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.