying hard to stay alive. Their organs burst. Intestenial swelling. White webs climb outside from their throats. Their brains melt.

I bite the inside of my cheek and pinch my sideburns into points. All my nervous ticks come out. I walk fast. I stand by my friend’s side and I greet our skeleton. I grab her skinny hand with both hands to greet. I want her to know I don't care what's inside. She's more than this to me. That I too, love her. The others sit in fascination. How did this girl get two whites to come visit her? Why is she so special? She sits up now. “You’re looking SO much better today Polile.” Brook assures her. Are you kidding me? I think. This is better? Polile’s eyes are trained on me. She tries to smile for us. Her lips quiver and she struggles to make them curve upward. Her whole body shaking. Brook hands her three cards. “These are from your children. They miss you so much and can’t wait for you to come home.” She holds the cards in her hands, barely able to bend her fingers to turn the page. We help her. She looks out the window and smiles a weak smile. “They’re in town today." Brook continues. "They’re running in the competition for school. I know they wish you were there Polile.” Polile says nothing. She looks out the window and stares. Her daughters so close to her and yet she is unable to get to them. It’s not culturally appropriate for her or anyone to show emotion at this point. She is to shed no tears in front of us. But I know she’s in pain. She knows there will be many track competitions she will miss. She knows she very well may never get to hold her babies again. Her husband died two years ago (AIDS), and she knows what’s in store for her. If she gets to leave this place, it will be her mother and children that will wipe her ass and spoon feed her porridge until her end. But she stays strong. She cradles her cards and she gives us a smile.

I stand in spotlight. I find it difficult to breath inside this mask. Inside this place. I take a look around. The half dead lie here next to me. They had their chances, and they blew it. They shouldn’t have been distracted by the boys, their bad romance. They shouldn’t have trusted them, they should have focused on their studies, they shouldn’t have said yes. Why hadn’t they awaken from their zombie slumber. Now their children will be orphaned, raised by greedy relatives, slaves will become of them. I’m seeing the beginning of all the stories I’ve read or heard from my students and friends. It all begins here. The death of the mother.

I’m putting it all together and they’re taking me apart.

If they could talk. What would these skeletons say?

I was born. I grew up. I studied. I loved. I married. I procreated. I made mistakes. Just like you. Passionate affairs. Reckless adventures. Now. All gone. I went. I saw. I did. Farewell to my decaying heart. Farewell you young men with alluring eyes offering me risky voyages and luring me in with your gems and germs. Farewell friends and family, you’ve shifted from my view. I once had hairdos and told jokes like you do now. I once had a dream and a future. I once was like everyone else. I used to sing like sirens and dance like daisys do. But now my rhythm and dance are gone. My mouth is open and tongue cut out. The leaves crinkle, and the air stagnant. And so too will my heart lie still and no longer beat and I've fallen silent.

I’m 30 years old and I’m going into the ground.

Goodbye to my children, goodbye to my parents, goodbye to my dirty dresses, to my unfaithful husband, to my boyfriends, goodbye to my scabby knees and calloused hands,, goodbye and thank you to my aching back for holding all my children. To all these things that have made my life, I say goodbye. You say, what a simple life. But it was mine. I owned it. And now, taken from me. Gone.

Their sadness is worn like an old book. The damage and pain shows along the borders. No longer hiding. It’s out for me, and anyone passing this ward, to see. They stare into my eyes. They stare beyond my flesh. I feel them inside me. They want me to end it. Slit their throat. They whisper to me now, “Empty your mind. And make a space for me. Don’t forget me like everyone else.”

I’m reminded of the scene in Aliens. A cheap comparison I know. But it’s all I have. Sigourney Weaver walks into a room of her clones. Lying there, dying, untouched, unloved. One calls out to her, her deep brown eyes staring into her origin, she pleads for her to end it.

Like Sigourney, I feel so connected. This connection is more than just being woman. We are human. No one should have to suffer like this. And I hear them. I wonder what it’s like to breathe so heavily. I need to breathe.

These women’s faces. Their frightening expressions. Lie there exposed. Un-phased by my presence and their bare breasts. Breasts no longer used. Washed up. The milk all sucked out. Now lay on top of their skeletal bodies. Crushing them. Their job done: Procreation. Now they can die. “Life ends today.”

Do they want to speak out? Do they want to tell me something? Bring your ear down closer. They’d whisper. Put your hand over your other ear, and listen. Can you hear me? Can you feel me? Do you feel what I feel? Ask me what you need to know. I know you’re just a neutral observer. A supplier of aid. Find your voice, and tell the others my story. But don’t exploit our human tragedies that are really none of your business. One day, maybe I’ll tell you how I got here. I’ll tell you how it got to this. I was young once. I was beautiful. I was sought after. The boys lined up for me. There were waiting lists. And now, so tiny. I’m so tiny, so wispy and whispery thin. How did I come to be shut up in this room with these other skeletons? I don’t belong here. My story is an incredible story. A story you won’t find in your world. My fight for survival. We all have stories we want to tell you. But we can’t. We don’t speak the same language. You are just an outsider to us. And I’m just a statistic to you.

So many bodies, scattered, slashed, venemous, contatious and broken. We are not able to process so many carcasses. In this number, they blend into the scenery. Now, just a landscape.I bring myself back to the individual.

Brook sits with Polile in silence. I examine the door. The gateway out of here. My way to escape. It seems so far. All eyes are on me. The spotlight is hot and heavy.

I can’t breathe.

“Are you OK?” Brook asks me. I need to stay strong. “Yeah. I’m fine.” I turn to Polile. “Do you need anything? From the store? To drink?” I ask.

Please say yes. Please say yes. I think.

She asks if I can get her something to drink. “I’m on it!” I grin. Inside suffocating. Tears collect in my eyes. Don’t let them see me now.

I turn for the door. I walk fast. Through water, my feet, my clothes, weigh me down. Halfway across the room now. The door moving further and further from my reach. Almost there. Keep it together. My heart, my anchor, holding me back. I run, certain that something is following, chasing, just about to catch me.

I shut the door behind me. Their eyes still staring. I try to untie my mask. I can’t get it off. No more breaths left in my body. I am light headed. Get it off me. Just get it off me! I rip off the mask and run outside. But even outside, I’m still inside. I don’t want them seeing me cry. Little white girl can’t cut it. They’ll think. No. I hold my breath. Focus on my breathing. A bubble in my throat. I shove it back down and I swallow hard.

I thought I could be strong for you. I thought I’d be stronger for letting this in. You’ve got the wrong girl I think. I feel myself getting weaker. I feel myself becoming unstuck. I break down and let the tears pour down my cheeks. My eyes, mixed with sweat, begin to burn. I lean hard against the wall and bury my head. It’s not fair. It’ just not fair. Like my Proud African seeing my notebook of stories of those living with HIV in our village. “So many.” He says to me. So many. I think now. So many dying. "Helloooooooooo mommmyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Helllooooooooo baaaaby." Two young men walk pass and call out. It takes everything inside of me not to pull them by the ears and drag them into the female ward. "Look what your little peckers have done to these women!" I would shout. But I have to remember, there's a whole separate ward of the male skeletons- waiting to die as well.

I collect myself and go back inside, drink in hand. I wipe the sweat off my palms and put my mask back on. I try to become callous and conquer these emotions. Despite this heavy mask, I can smell rotten flesh. It’s getting stronger. I am pushed aside by a nurse as a dead body is wheeled pass me. Not a family member or friend in sight. She died alone. No one to hear her story.

My healing visit concluded, I pass down the hall and notice a woman lying in her bed. I don’t hear her words, but her deep murmur of prayer. Her bandages soaked through. Rotten orange and red. Pulsating puss. And i've never prayed.

Why is it, after we feel something so strong, the touch of a man, the death of a dog, the realization that pain is everywhere, after the moment of feeling is over between us, the synapses continue snapping away? Isn't this the moment that should drive me to prayer?

All observations of life are harsh. Every one of us has experienced something that will sit with us for the rest of our lives. I know flashes of her face and other's faces like hers will stay with me. I know I cannot change this. I have to live embracing. Knowing each of these moments will, in the end, make me stronger. Only walking barefoot will I get the calluses I seek.

And when I get back home my mom will ask, What happened to my little girl? And I will say, She grew up.

Zombie Land

3/1/2011

Zombie Land

I’m angry. I’m pissed off.

I walk into bars, with my Swazi friend, Mamba, hoping to start a conversation. I’m tired of teaching in “settings”. The classrooms, the youth centers, the conference rooms. I want to see the guts of Swaziland. I’m done tip toeing around. I have 5 months left and it’s time to dive right in. I want to understand the environment in which people have sex so casually and dangerously. Cops at bars, sex workers in bathrooms. The rich white, colored (the preferred term instead of bi-racial) kids with daddy’s credit cards. The unemployed. The managers of factories. S&B workers and head teachers. I share drinks and befriend the sons of ambassadors and former ministers. Their family close to royalty.
I gyrate with the rich in flashy “nightclubs”. I peek into shady sheebeens (bars). I order beers and chat with the Swazi drunk and soon I discover everyone has something interesting to say. I latch onto anyone who will chat. I sit silently listening to the drunk poor out their deepest secrets. The things they would never tell their teachers, their bosses, a reporter, a surveyor, or scientist, their best friend, or wife. The same stories. “I think my girlfriend is cheating on me.” They tell me. They pull me in with sympathy and pity. I feel for them. “And I think my wife is too.” I get angry. “You’re the reason this country is dying! You’re the reason your people only live to be 33 years old. Villages of people 15 and under! Don’t you see!?” I pull my hair out and my Swazi friend intervenes to smooth things over. “I’m trying to show them!”I shout at him as he pulls me back. “No Meredith. You’re trying to piss them off. There are two ways to make change happen. And one will get you a bullet in the head. Stop pissing people off.” He shouts back.

Their stories and reasoning was all starting to make sense to me now. It was the international bureaucratic aid agencies I struggled to understand. Blindly dumping food off the back of trucks. Paying caregivers money instead of food. “Please.” They tell us. “Please tell them to start paying us in food again, our husbands take our money and use it to get drunk. We have no food now.” The NGO turf wars. Meetings only to schedule other meetings. Nothing actually ever discussed or determined or DONE. Only scratching the surface. And peace corps itself. Millions of taxpayers dollars going down our idealistic drain. A world of acronyms and their ignorance to understand the ACTUAL environment in which this disease spreads in THIS country. Maybe they’re not the lunatics. Maybe we are.

“We need jobs, not donations.” Mamba tells me. It’s not the people we need to change. It’s the environment that is causing the people to behave the way in which they are behaving. I’m trying to understand this environment. Swaziland isn’t like Asia’s drug injectors and prostitutes or the US’s homosexuals. Here there is no clear box to put those at risk in. Here, everyone is a target. Everyone is using sex for power.

I want to leave the dry technical, counting pills, weighing babies, teaching “Life Skills”, world and plunge into the brains of people who know more about what was going on then I did. Who had the experience. Who lived everyday in this sexual web of transmission. I had lost my way in this labyrinth of relationships and it was time for me to sort it out, to finally understand the reasoning behind the, what seems to us, idiotic (almost suicidal) actions of the people here.

And I didn’t have to go far. Mamba is a manager of a backpackers just outside the city of Manzini. One day, off running errands, he leaves me alone there. I sit outside on the verandah, sipping my instant coffee. A car pulls up and a middle aged man steps out. His expensive suede shoes and Swazi plates on his car tell me what he is here to do. Most backpackers in Swaziland refuse business to Swazis. Why? Because of what is about to happen next. His young beauty waits in the car until she is given the all clear. I remember Mamba telling me once, “I could make a fortune on this place. I get at least 5 people a day asking, begging, me to charge by the hour. This place is just right outside the city, so no one can see. You get the wife coming in with her secret lover, she goes. Half an hour later her husband walks in with his secret girl. I refuse these people everyday. I am not a brothel.” The man causally walks over to me blocking my view of the television. In between me and The Kardashians, OK now I’m pissed. “We don’t charge by the hour.” I say, hanging upside down on the couch chewing on a straw. “I’d like a room for the night.” I get Mamba on the phone and they talk it out. He calls to his secret lover. Flogging lipstick and plunging neckline steps out of the car, I search her face for any sign of guilt or shame. Just another empty face, another blank stare, another walking zombie. She follows him into the bedroom.

“The fan is broken.” He calls out. I bring him another one. As I set up the fan I’m screaming in my head, “What are you doing?!” Thirty minutes later, after their mundane dank sex session, the man comes out. “We’re going to town for a bit.” He says. “We’ll be right back.” Mamba is back, and he pays him before he goes. “They won’t be back.” I say. “I know.” He says.

Sometimes I find myself with the conquering settler’s complex. Fucking idiots, I think. Why are people risking their lives for sex? These people must have no developed conscious. They seem to lack any spark of reason. Critical thinking and problem solving is almost impossible for them. I think.

I walk the streets of Manzini, these untamed sights, smells, customs, men shaking the urine off their dicks in broad daylight in front of you. I am above this. I think. Smug.Why couldn’t I have been placed in a country whose people constructed ornate languages. Vast cities. Invented new systems of mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy. People who are graceful, sensitive in human relations. Who write poetry about human existence. Who don’t latch onto our culture and twist it in a way that suits them.

“I don’t get it!” I shout to Mamba. “Why are people behaving this way when they have the education?! They know the average Swazi lives to be 33 years old. Why doesn’t that scare them? One woman once said to me, ‘Life ends today. Nothing else matters.’ How can they so easily just line up and let this disease take them?” He shakes his head, nibbling his cob of maize. “They haven’t given up. You say the average Swazi lives to be 33? For the people here, once you’ve had children and established a home- life is over. You’re done. You’ve done everything a Swazi can do. And most of them are achieving this before 33. It doesn’t sound that bad to us.”

I realize now. These kids don’t need “HIV lessons.” They need direction. There needs to be more to life than just sex and babies. People needed to learn to explore themselves and the world around them. It’s what I’ve been trying to teach in my school and girls clubs. They’ve been bred to accept, never question. They sit in my class and stare. Zombies. “Make a collage of who you are. What you like. What makes you angry. Who you love. Your passion.” I have to define the word passion. An idea foreign to them. Every girl makes a collage of becoming a nurse, teacher, or soldier. She cuts out pictures of Beyonce and Rihanna. The boys draw pictures of soccer balls and Manchester United. I don’t see them anywhere on there. “Simphiwe.” They tell me. “Your collage doesn’t have a job, a husband, or a child.” I tell them, “That’s because there’s more to life. So much more.”

“What is happening in Libya?” I ask my high school students. They look confused. “Libya? They’re asleep right now.” They laugh. “Don’t you read the paper?” I ask. They laugh. “Yeah, you do.” I continue. “ But you flip straight to the back to see how your friend Rooney or Messi is doing. Don’t ya? There’s more to life than soccer people.” I shout. I tell them what’s happening in Libya. They don’t care. “Does this affect you?” I ask. “No.” They tell me. “And how much more are we all paying for public transport now?” They know the answer to this question. “Did you ever stop to ask why?” I explain to them the relationship between Libya, oil, and the rest of the world. I tell them what happened in Egypt, what may happen in Tunisa and Algeria, now Yemen. I hold up the Swazi Times. “Teachers Protest. Nurses protest.” It reads. “Revolution can be contagious.” I say. They ask, “Revolution?” One student raises his hand, “Change.” He says. “YES!” I shout. “The world is more connected than you think. You’re apart of this world. It’s time you start caring and seeing the bigger picture.”

HIV lessons on the back-burner. I bring newspapers to class and we discuss what’s going on “out there”. These children have no access to information. Only through a paper they cannot afford. A newly built library sits unused on school grounds (paid for by PEPFAR, from a previous volunteer). Thousands of books still in boxes from another volunteer. “Have you guys ever used the new library?” I ask them. “The teachers say we can’t.” I ask, “Did you ever ask why?” They shake their heads. I tell them the books are here, and the teachers couldn’t be bothered with organizing them. “If you want a library, make it happen. If you want CHANGE make it happen.” They laugh. “I will march to the deputy’s office today and ask for the books if you will help me. And together we can put them into the library and finally have the information we want.” They cheer. “Revolution!”

Everyday I fear it’s too late for me. These children need role models, but at the high school level can they really be formed, inspired? Some days you teach and you see that girl nodding in agreement and the young boy’s mind starting to turn.. thinking over your words. These are the days you hold onto.

“Girls are just as much to blame.” Mamba tells me. “I cannot date Swazi girls. There’s nothing there. You try to talk to them and they ask you, ‘Why are you asking me these questions?’ They want to just have sex and that be that. Marriage sex and babies. Nothing more. No one knows how to communicate what they’re feeling. The girls are cheating and the boys are cheating. And no one says anything.”

Another kombi ride home. Suffering from squashed knee syndrome yet again. I sit with my knees pressed together, propped up against my chest. I carry surveys I had given my students that day. Questions asking them about their attitudes on relationships. A man in his thirties sits next to me and reads the questions out loud. (Little does he know I purposefully carry the questions outside my bag to spark some sort of conversation with anyone willing to talk.) “Yes. I agree.” He shouts. “Sometimes a woman does deserve a beating.” The woman next to him laughs. The next question, “Is it OK to have a secret lover?” He shouts, “Of course. I mean. Let’s say I am fighting with my girlfriend. Then I can have another for when things go wrong with the first one. I cannot just break it off with her. Do you know how hard that is?” The next question reads, “Why is the HIV rate in Swaziland so high?” He scratches his chin, “I don’t know. You tell me.” He says. I point to the previous question that read, “Is it OK to have a secret lover?” He laughs. “I think we should agree to disagree.” He says.

It’s only in this world, that you realize with HIV education, HIV lessons are the last thing you should be talking about. I bring the world to the classroom and I make sure we are sharing and discussing it alongside our opposite sex. We get comfortable with the topics at hand and the people who we are discussing it with.

“You’re always working.” Mamba tells me. “You can’t ever just NOT have a conversation with strangers can you?” Sure some get threatened that I’m muscling my way into their world. But I try to work to find the balance between shaking them up and pissing them off. I heed to Mamba’s words.

“Americans. You volunteers. When are you going to realize, you aren’t going to get the revolution you hoped for here. We’re Swazi, and we have to do things OUR WAY.” Mamba tells me. We’re back at his place, his friends, drunk on marula. The traditional brew, two sips and any sized man is done for. “Look at Mandela.” He continues. Mamba’s friends, their drunk eyes hanging on to every word he preaches. “That man started out with fists a blazin. He didn’t care who he pissed off. The elders didn’t take him seriously. No one did. But when he came out of jail, he had a sense of calmness. He said to the people, ‘I am for black empowerment. And I am for white empowerment.’ He shook the hands of the white men who once held him down. This is what causes change. Revolution. It takes time. You’ll see. You Americans think just turning a monarchy into a democracy will solve everything. We are not ready for a democracy. You think you know everything.” I laugh. “I may not know everything now. But just wait Mamba.” I tell him. “I’m going to go back home and get a masters in International Policy! And whoop your ass in every historical/political debate we get into!” “No.” He laughs. “You’re going to go home and get a degree in What’s new with The Kardashians Policy.” I shout back, “Well..they’re international. No one knows what the fuck their ethnicity is. Except, hot.” Mamba shakes his head in disappointment.

His drunken friend, I call Depeche Mode (for his love of the band) and who calls me Demi Moore (from the movie Ghost) holds my hand. “I can tell you haven’t felt love in a long time. You’ve lost something.” I roll my eyes, not again. He begins to sing. “You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin! Woahhhhhhhhhhhhh that lovin’ feelin!” “And what do you know about love?” I ask. His wife at home, his girlfriend sitting next to him. He laughs. “Ah. We’re Swazi Demi. We know we cannot live like you Americans. We cannot live, ‘Forever. Forever young. We don’t want to be.. Forever Young……” And a new song begins.

I escape the horrible 80’s sing a longs and take a walk outside. I stand on a bench, enjoying this lighted pause of the early evening. Nightfall approaching and a cool chill in the air. Goodnight sun, I say. I sit and watch, silent, for once. The boys are singing God Bless America now and Mamba stands behind me. I point to the fields of green and brown. “What is with Swazis and growing so much maize? I mean it’s not drought resistant. They shouldn’t be growing it in the low veld. I mean look at all that maize out there.” I point out at the field ahead of us. “That’s sugar cane you idiot.” Mamba laughs.

I’m slowly learning that once I stop the static of endless arguing and macho posturing, once I stop and just listen, there is so much to be heard.

Being here almost two years, I still feel like I’m gazing down the wrong end of the telescope. Where the reality, that big picture lies concentrated at the end of my long, distant, and sometimes distorted view. The truth, to me, is shrunken. Immature, stylized. Making sense and connection with me only through symbolism. Just when I think I’ve got the big picture, it’s gone before I know it.

It’s always been so much easier to look in things in an either or perspective. In boxes and categories. To give up and just say, “This is not a country of reason or logic. A nation of 15 year olds.” I say to Mamba. “There’s a historical reason, a cultural context behind all these things that don’t make sense to you now. You may not agree with it. It may not justify it, but there are reasons for the things we do. You’ve been here less than two years. You can’t possibly understand.” I hold on tight to this. I have no wish to blame a country or its people. A country and a King that has invited myself and Peace Corps here to help.

“We are not here to be activists.” Our country director tells us. “We are here as developers. There are rough times ahead and we cannot get caught up in it.” Peace Corps warns us the direction this country is headed and we aren’t to tell anyone or get involved. “You aren’t allowed to have these conversations with anyone. And for god’s sake, don’t blog about it!!” The CD yells.

Sugar cane surrounds Mamba and I. I listen to the wind. I listen to his words.

I try hard to listen now.

“So what WILL you tell your father when you get back home and he asks you again, ‘How much MORE do you appreciate your country now?!’” Mamba asks me.

A long pause.

“You're keeping quiet now huh? That’s a first.” He laughs.
“Shh. I’m trying to listen now.” I whisper.

The Sweet Here After

2/12/2011

The Sweet Here After


She takes a long pull from her cigarette, her lips pursed, she holds the smoke in. A pause, a long exhale, and she tells me, “I told you if I was harassed one more time I was going to ET (Early Termination).” The words come out in smoke. “I’m ETing.” She says. Two letters that cause a mix of emotions for any volunteer. And much like what she’s going through I feel sadness and joy. It hurts to say goodbye. But I'm proud of her for doing what it takes to be happy. It’s hard to push aside your pride as a volunteer in order to be happy.

She waves the smoke from my face then leans back, her arms crossed, “You know, all you group seven volunteers do is bitch about the conditions here and now you’re just counting down the days until you leave. I don’t want that.” One never really knows what to say in these moments. So I hug and tell her I’m proud of her because I know no one else will. “You know what I miss the most?” She asks me. “That taste of crisp cold water from the garden hose. Metallic and smooth on a hot summer’s day.” “Yeahhhhh.” I say. “Well. You’ll be home soon enough and you can find the nearest hose and enjoy it on a hot day.” She laughs, “Mere. It’s the middle of winter back home.” The days, months, years have all meshed together. How long have I been here? “Please don’t tell anyone.” She’s pleads with seriousness. “I leave Wednesday and I’d just like to go without the goodbyes. You’re the only one who knows and I want it to stay that way.”

And here’s where you might be confused. For many, the best part about leaving is the heart-felt goodbyes that follow. We all experienced this our last few weeks in the States. Parties and cards. Pats on the back. Free drinks. MORE free drinks.

But for a volunteer whose leaving service early (not for medical reasons) they fear they won’t experience this. Some project their guilt onto other volunteers. The fear of judgment. Are they thinking, “Oh she couldn’t cut it”? A volunteer’s pride has such a tight grip on us all. “If it weren’t for my pride, I would have left a long time ago.” She tells me. Of course none of us would ever say these things. But once she had gone, there were those who questioned what she might have done wrong. “Wasn’t there a volunteer living there before her? She made it work, why couldn’t she?” They ask.

My Swazi friend, who I have become close with over the past few months, he’s known many Peace Corps, Finish, Canadian, Australian volunteers over the years and his knowledge of the Swazi world has been a great light for me in times of confusing darkness. His father was Minister of Agriculture and close friends with the previous King. It’s a small country and a big family. I can’t go anywhere with him without him greeting every single person that passes. We shall call him: Mamba. “It’s just selfish!” He protests. “To leave everyone without saying goodbye.” He flips his long dreads over his shoulder and shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”

Going home is a HUGE ordeal for anyone. No matter how long they’ve been here. The things you’ve seen, the bonds you’ve made. No one will understand that back home. Even your closest friends won’t see you in the way they once did. Everything fast-forwards when you travel with strangers. Weeks move like years, and years become a lifetime.

I’ve been in this situation before. I found myself at the bottom of the world a few years ago, Antarctica, with my boyfriend at the time, and we had made ourselves a little family with the people down there. Only together 5 months, but felt like a lifetime, it was time to say goodbye. Everyone huddled together, penguin-like, and we’re saying our tearful goodbyes. Hugs are being passed. Tears wiped off each other’s faces. Emails being scribbled down. “Who’s got a pen!? Paper?!” I turn to say goodbye to one friend, but she is no where to be found. She’s gone. The door is open and I know she has already left. I run down the street to find her. But it’s too late. She couldn’t bear saying goodbye to all of us. Now imagine, having to do this with almost 70 people and for some, being with them for over two years.

Mamba continues to insist, however, that not saying goodbye is selfish. “What if I wanted to say goodbye to her?! If you just left without saying goodbye Mere. I’d be incredibly hurt!” I laugh, “It’s not about YOU. It’s about the person leaving. Most of the volunteers who leave, seem to just vanish, and most of us understand.” Like an animal ready to die. He knows his time is up. My first cat, crawling into the dog house my dog never used, taking his last few breaths- preferring solitude over company.

“I’ll see you on the other side.” I tell her. She goes to speak and we are interrupted by another volunteer who has spotted us outside this café. “Oh man!” She exclaims barreling in for a landing at our table. She flings her bags down on the ground. A typical Peace Corps prop: backpacks and bags. “My butthole is on fire!” She shouts. We laugh. “The shits again huh?” I ask. Doesn’t matter what the topic of conversation is, the discussion of poo always manages to slide (ha) its way in. “What’s the consistency this week?” We ask her. She plops down and tells us in detail. The sophisticated white give us the dirty glare and shift in their seats, with horror, sipping their filtered coffees. I keep quiet. I keep this volunteer’s secret to myself, occasionally a sympathetic glance her way every now and then.

That night I sleep at a backpackers. A volunteer from the previous group (Group 6) is finally COSing (Completion of Service). She’s been here well over two years and now, is going home. But like many, she won’t go straight home. She has a one-way ticket to Spain and from there she will see where the road takes her. I reek of jealousy. There are five Peace Corps volunteers seated outside with us, sipping our glasses of cheap boxed wine. The Last Supper. We’re surrounded by a handful of girls from Finland- fresh off the plane- bright eyed and blonde; bubbly and bright.

We are Yin and Yang.

Our friend COSing,Victoria, sits and stares at her plate of food her friend has made her. She stares, chain-smoking, “I can’t eat.” She tells us. Her friend, from her group and will be leaving in a few weeks herself, smiles,” You need to eat Victoria.” She’s on her fifth cigarette in ten minutes. Hands shaking. “I’ve got too much anxiety.” She says. The bright eyed bushy tailed Fin giggles, “But you’re going to SPAIN! How can you have anxiety about that?!” Peace Corps volunteers look down. We take Victoria’s hand now. “I don’t know what I’ll do.” Victoria continues. “ I don’t know where home is. What home is. I’ve invested SO much here. It was just starting to feel like home.” We nod in agreement. I lean in and ask her friend if she went to her host family today to say goodbye. She whispers back, “No. I don’t think she did. It’s too difficult. They were very close.”

All these transitions I’ve witnessed of previous volunteers, I know what is in store for me now.

I get an email from a group 6 volunteer, Jenn. She writes, “ I got a job at the Grateful Bread where you worked in Seattle. I think I only got it though because you used to work here. Lots of them have put it together that we were in Swaziland together. They really loved you there. It’s all going ok, being back, but it’s just weird. I’m different now. I enjoyed traveling after service. But it’s so hard to come back. What will you do next? Time is coming to come back home for you guys. Good luck.”

Another Group 6 volunteer writes: “I went through two weeks of depression when I came home. I didn’t eat at all. It all started when I went into Target for the first time and walked through the Breast Feeding aisle. A whole aisle for breast feeding! I think of the women back in Swaziland. The babies. Their life. My life back there. Good luck. Home is waiting for you, but man is it rough.”

I remember, three months into service, a group six volunteer telling me aid is killing this country. “We need to pull out!” She exclaims to me in her little hut. Her mannerisms exaggerated by candlelight. Angry shadows. What a jerk, I thought. What is she doing in the Peace Corps then? I watched another group six volunteer scowl at the attention from men and roll her eyes at the pushy gogos. God, I’ll never be that bad. I once thought. It seems like a lifetime ago now, but here I am rolling my eyes and scowling at “them”.

I know now what’s ahead for me. I’m right on track. I wake up angry. I go to sleep angry. I taunt the Swazi man. I tease the Swazi police. They spend their days in the city profiling. Targeting white, Indian, and Asian who may jaywalk and then demand a payment of 60R. You watch them put the money into their pockets and move onto their next target. One day, feeling rather dull, I just wanted to feel something again. I spot two police officers across the street. And so I decide to do it. Right there. I jaywalk. Right in front of two bored scrawny officers. They stop me and my friend. (My poor friend didn’t see the cops and followed blindly). They shout. I refuse to pay. They get angry. I get angry back. They threaten. I welcome it. “Fine.” I say. “I’ll spend the night in jail. But I am NOT paying you.” My friend apologizes on my behalf and they let us go.

It’s been since August since I’ve left this tiny country. I need a break before I get myself into serious trouble. With two other volunteers we catch a ride to Pretoria, the capital of South Africa. All I’ve heard is how “American” this place is. We enter the streets of this city, an actual city. We’re refugees of the techno Swazi world. The first thing I spot, pinecones. Pinecones! I pick one up from the ground, fascinated. I cradle it and bring it to my nose. One of the best parts of being away from home, is re-entering it all over again with a different perspective and a different appreciation. It’s like being on drugs (or so I imagine). Home in my hands.

Our first stop is to the Peace Corps office for Peace Corps volunteers in South Africa. We arrive and greet other volunteers. We shake with gentility, a firm handshake, and eye contact that says, “I’m American.” We introduce ourselves by country of service first, then our names. Morocco, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Ghana.

Tonight I’m sharing a room with another volunteer at a backpackers. “We thought you two would get along, being that you’re both Peace Corps, so I put you in a room with him” The receptionist tells me. “Him?” I ask. “Yes. Him.” She repeats. “Is he cute?” I joke. She takes me to the room and I catch him watching, Everybody Loves Raymond. How embarrassing. “Swaziland.” I say. “Lesetho.” He responds. And handshakes follow. We’re brothers in South Africa, both in landlocked countries inside here. We share a few beers outside. The Afrikaners surround us. Silly language, we tell each other. We tell our stories and nod in agreement. He gets it. We have a shared view of this world now and so too a special bond. “I’m never coming back to Lesotho.” He tells me. “There’s no culture. No compassion. No curiosity on their end. All of sub-Saharan Africa, I am told, is this way. I’m never coming back.” He shares my disenchantment for Sub-Saharan life. Every Peace Corps volunteer has heard about the volunteer in Lesotho that was shot last year and killed. And I’ve had just enough beers to finally ask the question,
“Did you know him?”
“Tom?” He clarifies.“Yeah. I knew him. I held him in my arms as he took his last breath.”
And again, one never really knows what to say in these moments. We’re all growing up, these experiences, these tragedies, shaping who we become. Twenty something year olds being slapped with the cold bitter bare hand of the outside world.

It’s the next morning, and I find him eating his muesli. I shake his hand, “It was a pleasure.” I tell him. “I have to go.” He stands, “Ah. I should get your contact!” The more you travel, the more people you meet, the less you feel the urgency to hold onto every single person you bump into along the way. I feel now, more than ever, more comfort with the goodbyes. Appreciating these brief encounters and the stories we’ve shared and just leaving it at that. I avoid the searching for scrap paper and pen dance. I tell him my name. “You can find me on facebook.” A new appreciation for this Social Network.

Back home now, I walk the streets of Manzini. A dramatic repository of skeletons and piss. Simple buildings. A dispassionate smell and light. Goiters, people walking around with bulbous growths on their necks. The crippled drag their bodies along these busy streets. The crowd, a surging shoulder to shoulder mass, has become more comfort to me now.

I stand on the side of the road waving down anyone who will give me a free ride home. A car pulls over and inside, a papery skin little old white lady sits behind the wheel. “Get in.” She says. American? I wonder. She holds out her hand, “I’m Brenda.” “Meredith” I say back, rarely going by Simphiwe anymore. Brenda immediately dives into who she is and where she’s from. It’s incredible how easily someone can open up once they find one similarity with you. Ours: white. I soon find more similarities between us. Brenda was a Canadian volunteer in Zambia for two years, in her twenties. She served two years then traveled the world. “I didn’t start this new life of settling down until I was 31. When I had my first child. And I’ve got four now. Don’t worry Meredith, you’ve got plenty of time for that life.” When Brenda finally returned home, to Canada, after serving in Zambia for two years, she longed for that “African connection” again. She went to libraries and centers searching for any Zambians in her country through the net. She ended up finding 4 Zimbabweans. Eventually, she married one. They moved to Zimbabwe then to Swaziland, where she has been living with him and her four children for 26 years now. “I love my life!” She exclaims. “I love your life.” I laugh.

I envy her drive to come back. Her passion for this world here.


Will I fly out of here with my one- way ticket, with no regrets? Will I ever set foot on this country again? Or, like my Lesotho friend, will I say, “Fuck it. I have no wish to come back.” When I fly back to the fancy café’s with their edgy urban chatter, will I, like Brenda, search my home country for my “African Connection”? Will I fly back home, seated at my father’s dinning room table, he at the head, proud of the food he has just prepared for his family (even though we all know it’s my step mother whose done most of the cooking). My grandmother will slap the table and say, “Welcome home Meredith! Tell us, what have you learned on this journey of yours?” I’ll take a deep breath in, turn to my father and he’ll ask me (like he always does when I return home from a journey), “So, tell me, how much MORE do you appreciate America now?” What will I say? All the faces I’ve met, all the words I’ve spread, the ideas we’ve expressed, the tears we’ve shared. Does it make me love my country more? Does it make me love Swaziland less?


Just like Victoria, we’ve acclimatized to the noise down here, to the old gogo shrieking at the ten or so grandchildren on her homestead, to the sound of the corrugated iron expanding and moving with the midday heat, to the young boys wacking their cattle home against the backdrop of another warm and fire-breathing sunset. These are the things we’ve come to know as “home”. But suddenly, a sudden pause in this noise, and you’re gone before you know it.