March 19th 2011
Peace Corps, or Chicken Little, as I like to call them these days, has turned paranoid once again. Constantly clucking, “The sky is falling!” “But you said that last month.” We respond. Go home. Have a beer. Masturbate. This will all blow over soon. Nothing is going to happen. I think. But Chicken Little kept on nagging. The sky is GOING to fall! “The Swazi government has no money. People are going to loose their jobs. Workers are going to return home to their villages. They’re going to harass you even more for money. You WILL become even MORE of a target. Civil servants aren’t going to get paid for three months. Stay vigilant.” Some of us started to believe it. Some of us started to become scared. We were told to hide in our huts, or bunkers, designed to protect us from the outside Swazi world. Bunkers built to prevent us from getting smacked on our little heads by pieces of the falling sky.
“You’re going to be on Standfast.” Country director tells us. “Steadfast?” We turn to each other and ask. Chicken Little rolls her head, “Don’t you remember training?! STAND FAST! You will stay in your communities for the week of March 18th. You will NOT leave. You are NOT to take public transport. And you are NOT to talk about these politics or any of this with your Host Country Nationals.” PAUSE. Allow me to take a minute to tell you how much I LOATHE. DESPISE. SHUTTER at the words: Host Country Nationals. Another bullshit term. Another term that separates US from THEM. Host Country Nationals are people you have gotten to know in your community over the years. Oh you mean, friends? You ask. Yes. Any normal person would dare call them, their “friends”. But you’re Peace Corps and you can’t just say friends. I mean they are SWAZI. And you, YOU are not. So we call them host country nationals. People we “interview” to understand this sticky Swazi world. Boss leans in, whispers to us now, “We will stay in touch and let you know what’s happening during this week.” She pauses. Swazi staff walks by without a clue. “But be prepared. We don’t know what’s going to happen. STAY VIGILANT!”
Their warnings all preface the headlines a week later. Nurses go on strike, leaving the sick unattended. The headlines read, “Sick die in hospitals while nurses refuse to work.” I walk into my school, “We aren’t teaching today!” They cheer. “We’re on strike.” Newspapers shout out, “The Government Has No Money.” IMF declares, “Cut back wages of Ministers of Parliament or fire civil servants.” The Minister of Finance confesses, “80 million Rand a month (10 million USD) goes missing due to corruption.” Everyone is surprisingly shocked. How can that be?! It’s the civil servants against the MP’s now, whose going to take the pay-cuts? The Cabinet certainly isn’t going to fire each other or take away THEIR money. It’s the people who will suffer. The people begin to question and the King and his government keep quiet.
Days pass, and they’re all starting to point fingers at the Prime Minister now. “He’s too blame for all the lost money!” The people had once forgotten, not too long ago, the PM was fired for millions gone missing. Then returned to power when it miraculoulsy returned. But people always forget and move on to bigger headlines. What’s going on in Libya and Tokyo right now? They have no idea anymore.
And then it was the IMF’s fault. “They’re to blame!” The people shouted. “Every time the IMF enters a country it leaves it in worse condition than it was before.” People wrote to the Swazi Times. “Who are THEY to tell us that the government MUST fire its civil servants. THEY are not Swazi!” The IMF writes back, “We never said fire civil servants. We said to cut wages from civil servants or the Cabinet. We are only making suggestions.” People shouting back and forth, and still the government kept quiet. People were starting to freak out.
Volunteers, now rubbing their hands together. “Yes! Finally! The revolution we’ve all been waiting for.” They shout. “Down with the King.” They think. “Democracy for Swaziland!”
March 18th, the teachers and nurses take it to the streets as we volunteers hide under our blankets inside our little, country, bunkers. 8,000 protesting in the capital. Toy-toying as they call it. Derived from the South Africans: Dancing and singing in the streets. Our version of “Hell no, we won’t go.”
The South African news, in between broadcasts of Tokyo and Libya, covers what’s going on in the capital of Swaziland. “8,000 civil servants protesting in the streets. Demanding to get paid. They are giving the King one month, until April 12th to step down.” A voice inside South Africa says, his picture on the screen. (April 12th 1973 the year the date the month the previous King banned all political parties in this country.) How, you may ask, did I know what was being televised on this day, March 18th, the very day we were supposed to be taking cover awaiting the Swazi bombs to explode Swazi shrapnel over our little American heads? Well, you don’t seriously expect me to follow rules that don’t make sense do you? That just wouldn’t be….me. No. I needed to know. I wasn’t about to sit in my hut and just wait it out while the fireworks were exploding in Mbabane. But I also wasn’t about to travel to the capital where all American authority would be. Big Brother would spot me with their big telescope lens. Alarms would sound because of the microchips they’ve implanted in our little Peace Corps brains. Warning Warning! PCV on the loose! They’d seize me with their spindly fingers and squeeze me until I pissed blood. They’d shout from the top of their lungs, “You didn’t stay vigilant!” And I’d shout back, trying to free myself from their tight grip, “Don’t you own a thesaurus?! Quit saying that word!” And after a good shaking, they’d kick my little defiant ass back home where our economy is in equally horrible shape. I’d return to Indianapolis and knock on any number of international aid agencies’ doors with my new and improved resume and my new and improved smug attitude. “Two years in the Peace Corps?” They’d smile back. I’d shift in my seat with excitement. Yes! “Well isn’t that precious. You must have a big heart.” They’d say. “And no Masters? Only an undergraduate degree? I see. In…..Sociology?” I’d swallow hard and say, “Yeah. But I’ve got a big heart, remember?” And they’d point to the door. Ten years ago sure, that would have been enough. But you’re back in America now. Where days fly by like minutes, never a moment to stop and take a breath. Time is money. America. Where your once black sheep aunts and uncles who got their GEDs in the 70s are now getting their Masters. Two years later and you’re jobless. Pennyless. Working at the Shoe Carnival for Christ’s sake! No. No. No. I can’t go back. Not yet!
Instead, I phone Mamba. “Come pick me up! We’ve got a revolution to witness.” He rolls his eyes, and like every other nationality in this world mumbles, “You Americans….”
He picks me up and I find myself a nice restaurant. I order the usual: the over-priced Greek salad, with the over priced extra olives, and the over priced extra feta cheese, and a reasonably priced horrible sweet glass of “dry” chardonnay. The TV talks. “Turn it up!” I shout to the waiter. “We’re on TV!”
“8,000 civil servants protesting in the streets. Demanding to get paid. They are giving the King one month, until April 12th to step down.” I stand next to a Swazi waiter shaking his head and we share a laugh. “A regime change? Really?” I say to him. “I thought you guys just wanted to get paid.” He laughs, “They got it all wrong. News is news. We don’t want the King to go. No one is saying that. We call our King ‘Umftwana’. Literally meaning ‘child’. It’s not his fault things are the way they are. He was born into this. He can’t help it. It’s the people he surrounds himself with. The Cabinet. THEY must go. South Africans just want us to be like them. A Republic. No way. No way am I going to be South African. That place is corrupt and violent. The only place I’ve ever felt a gun pressed to the temple of my head in broad daylight is in South Africa. And full of racists. If they ever tried to absorb us, I’d leave. Hell no. I’m Swazi.” He fluffs his feathers. This peacock holds his head high. Proud to be Swazi. Like having “faith”, this is something unknown to me. To be apart of something so small, well, I guess you’d have to be.
8,000 civil servants came and 8,000 civil servants left. Teachers and nurses eventually went back to work. Mamba laughs, “This happened once a few years ago. People REFUSED to go back to work until their demands were met. But eventually, they got hungry and KFC re-opened. I keep telling you. Swazis can’t be bothered.” But April 12th still lingered in the air. The word uprising became the new catch phrase. The newspapers had a field day with it. “Facebook Group Demanding Uprising April 12th!” The Prime Minister began to get scared. “Swazis have freedom of expression. But once that expression threatens the citizen’s security and safety you will be treated as a terrorist. If you join this uprising you are against the King. And we will take certain freedoms away.” Very patriot act of His Majesty. However, the King stayed silent.
Life Skills lessons in my classroom became discussions and debates on what’s happening in Swaziland. “What do you guys think?” I ask. They keep quiet. It takes weeks of me prodding and poking to get them to open up. For months we’ve been discussing Libya. Revolutions. Uprisings. Rebellions. Protests. Activists like Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X, and Gandhi. The American Revolution and the Boston Massacre. My Form 4 and Form 5’s seem relatively intrigued with their questions and shared words of dissatisfaction towards their “system” of governance. (Juniors and Seniors).
And then one day, all this protesting and uprising talk becomes personal. One morning, just like every morning, the 400 students of Siphofaneni High line up outside for assembly. They begin to sing their songs of praise to the Highest. (Which is one of the most fascinating improvisational and collective acts I have ever witnessed here. It begins with a child, any child randomly, will break into one of the million songs they have about God and the rest, simultaneously, follow in unison. Melodies that bring tears to your eyes. You begin to sway your hips along side them. You start to memorize the chorus and whisper along hoping no one hears you. But you can’t help it and you can’t hold back any longer! You drop to your knees and kiss this earth. Chills run up your side and move you to run to the nearest church and thank the almighty father for all the beauty in this world. This coming from me, a what the believers like to call “non-believer”.) But soon, all the grace inside these souls are quickly quieted and a teacher walks out with announcements. Graceful souls go quiet and they are back to being zombies.
However, after announcements, on this day, the Headmaster comes screeching into school in his tiny blue car. I used the word tiny to describe this car. But really, the car alone, isn’t so tiny. However, when you put someone who so closely resembles Baloo the Bear (Come on, that’s not racist. White people can resemble bears too. I think it’s his eyes. So close together. And I’m sure his weight has something to do with it.) Next to this man the car begins to loose inches.. even feet. How DOES he fit into that thing? The students, teachers, and I look at each other in confusion. Why? BECAUSE THE HEADTEACHER IS NEVER AT SCHOOL. Sorry to shout at you, but I have a deep seeded hatred for this man. This, coming from a woman who was raised by a mother who liked to cheer, “Meredith, hate isn’t in the dictionary.” While growing up. Back when everything pissed me off and there was only HATE and LOVE. No messy in between. Imagine every opinion and belief, and I have many, I have about this world and think about what the opposite opinion of my opinion would be. This man encompasses all of this. The anti-Meredith. I know right, a disgrace.
Anyway, anti-Meredith stomps onto the deck before his students. Pushing aside the feeble teacher giving her weak announcement, and he begins like this. “For weeks I have kept quiet!” I wonder. Why is he addressing them in English. He looks my direction then glares back at the students. He’s shoving, cramming, his words inside their wide open zombie mouths. Feed us your bullshit. “But I can’t keep quiet anymore!” He shouts. “Why are YOU complaining that WE beat you?! We give you strokes because we are trying to teach you. Most of you are orphans. You don’t have parents at home to raise you. So it is up to us to raise you. I am the man I am today because of beatings. We give you strokes because we want you to become our future doctors, nurses, soldiers, and teachers.” I lean against the doorway and snicker, the only professions out there. “And STILL you complain. Not to us. You go to the Ministry of Education and complain to THEM! Why? Why not come to us?! No. This is not right. What do you want to start here?! An UPRISING! Do you know what happens if you uprise against me?! You will go straight to jail. You cannot beat me. I am the powerful one. And you!” He turns to my Form 5s. “I know you were the ones who wrote this letter to the REO and the Ministry (REO: Regional Educational Officers). Yes. I know. They showed me the letters. And I know one of them was written by a girl. I can tell. And I will find out who is behind this! You ungrateful…..” Head Cock and Balls steps down and Form 5s look defeated. They are dismissed.
I run to my dear friend, the deputy (Vice Principal) Mrs. Masugo. She grabs my hand and we hide ourselves in her office. Allow me to give you the long and short of my friendship with one of the most big hearted women I’ve ever met here. We met in the locker room of the Manzini gym almost a year ago now. Just out of the shower, the only one covered up as usual, and the other Swazi women are busy asking me to show them what a white sibombom looks like (Yes. That is correct. Sibombom is Siswati for vagina.) All black bushes out. The ladies are lotioning themselves up and after the oooooooooh’s and ahhhhhhhhhh’s of my audience’s fascination that yes you can shave hair anywhere (Swazi women love hair and wish for more of it, whereas white American women tend to curse it, laser it, and wish it upon those they despise.) Mrs. Masugo walks over and introduces herself. “You’re a teacher at my school.” She says to me. I quickly pull my pants up, dear God, I didn’t even recognize her. Talk about a first impression. “You’re the deputy! Where I teach!” I shout back. From there on, from the moment she found me with my undies at my ankles to her office at her desk, we were the best of friends. We shared our stories. “I am who I am today because of a little old British lady who paid for my education. My husband died, leaving me with four children to raise.” She tells me one day.
“Well you had your mother and sister to help you with the children yes?”
She laughs, “Oh no. See when Swazi women marry, we move to our husbands homestead and if and when he dies we stay on our husband’s homestead. And his family didn’t feel the need to help me raise my children because they were not theirs to raise.”
“Why not move back to your mother’s homestead?” I ask.
“If I had left his family would have thought I was some sort of prostitute. They’d think I was leaving so I could sleep with different men. So there I stayed. Four children and a very demanding job as Deputy Headmaster.”
Throughout the year Mrs. Masugo has let me in on all her little secrets. She knows the Headmaster is corrupt. Last year when the children complained of the little food they had to eat at school and crumbling concrete walls he called “toilets” they had to shit in, Mrs. Masugo was quietly on “their side”. “Simphiwe.” She told me. “Do you know how much money each student pays for food at this school? 200 R. And the food the Headmaster gives them, porridge and beans, is all donated. You do the math.” She holds up a calculator. “That’s 99,000 R a year that goes missing.” For over a year I’ve watched as the students complain to the Headmaster. I’ve heard about the beatings so hard that it sends students to the hospital. I wait for the crumbling walls surrounding the toilets to sink in and collapse on these children while the Headmaster flushes his toilet. Only coming to school to beat the kids, demanding school fees and locking their desks and chairs inside a room until they pay him.
And today, he has the audacity to ask these children, “Why have you not come to ME with your complaints?! Why the Ministry of Education?!”
“He’s scared Simphiwe.” The deputy leans across her desk and whispers to me now. The wind moves the door just a bit and we both hold our breaths. She continues more quietly, “The REO is on their way now to investigate him. Why do you think he came today? The children did the right thing. Myself and the rest of the teachers all know this. We’re all against him.”
“Why don’t you speak out?” I ask her. “Why don’t you tell the REO what you know. Tell them about the missing money. The toilets. The rumored girls he’s supposedly slept with. You can help these students.”
“Simphiwe. You don’t understand how politics works in this country. They will assume I am jealous as second in command and only out to get his job. This is how people think. It cannot come from me. This needs to come from THEM.”
She had told me this before, when it first came to light the corruption of the anti-Meredith. Which is why I felt it even more necessary to teach my Form 4s and Form 5s about activism a few months ago. “It begins with a voice.” I told them. “Then a few voices and a few more. Then those voices come together and put it down in writing. And they send their complaints to those that will listen.” I think back to the things I’ve taught. Were they actually listening to me? Had I started something? Had I planted the seed?
“The Headmaster thinks it was me who got these kids to write these letters.” My dear friend tells me. “He’s trying to intimidate me. I had no idea about these letters until today. Just a few weeks ago, a police officer came to me. To this very office and demanded I give him ‘the letters’. I wondered, what is this man talking about.? Letters? He told me he knew it was me and he needed the letters. I know the Headmaster sent him. You have to be careful Simphiwe. He has spies you know. Two of the teachers, Gazagaza and Dlamini. They are his right hand men. He sends them into the staff room to listen to us as we teachers talk and then they report back to him.” “Do the other teachers know this?” I ask her. “Of course. You will notice, they’re never really conversing with any of us.”
I walk to my first class of the day, Form 5a. I sit on a desk and ask them to gather around. Again, they all stare. No matter how many times I ask them to break routine, stand, walk, get into groups, speak, or “gather around” they always sit in bewilderment for a few moments. Just the other day, I had them working in pairs, another teacher walks by, “Simphiwe, how did you do that? They aren’t seated in lines. Working together? That would be so chaotic. It would take too much time. How did you get them to come together?” “Practice makes perfect.” I smiled back and told him. The students pick up their chairs and sit around me. I lean in, “I’m proud of you.” I see their confusion. “You did EXACTLY as you should have. You wrote a letter to those that would listen and today the investigators and the Ministry are coming. THIS is activism. This could be the beginning of change. Change in the direction you want it to go. Like I told you, It’s all about communication. You are beginning a conversation. A dialogue has begun, and I am so proud of you.”
Communication. The root of all problems in this small country. A teacher holds a stick in his hand as assembly continues.
“Whatcha gonna do with that stick there Thulani?” I ask as I chew on a straw.
“I’m going to BEAT them.”
“What for?” I laugh.
“Look at some of them. Their hair. It’s messed up, and their shirts are un-tucked. They do this on purpose Simphiwe. They are always against us. They are just trying to provoke us.”
“Thulani. Have you ever stopped to ask them why their shirts are un-tucked or why they are late for school?”
“I don’t have time for that Simphiwe. I KNOW why.”
“Well I have. Most of these kids ARE orphaned and you know what, they’ve got younger siblings. So not only are they orphans, but they’re mommies and daddies. Mommies and daddies that have to get their ‘kids’ ready for school. They rush their tired behinds to school and when they get here you ask them to turn around and you wack their little tushies till tomorrow. Maybe they’re trying. Maybe you should first, talk to them.” Thulani laughs and shakes his stick at me, “Simphiwe. You are something else.”
Thulani, the very teacher that got a fist to the head when he told one of his students to leave the classroom. The next day, he walked around with a black eye and the other teachers told him he should leave the school due to embarrassment. He eventually chose to stay.
My students complain to me, “They like beating us.” The teachers complain to me, “They like provoking us.” The husband complains to his friends he isn’t satisfied but he’s unable to tell his wife, so he cheats. The wife doesn’t want another baby, so she secretly aborts and it goes horribly wrong. The people complain, they want to know if they’re going to get paid and the King keeps quiet, so they protest. The girlfriend wants to know if her boyfriend has HIV but she’s too scared to suggest a test. The gogo is mad at the volunteer whose been sent to live on HER homestead, AGAIN. But instead keeps quiet. The ignorant volunteer continues to do whatever it is that is pissing off the gogo and secretly hates the gogo but wouldn’t dare tell the gogo because finally she is starting to understand, to realize, why communication is so difficult in this country. Beyond language barriers. It is deeply deeply seeded in this culture to keep quiet, and it’s killing everyone.
“Kubindvwa kubukwa.” A Siswati expression. “We see corruption and yet we keep quiet.”
Communication. Communication. Communication.
“I’m proud of you.” I tell my Form 5s. “Instead of rioting and beating up the teachers (which students in other schools have done) you were heard in the most civil way possible. You were Martin Luther King today, without the Malcolm X violence.” The students applause, “We knew you were behind us Simphiwe.” They say.
I look to my left, out the door, and I notice the Headmaster walking by, glaring. My head turns white hot. I dismiss the students and my co-teacher, volunteer friend, walks over to me, “You think he heard?” He asks. I try not to show my friend that deep down, I’m scared he might have heard. I don’t look up and continue to organize my papers and casually say, “If he tells us to go. Fine. We go straight to the Ministry. It would not be in his best interest to do that.”
“One of these days, these orphans are going to fight back. They’re going to grow up with absolutely nothing and they’re going to demand change. A whole generation of orphans. Of survivors. One of these days they’ll take it back.” I tell another volunteer.
My students, shared their stories of HIV affecting their lives. Their tragedies and loss of hope was beginning to unfold onto me. I tried to throw encouragement over them like rice at a wedding. I got them to open up to me. To set themselves apart from the rest. “You are special.” I tell them. For so long I couldn’t tell them apart. For so long, they couldn’t tell each other apart. Male. Female. Is all they knew and needed to know. I want them to know there’s so much more. So much more worth fighting for.
“Now, enough of this ‘uprising’ talk!” I jump off my desk and shout. “Lets get back to our debates on oral sex, homosexuality, and abortion!” They laugh. (Don’t talk about religion, politics, or controversial topics with ‘them’ Peace Corps once warned us. Don’t cross the streams. Why Ion? It would be bad. But in the end, the Ghostbusters win ONLY by crossing the streams. Everyone knows that.) I put two signs up. One reads: Agree. The other: Disagree. “It is wrong to have sex before marriage.” I shout out. All walk to the agree side and a few brave MALE individual s walk over to disagree. I ask them why they feel it is OK to have sex before marriage. “Because practice makes perfect!” Menzi, the class-clown, shouts. The rest laugh. “Because we need to know if she is good in bed before marrying her.” “OK. OK.” I nod. A few from the agree side now walk over to the disagree side. The students laugh and try to hold them back. “No no no. A wise man always changes his mind.” I tell them. Words once spoken to me by Proud African. All agree that WOMEN should wait for marriage to have sex. “I could never marry a woman who had sex before me.” The boys shout. The girls get angry. “We can’t have sex before marriage. He will know.” I prod, I ask how. “The skin. It will be gone.” They say. “The hymen? I promise you ladies. I doubt there’s a girl in this room who still has her hymen intact. Sorry to burst your.. hymen (this is where I laugh at my own jokes that no one else gets) but girls can loose that from all sorts of different physical activity. None of which has to be sex.” I turn to the boys. “Sorry boys. No virginity tests for you. However, you do see the contradiction in both statements you’ve just made don’t you?” I ask. They begin to scratch their heads and the girls begin to open up and their heads begin to bobble. “We don’t like when you propose love to us everyday!” They shout. The boys stand silently confused. “Let us come to you!” they say. “Moving on.” I say with only ten minutes left of class. “Masturbation is wrong!” They look confused. After a quick explanation all move to AGREE. Liars. I think. Menzie, class clown, dashes over to the agree side and I shout, “Menzie! I thought practice makes perfect?!”
Peace Corps threw book after book at us. Get to these AFRICAN kids through soccer. Africans love soccer right?! Try to tie soccer and AIDS together. Teach those girls to make jewelry. Throw your colorful beads at them and we’ll call it empowerment. Maybe if they’re distracted by the alluring beauty of art and craft work they won’t fuck their teachers. Show the dying youth this claymation video of a giraffe and an elephant falling in love and getting tested together. That’s how you’ll get to them! Peace Corps cheered. Yeah and Girl Scouts and DARE really keeps a teenager off drugs.
It’s taken me two years, but I’ve finally found my OWN path in this teaching labyrinth I found myself lost in. Unlike most of my students, I was given a voice. I’m not sure who gave it to me, mom or pop, but both have encouraged it. (So you can blame them. In fact, blame all FOUR of my parents) Fourth grade gym class and my Neanderthal teacher was obviously a sexist. When it was “pick your sport day”, the boys always got first pick. When girls came to class with jeans on they were punished with detention but boys with their jeans on were only doomed by the knuckles a good ol’ fashioned noogey. One day, like many days, the teacher made the girls sit on the sidelines and be “cheerleaders”, if they so wised- which they did- because I was living in zombie-land suburbia Beavercreek, Ohio, while the boys played kickball. So tied up in the game, the sexist pig didn’t even notice me defacing his office and tearing down every “There’s no I in team” poster. The other girls sat and glared and when Mr. Beavercreek FINALLY noticed, I sat with my head held high as he screamed and demanded we tell him who did it. Of course they did, we were like 11 and I almost peed my pants when I was called into the Principals’ office and found my mother sitting there with that look that only a mother can give. I know I’m biased here. But hers is ESPECIALLY eery.
“This is not the way you do things Meredith.” Parental figures would continue to tell me. That’s what anyone would tell you about me. I had a voice, but I needed to learn to grow into it. Even still, I’m learning. My voice can be so greedy at times. It wants a quick fix. A reaction. It wants more and more. It wants change NOW. And it won’t let go of me easily. “Homosexuality is a sin!” My students will push my buttons. My voice starts to climb up inside my neck like the ugly green vine it is. It wants to balloon out in front of me and throw up greenish fungi shit onto them. I swallow hard. Push it down into my belly. It scratches turns and rolls. I stay objective. I follow the ignorant statements, with questions instead of opinions. I tell them how sexuality is portrayed in other parts of the world. How holding a man’s hand and casually having sex with other young boys at an early age would be considered “gay” where I come from, but deemed the “norm” here. I explain sexuality has evolved over time. “The early 20th century they would tell young men and women if they masturbated they’d get hairy palms.” I laugh and show them mine. “Do you see any hair?” I explain sexuality norms change depending when and where you are on this planet. That I am sure even I would be against homosexuality had I been raised to believe so. Had I been raised in a country where it is illegal, like Swaziland. Hands raise, “Simphiwe. Do you have sex?” “Simphiwe do YOU masturbate?” As much as I wish I would like to take credit for this line, in the words of our Peace Corps Medical Officer when warning us of the dangers of having sex with ‘them’ and to continue to do what Americans do best, “Masturbation is the heartbeat of America.” I tell them.
And I have no regrets talking about such controversial topics with these children. Swaziland is turning. There is a huge divide between the old and the young. The abandoned youth are being forced to make their own decisions on life. They have MTV’s screeching voice on one end and gogo’s old and tired withering whispers on the other. They are starting to re-think their own culture. Their beliefs, their politics.
The people are going two different directions. The un-educated keep mute and hold back the people in the city protesting. The country folk lack the knowledge to demand more. A democracy cannot happen in Swaziland, for now. Yes. There I said. I am the anti-American I suppose. Democracy is not the cure all. And I see that now. The majority of the people live “out there” and the majority of them are politically illiterate. There is no power of the people where there is no education. Our revolution was possible because we were educated. If people are given a vote who don’t care or know who they are voting for, corruption will continue. There needs to first be economic stability before you can have politics. There needs to be accountability, checks and balances in place. If politics doesn’t affect someone they will not care what bill, act, or law, they are voting for. Which is why the government not paying the people “out there” could spark something big. Finally. Before teachers and nurses were abandoning everyone, because of their politics, my students yawned as I read them the paper. But now, heads are starting to turn. Their parents, their neighbors, the generation before them is tossing and turning and they are seeing that opposition IS possible.
“Stay out of this one peanut.” My father writes. I know if he were here he’d swat me over the head and tell me to keep my mouth shut and my ears open. “Just continue writing your blog.” But I know, I can do something, even if it is in the background.
I want to teach these children to have a voice. They are more than just another brick in the wall.
Orphans of this AIDS war. One day they will start banging their cheap tin spoons on their cheap plastic plates. One day they’ll think for themselves. They’ve been told to be grateful, to be thankful. But one day they’ll realize they want more. No. They want just enough. The surviving adults don’t know their names. Their names are all the same. Now. To them, the roads are not open. Dead ends. But soon. They will find their path in this murky water. They will find their way. They will find their voice. A revolution is not in my hands, but in theirs. Emptiness is all they feel now. Emptiness is crushing them. A door needs to open. Their step mothers, their sister in laws, demand their tongues on a plate. They crush them, weld them into good little zombies. Their uncles come into their bedrooms at night and smother them with pillows.“Give me what I want.” They whisper. They open their legs and turn their head. Their voices trained to be weak. Small simple voices, like the rustling of dry corn husks in the autumn breeze. But one day, I just know, we will hear them rise. April 12th! The paper shouts. The UPRISING BEGINS!
I wonder, has the door finally opened?
“HIV affected my life by making me to be one of the orphans that are in Swaziland because it took away my beloved mother. So now I am growing without feeling the comfort of being raised up by my own mother. This is so much painful to me expecially when I see children walking with their own mothers.”
“HIV affected my life in such a way that I am in fear that I will die very soon. I will not live longer life as I was expected to live.”
“HIV has affected my life through low self esteem because if I do tell people that I am HIV positive this will affect my life because they will not want to share my life with me.”
“When I grew up some people where insisting that I have HIV. So I go for testing and I told my mother that I will go for testing. When I reach there I got tested and my result comes and they tell me that I am HIV positive. They continue to tell me that I get it from my mother’s pregnancy. They advice me about what can I do to live with this disease and what must I do to other people to prevent them from getting infected by my disease.”
“I thought that HIV was only going to affect my neighbors. I saw them become very sick and then they died. I saw their children starve with no food to eat because there was no one who was going to help them. Then they followed their parents and they died because they were positive also. Then my own parents got HIV and AIDS and I was not able to help them because I was the only girl in the family. My parents died when I was doing Form 1. Since they died I have not lived a better life. My future is now affected. I am the eldest in my life. The children my sibilings are now mine.”
“HIV has affected me from the time I was still young. It has affected me on my studies because when they tell me that I am HIV positive I was surprised because I wasn’t sleeping with anyone for a while. My life was full of question that how am I going to share my sickness with my friends because they will ignore me when I inform them about my disease. My whole life was painful to me. Even in my home I am scared to go home because the people will laugh at me when they see me with this kind of disease. And now I live a miserable life because I don’t have freedom in my life.”
“HIV has affected my life because I know of one lady who got it because she was uneducated. She further transmitted the disease to her unborn baby who is now staying with her grandmother because she has gone to look for a job. She got the job and her baby is now taking ARVs. This makes me feel unhappy because the baby is too young to have this. And it makes me to think that how many years will this child live? It is so hurting to see a baby this young on ARVs. Even her mother is on ARVs. How is the grandmother going to feel when she looses both her child and grand-daughter? This is a killer disease that is killing the youth. How is this country going to be economically strong?”
“It has affected me because many people have died of this disease called HIV and AIDS. There are many orphans especially in our country (Swaziland). Children who lost their parents because of HIV and AIDS. I can briefly tell you a story about my brother who dies of HIV and AIDS and he left us with three children. These children are suffering because there is no one who is taking care of them. Their mother abandoned them. They are now only staying with my grandmother who can’t even have enough effort to support them. This disease is very bad and it is not good in our life cause it affect me so much. People who have this disease are suffering. Some they don’t have even someone to take care of them. Some are lying helpless in their beds at homes and they don’t have food to eat.”
“A stream of tears just fall in my eyes when I think about HIV. It has affected me so much. I lost a beautiful cousin because of HIV and AIDS. I lost a lot of relatives because of HIV and AIDS. This virus has demolished my country and a lot of orphans are left without parents. The hatred of this disease melts in my veins and I have become angry with it. My favorite friends are dead and I am lonely. The pain caused by AIDS and the hunger that is in this country is affecting teenagers who are dying like flies. This affects me because I am one of them. People’s future are in the hands of HIV. But whether death or living the stigma is there.”
“HIV has caused a mess in our country Swaziland because of it we have so many orphans. Children who have no one to run to. We have child-headed homesteads. They are living alone at home and dying of hunger. Some of them end up living on the streets in order to make a living and support their brothers and sisters. Poverty is causing HIV because the breadwinners are dying. There is no longer anyone to bring dinner to the table.”
“For a period of 8 years, since my parents died of HIV and AIDS, I have been facing some difficulty paying school fees. At home it is my duty to look after my brothers and sisters. Economically we are poor and we have some difficulties providing food and clothing for ourselves. While growing up there are times when a parent is needed just to give us a word of advice. In the community, our fields which our parents used to grow maize on are now taken by unknown people claiming that it was theirs. And we go hungry.”
“I have lost my parents because of HIV. HIV left me struggling by looking after two young brother and one young sister. If I went to school I have to cook for them before I went to school. If one of my siblings is sick I have to absent my self from school and take him or her to the clinic. And when I went to school I have to travel by bus and no one give me the bus fare I have to go and fetch firewood and sell it to my neighbors so that I can get the bus fare. And sometimes I find myself absent at school because of not having the bus fare because no one can give me the money. HIV have been affected me because now I am struggling to take care of us.”
“HIV virus has affected myself by making my family to be left as a orphan. And we end up begging an organization for us to come to school. And we struggle in life because there is no much help for us. Even the organization now think about not bringing us back to school. They are responsible for our education. The organization end by saying it could only afford to pay for once child. Me. And the rest stay at home. And that has led my younger sister to become pregnant just because she was trying to earn a living. And it brought us a lot of trouble.”
“I feel the pain that most people do not have enough money. As sickness needs money. More orphans are left behind as a result of HIV. This made me aware of the disease and it has made me to take it serious. It really hurts to see your relatives or neighbors dying of AIDS. But people don’t understand they are busy with culture as it says a real man must have as many wives as he can. Not aware of the difficult life he is creating for his children. I decided not to have sex until I get married as I want to achieve my goal. Sex must wait as it is a major cause of HIV and AIDS.”
“It first killed my father who was working for the government offices in 2001 when I was very young. He left my mother sick with my two little sisters and one brother. In 2002, my mother died leaving us alone and we are all now double orphans. My aunt came to stay with us because we were very young. I am the eldest in the family so I had to take the responsibility of being a mother and a father and I was only 9 years old. I am the one who is supposed to look after the children even when coming to school. I have to make sure that they are well fed because my aunt can’t bother herself much about us anymore. This is how I grow up and become what I am today.”
*I teach about 120 students. And out of 120 letters titled “How HIV Has Affected My Life” almost all of them has lost at least one parent to AIDS. Almost half have lost both of their parents. And all of them are affected by this disease every single day.
Every one of them has a story.
You just have to ask….
