"The Perfect Bite"

6/01/2011


“ ‘She must be a white woman,’ the pygmy said. ‘Only a white woman can understand my universal principle of Homo sapiens. I must not marry a Negro. How am I to attain this goal? You have the opportunity. I have not. How am I to meet the white woman? How do I find the white wife?’”

I laugh to myself as I read this paragraph in Philip Gourevitch’s book "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families". Philip was going through the exact same shit I was, just in a different country- Rwanda. And as a man, instead of being proposed to he was being asked how to get the white woman to propose to. I sit in the back of a bar, sipping Stout watching the drunken young play pool and watch football, when a middle aged Swazi man walks over and takes a seat next to me.

“I like you.” He says.
I stare back waiting for the proposal.
“You must marry me.”
“Why?” I ask as I always do.
“Because I must have a white wife.”
“Why?”
“Because the white wife has a big heart and a big brain. She will be kind to me and my children.”
I laugh and slide my book across the table to this Swazi suitor.
“Second paragraph page 6. Can you read it out loud to me please?”

He reads out loud:

“ ‘She must be a white woman,’ the pygmy said. ‘Only a white woman can understand my universal principle of Homo sapiens. I must not marry a Negro. How am I to attain this goal? You have the opportunity. I have not. How am I to meet the white woman? How do I find the white wife?’”

“It seems you’re not the only one.” I laugh.
He stares back. Humorless and astonished. I am sure no white woman has ever responded in this manner to him before. He sits stiff with his arms folded across his chest.
“Nah! No! I am not THIS man!”
“He’s from Rwanda. And yet, he wants the same thing you do. Can you explain to me why?” I ask.
My suitor begins to get angry. And I know why. Swazis are proud to be SWAZI. They will tell you they aren’t like any other African person. They are the only African country not colonized by the Western world. They are the only African country that has never encountered a civil war. They talk proudly about their lighter skin complexion. They enjoy being smaller and shorter than other Africans. They are proud not to look like the West Africans with their dark skin and bulging body parts. This is what many will tell you.

And I just compared this man to someone he defined himself as NOT.

After I managed to calm him down I asked him to again, explain to me why he thought a white wife would be better than a black one. His answer was simple. He used to work for a hotel that had many white guests and he watched as these white women tied the shoes of their children, wiped the food off their sticky mouths, held the hands of their husbands, and smiled and said thank you to all the hotel staff.

“Our minds our different.” He explains. “Our hearts are smaller. Our brains are smaller. We are dark. The white people you see are always helping people. They are so active. This is why I want a white wife.”

I was curious why they imagined themselves in this manner- as just another one of Africa’s “primitive races”. I questioned their belief in human inferiority. I wondered why they thought who they were and where they fit in this world in the manner they did. How could they so easily just accept this outlook? To be lesser than.

I saw this in every part, every sub-culture, every corner of Swazi life. From the very bottom of the social class to the very top, they made a point of standing apart from someone they considered lesser than. The rural Swazis will tell you they are NOT like the Western or Eastern barbarian Africans.

I witnessed this while dating a Ghanaian here in Swaziland for a few months. Swazis walked by gawking. Swazi male friends would judge, “How could you be with HIM when you could be with one of US? Can you even see him in the dark?” They’d laugh. Emails from strangers told me to watch my back. “You come to Swaziland and start fucking the dark one! I will fuck you. You better watch your back!” Even the Ghanaians tried to stand apart from Swazis. “We don’t cheat on our women.” They’d tell me. “We are romantic.” Swazi women say, “You’re dating a Ghanaian? He will love you Simphiwe. He will take you out, and buy you flowers. I won’t date Swazi.”

Then you had those in the city: Swazi women refusing to date Swazi men and Swazi men refusing to date Swazi women. Even Mamba himself says to me, "I probably wouldn't date a Swazi woman." And Mamba was one of proudest Swazis I had ever met. It seemed if you had an education you knew better than to date your own “kind”. They were torn between having pride in their own country and being ashamed of it.

You began to understand why these privileged Swazis opened backpackers. The floodgates would open and women who are NOT Swazi would flock in. Mamba tells me stories about Swazis who would buy the backpacker’s props (backpacks, sleeping bags, etc) then move from backpacker to backpacker picking up different women. “It’s quite easy. You don’t shower for a few days and google some place you say you just came from. The ladies love it. And you don’t have to worry about relationships or AIDS.”

At a party I ask privileged Swazi number 2, “What’s with the tattoo?” I roll up his sleeve to get a better look.
“It’s my surname. Dlamini.” He says.
“I know, but why put that there?”
“Because I’m royalty. I’m proud.”
“So why not roll up those sleeves and act proud?” I ask.

Privileged Swazi goes on to tell me he’s not like “Swazis”. He’s smart and educated.

“Swazis can’t think for themselves. They’re naturally dumb. THANK GOD my mother is from Botswana. I’m not full Swazi.” He boasts.

THANK GOD his father was once ambassador, MP, and a lawyer providing this young man an education in New Zealand and a chance to see the world. But unfortunately the chance to step outside his own country and into a world that considered his country and continent as less than gave him a similar perspective. Now he has become so ashamed of his own people. I have a feeling however, in New Zealand, this Swazi wears his sleeves rolled up and proud. "I am Dlamini! African!" He shouts to the pale and doe-eyed Kiwi ladies. All the stories I've heard from these privileged Swazi men who get the chance to travel abroad, “I tell them I am SWAZI. And they have no idea where that is. I’m not just African. I am SWAZI.” They carry such pride to be Swazi in the UK. To be Swazi in Finland. To be Swazi in New Zealand. But the sleeves are rolled down when a Swazi is in Swaziland.

Could you blame them? Could you really blame these Swazis for the way they viewed themselves and where they fit in this world? You wonder how a man older than yourself can ask you for money every single day. How it becomes tucked into a Swazi’s greeting so easily to every outsider they pass. How they’ve trained themselves not to care. How they, without shame, demand and expect from us. And how so obediently they follow our instruction.

“The white wife has a big heart and a big brain. She is always so caring and giving.”

Swazis grow up seeing us in this manner. As givers, providers, nurturers for the needy. Fixing their problems with the flick of a pen and a check book.

“Where does your country get its food? Who gives you food?” The students ask.

We tell them to circumcise and they do without question. The white man has a bigger brain, why question. Why do anything for ourselves when they will for us?

This has become their reality. We are stupid and we need the white man to save us. It is because of US that they think this way. It is because of us that I am harassed everyday. It is because of us that I struggle to get my teachers involved in this damn library project. It is because of us that so many Peace Corps projects lay in ruins years later. It is because of us that we are still here trying to help a desperate country that will remain desperate until we are gone.

My Head teacher hits on me for the kagillionth time, inviting me to his home in the city.

“I have a boyfriend.” I tell him.
“A Swazi?!” He shrieks back.
“Yes.”
He shrugs back, “We don’t like to see whites suffer. It is US who are supposed to suffer. We don’t want you carrying things on your head, fetching water, and chopping firewood. You should not be with a Swazi from Siphofaneni.”
“He grew up in Mbabane.” I assure him.
“Good. Then he will build you a house in the city and a house on his family’s homestead. Then you can go to that world whenever you like. But in the city you shall stay.”

Swazis imagine themselves because of how WE imagine them. The poor Siphofaneni Swazi. He is unable, uneducated, and without. Peace Corps volunteers shift in their seats with a look of comic astonishment, unsure what to say when they find out I’m dating a SWAZI. “Mere. Be careful.” They tell me. I know these thoughts running through their minds because I too once thought this way. So desperate she must be. Idiot. I break up with a PCV (An American!) and start dating a Swazi. I know what they're thinking. A Swazi over an American?!

I don’t want to say it but I do it in his defense, “He went to Waterford.” I tell them. (A prestigious, international, school in the city). A look of relief in their eyes, “Thank God!” They shriek back. Even though, deep down, they know a man from America would be better.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. And I try to teach my students this.

I want them to have pride in their culture but at the same time be sensitive to other's. I try to open them up and encourage them to discuss their own beliefs about themselves and their social universe. These are rural Swazis in Siphofaneni, so for them it’s enough just NOT being any other type of African. Living in a landlocked country with only the outside influence of NGO’s, Rihanna, and WWF, I decide to play them a film that changed, rocked, and shook my world. It opened my eyes, gave me the thirst for travel, and the appreciation to try and understand the people in it.

The title of the film is “Baraka”. A Ron Fricke documentary which literally translates to “Blessing” or “Interconnectedness”. No dialogue, no plot, no actors. It’s a series of still shots from all over the world. “Everything that happens in the world in one day.” My mother told me. It was my 15th birthday and I wanted to take my friends to see it at the artsy Indy theatre in Dayton Ohio. “Make sure to lock the car doors when you’re down there.” The suburban housewives told their daughters as they went down to the city full of black people with my mother and I.

I sit with 5 of my closest friends as Whirling Dervishes twirled on screen, Buddhist Monks sat silent surrounded by thousands of lit candles, tattooed children in South America dance in ceremony, the screen lit up with fires still burning in Kuwait, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Maasai men jumping high into the air as the women looked on, Navajo Native Americans danced in circles on reservations, Aushwitz in Poland, old men in Southeast Asia grunt and moan while performing cleansing rituals in tropical forests, women in factories stuffed like chickens in a hen house cut and shuffle cigarettes, a thousand year old statue leans heavy into the rivers of eastern Asia, an ancient Chinese emperor lies underground amongst all his soldiers and horses in the after-life, monkeys in hot springs, solar eclipses, concentration camps of the Japanese, and twirling baby chicks spinning down factory pipes and tunnels to their inevitable dark and gloomy cages that await them for the rest of their life.

At fifteen years old I sat in awe at all these images floating past. It evoked something real and alive inside me. For the first time in my life I got a sense of how big this world really was. I began to understand the similarities between us all. Without words I knew there was a connection and I wanted to plug into it- into this world. I was blown away as my friends sat horrified. Why hadn’t I gone to Leaps and Bounds like every other 15 year old celebrating their birthday?

“If you allow it.” I tell my students. “This world will blow your mind!”

They laugh at the attire, the ceremonies, and customs of all these people around the world. I show images of the Reed Dance and Incwala ceremonies in Swaziland. “Where I come from, people may laugh at YOUR culture. They don’t understand it.” I write down words like cultural universals, cultural respective, and ethnocentrism. “Every culture, every society, has a way of expressing itself. It’s important we try to understand and above all- respect it.” I encourage them to ask questions and speak their mind.

The two main themes in this country, especially for the youth, are conformity and obedience. With a fear of standing out it is hard for curiosity to develop. Question and awe are smashed into little bits and blown out the window. “What do you mean talk about my culture? Its all there is. I don’t know how.” They respond. Their view has become so limited it was hard for my students to talk about Swazi when they had no idea what to compare it to. All they knew was Swazi.

I had wiggled my way into this Swazi vein and I wanted to understand how they thought. How they loved. How they viewed the outside world. Did they even know it was there?

Sometimes, being in a country where teachers didn’t care to teach had its advantages. I could teach whatever I felt like teaching. No one questioned. No one cared or noticed. Twice a week we sat together teaching each other about our ways of living without judgment. They laughed and awed at all the BBC documentaries I shared with them. I showed films about the South Pacific islands. 100 people living on tiny pieces of earth burying most of their food to save from cyclones. People so adapted to water they fished without boats. I showed the ice and penguins of Antarctica. The pyramids of Egypt. The overcrowded streets of India. The brothels in Thailand. The street worker in Eastern Europe. Then I asked them why? Why were 7 year olds in India sold away to marry? Why were Chinese women discouraged from having more than one child? Why were these young girls in Thailand selling themselves? Why did Swazi mothers abandon their children? Why was all this normal to this specific culture? Who knew what was getting through to them but I was determined to shovel as much as I knew about the world into their minds before I left. To get them to critically and creatively think with an open mind.

And this was all I had. I could throw AIDS statistics in their face. I could look over all the manuals Peace Corps threw at us. “Teaching Self-Esteem and Peer Pressure”. Instructions that read: “On flip chart draw a river and cut out stones. These are the stepping stones of life and teenagers are trying to cross the river. Now, draw crocodiles. These crocodiles are Peer Pressure trying to prevent them from crossing that stream of life.”

Are you kidding me? You don’t teach self-esteem. You show it. You don’t use numbers to teach HIV to children, you show it. You ask them to dig deep. Where are your parents? Where are your uncles? Your cousins? Now write it down. Tell me a story. Tell me their story. Tell me YOUR story. We read the papers together. “The government is telling you there is no more money. The cabinet is saying they are corrupt. Tell me, what do you think about all this? How do we prevent such corruption? Why did this happen?” I try to get them to think about their world. You find all the ways possible to open their eyes to what’s around them.

Man did I try.

The APCD of Peace Corps calls me, “Meredith. I know you’ve been teaching Life Skills at schools a lot and CARITAS would like you to come teach Life Skills for one day next week.” We use certain words so much in this line of business you forget how ridiculous it all sounds.
“You’d like me to teach Skills about Life in one day? What is the age group?” I ask. APCD clears his throat, “Well ah, 8 to 20 years of age.”
I laugh, “And what’s the topic?”
“Well you’d be teaching peer pressure and self esteem.”

CARITAS wanted me to talk about peer pressure to eight year olds alongside twenty year olds.

“I don’t teach that.” I say.
“I thought you teach Life Skills.” He responds.
“No. I teach about the world.” I say.

All our report files and routine meetings with staff, all want to hear us say we teach “Life Skills”. No one ever asks, “What does Life Skills mean?” They follow a manual. How many students did you teach? How many do you think you affected? How many do you think will prolong sexual intercourse now?

If you had to narrow what I taught down to something, I suppose I would say I teach the understanding and acceptance of sexuality and culture and in a way that forces you to think creatively and critically. Swazis are raised without comprehension. Problem solving, and critically and creatively thinking is foreign to them. Teachers stand in front of a classroom reciting off textbooks and teacher’s manuals in a language they don’t fully understand. The students memorize key words to barely get by. I ask them questions and they all answer in uniform. I ask them to explain. The zombies recite the approved definitions. “Don’t give me that memorized bullshit. I want you to explain to me WHY!” I shout. “I don’t care if it’s in SiSwati. I want you to understand. Understand it in SiSwati for all I care.” I ask what they think the HIV rate is in Swaziland. “70%.” They tell me. “80%!” Some shout, “90%” Others argue. Remember, they live in a country that shouts AIDS at them from birth. AIDS is everywhere. So, of course they'd say 80%. But this next part baffled me.

I go on to ask, “So, what age does the average Swazi live to be?”
“75!” They shout. “No. No. It’s 65!”
“You mean to tell me, you think the HIV rate in Swaziland is 90%, which means you’re all almost dead, and yet some how the average Swazi lives to be 75?!” I shout back. “The average Swazi lives to be 33. Ten years ago it was 62.” I explain.
The students shake their heads in disbelief and one raises his hand, “But my grandmother is 75.” I throw my head down and bang it on someone's desk. They all laugh but they're killing me. These are 19 and 20 year olds we're talking about.

“This is why we can’t have democracy right now!” Mamba shouts at me.
“In the paper the other day,” He continues. “One of the chiefs, running for MP, was quoted as saying that all private land should belong to the people. All those sugar cane fields in Malkerns and the maize in the low veld should be given to the people.”
“That’s absurd.” I say. “I mean you wouldn’t have any exports then. This country wouldn’t make any money. How does he expect the country to survive without exports?”
“Exactly. See you aren’t thinking Swazi. He wasn’t thinking ahead. Swazis are communist by nature. He didn’t think ahead. He just wanted land for himself. This is how they think. This is where we fail.”

Swaziland has become a country without parents and a school without teachers. What happens when these students grow up? No one has taught them what we take as “common sense”. I try to encourage teachers but they show me even more disrespect. Not once have I ever been told about a staff meeting during the week. How many times I’ve walked hours to school in the sweltering heat with all my teaching aids in hand to find that there is no school today. “Today is sports day.” They say. “I thought yesterday was sports day?” I ask. They laugh. I get angry, “You know if you put as much energy into teaching as you do beating kids and SPORTS DAY half of your form three wouldn’t have failed last year!”

I’m bursting at the seams here. I ask why, but I’ve gone about it all wrong. I have DEMANDED their respect. And it didn’t occur to me until recently that this lack of respect is just as much my fault or Peace Corps’ as it is theirs- if not MORE. Peace Corps has taken a handful of twenty something year olds with no teaching or nursing degrees and told them to go into clinics and schools and “help”. “How are we going to teach in schools and work in clinics when we don’t have the experience?” We asked. “Oh don’t worry.” They assured us. “You’ll have this paper stamped from the Ministery of Education and the Ministry of Health saying you’re allowed to. Just wear a skirt, you’ll be fine.” We nodded our heads in ignorance. We handed Head teachers and nurses these stamped letters and got annoyed when nurses would ask us “Are you a nurse?” When Head teachers would dare ask, “Were you a teacher back home?” We weren’t given the credentials back in the real world, but here we got our official stamp just for being Peace Corps. But again, blind faith of the white comes into play. Only now do I see just how insulting that must have been. But so many teachers accepted our presence for sake of a break, hoping we’d agree to teach English as well while they sit stupid in the staff room. Our only welcome was to take their hours.

And now after thousands of dollars and the hours and hours of hard work a previous Peace Corps Volunteer put in, an extremely large library sits untouched at my school. 1500 books from the US sit untouched for over a year. Termites and mold eat away at the boxes filled with books as the teachers sit in staff rooms sleeping and gossiping. It’s the same story of what happened to me almost two years ago at my primary school. I had to abandon all my hard work because no one would help me. And this is the story of almost EVERY school in rural Swaziland. I run around the city trying to find someone to donate bookshelves before I go. I give them money from family and friends to start the bookshelf project. And no one will help me. A teacher from Zimbabwe walks over and asks me how the library is doing. “You’re the first teacher to ask me that.” I say. We sit and watch as the Head teacher herds all the students into a group outside this morning. Again, I’m told I can’t teach today but this time because tomorrow the REO (Regional Educational Officers) are coming to inspect the school and staff. The Head teacher pulls every student from class and yells at them to start cleaning the entire school. I imagine, if only he would do this for one day to get the library organized and in shape. With everyone’s help, I’d only need one day. Instead I’m alone while the students frantically clean all day before the investigators arrive.

“I’m glad you guys have your priorities in order.” I say to Zimbabwe. “ But again, I’m happy you asked about the library. Most don’t even know what I’m doing over there. No one cares.”
He laughs, “Oh. They care.” He says. “They care enough to turn it into an examination room once you leave.”
My mouth drops, “WHO wants it turned into an examination room?!”
“I’m just saying Simphiwe. There are those that don’t want your books or your library. They want it for themselves.”
“Then I will get the extra funding to cement those shelves to the ground!” I shout. “Who said this to you?”
Zimbabwe looks down and refuses to tell me. But it doesn’t matter. Students aren’t going to be interested in a library if the teachers aren’t. Over and over I try to start a library club. The first day 20 show. The second day 4. The third only 2 remain. And it’s like this every time. I can’t compete with after-school sports or chores at home.

“What will you do when you return home?” My head teacher asks.
“I guess I’ll go back to school. I want to do something in the education field I know that.”
“Good.” He smiles. “Then you will come back to Swaziland and we can then dissolve your talents. You will be of use.”

I laugh, but he was right. I will be “of use”. Look. You can tell me all you want that I’m “making a difference” But let’s be honest, how much more difference would I had made had I actually gotten a teaching degree? Had I actually worked alongside NGOs before? Peace Corps in Swaziland is all grassroots. There are no specifics here. They throw kids fresh out of college into rural areas and call us Health Volunteers. They latch us onto some shady Swazi who is never around, gave up on his community years ago, and tell us to do sustainable work. They say to us, listen to the community’s needs and go from there. When these people don’t even know what they want or how to get it. And the NGOs are just as bad. “They should have attached us to an NGO after a year.” Volunteers say. “So many NGOs are ignorant to what’s going on out here and they end up wasting thousands and thousands of dollars. It’s absolute chaos because no one wants to do the research and take the time to actually get to know the situation down here.” Volunteers, staying in country, after TWO years, have the option of working with an NGO where they will live and where their work will remain. All they did for their communities will be slapped onto another new and confused volunteer or become forgotten.


There is no structure and we end up blaming ourselves for it. We run around for two years refusing to give into the people’s demands. We refuse to just build a building or throw money at a chicken project because we are determined to do sustainable work here. We try to teach teachers. We try to inspire students to get involved in our after- school clubs. We try to convince Head teachers to help us with the library. And yet we fail. I can’t tell you how many volunteers have felt this guilt of failure for the past two years. The guilt brings us to our knees and in the end we go ahead and raise money back home or from our own pockets to throw some sort of structure at the people here just before we leave. “There!” We’ll shout. “NOW you can’t say I didn’t do anything.” And there it will sit, unused, unloved. Sure, the Swazis will throw you a party for the thing you paid for. Maybe even slaughter a cow in your behalf. But years will go by and then another volunteer will arrive to your old community. The locals will speak of you so highly for getting them something and then they’ll point to it and show this new volunteer what you had gotten them. The new volunteer will scratch their head in confusion.

“You mean that abandoned building that’s falling apart over there? Where the chickens are sleeping?”
“Yes.” Their new they will smile back and say.
“But what is it?” They’ll ask.
“Oh. It USED to be a library. But now we need a better one. Can you get the money to build one for us?”

This is our only legacy: a worn down building and a cycle of dependency.

There’s so much more I still want to do here. There’s so much more I first need to learn. I’m not done with Swaziland and I have a feeling it’s not done with me.

And it’s on this particular warm winter morning where I have this realization. I sit with my friend, Vusi, watching the sunlight squeeze its way through the clouds onto our faces and we breath it in deep into our bellies. Something was alive in the breeze today. We sit outside the grocery store in Manzini and eat our chicken mayo sandwiches. Vusi was a retired butcher in his late sixties and he was dying of AIDS. Some days he looked alive and other days I didn’t know how he could even muster a hello to me as I passed. This was one of those days. He had been mugged the night before and he carried a bloody cloth around his right arm. I tell him to go to Hope House.

“They’ll take care of you Vusi.”
“No Simphiwe. There are people in a lot worse shape than myself that deserve their attention. I wait till it REALLY gets bad before I go.”

Vusi lost his wife to AIDS in 2004 and then his job. He was a butcher and butchers have to take mandatory HIV tests. One day Vusi’s came out positive. With no job and no money he found a Catholic missionary to take his children while he wandered the streets of Manzini. Waiting for death. For almost a year we passed each other every time I came to town and he would joke, “Little lady I promise, I’m not following you.” He never once asked me for anything. We’d just sit and talk. But the days he looked extra bad I’d make sure to give him money or a meal. I wanted to give him something more than death to look forward to. “Don’t do that Meredith!” Volunteers would yell. “Now he thinks ALL white people are going to just give shit away.” But not this one. Vusi was more than that. He was more than that to me.

I tell him I’m leaving in July.
“But you’ll be back Simphiwe.” He smiles.
“How do you know Vusi?” I ask.
“Because.” He grins. “Swaziland has a way of taking a bite out of certain people. Not all. But some. And I can see, she’s taken a bite out of you. And they’ll come the day, someday, when you’ll come back looking for that bite she took out of you. And then, just maybe, you’ll take a bite out of her.”

*Sometimes I think people like Andy or Mamba are right. That there ARE ancestors or God or SOMETHING looking down on me. Just as I hit "Post" on this blog an old man taps me on the shoulder and whispers, "I thought I was dreaming. Is it really you?"

It was Vusi. I haven't seen Vusi in over two months and to be honest, I thought he was dead. I got teary eyed just writing this post because he meant a lot to me. And just as I sent you his story, there he was. So now, I'm going to leave you and go share a sandwich with my dear friend Vusi. I think today I'll teach him about that perfect bite in a sandwich.

Till next time.

mere