"Fucking Americans."

(Cameron on left with blown up condom. Brook in middle using my back as an arm rest as she drinks. Me trying hard to be the center of attention. And the rest- well you get it.)



At first, I could only see. I remember, I couldn’t really hear anything. I know, I could move. I know, I could touch but I couldn't feel anything. I was just a body without a heart beat, floating above trying desperately to put the pieces together. Tiny crystal ornaments hung from the ceiling above and I watched pink and purple make shapes in the shifting light. It was autumn and the sun was, annoyingly, always in my eyes. I looked out the window and something felt right. I realized I knew this place. I began to become aware of my body. My hands. My feet. I felt the warmth of familiarity inside me. Like Christmas morning, or riding a bike in the sprouting spring- I was overwhelmingly comfortable. I felt rays of sun hit my cheeks and bounce into my eyes. I wiggled my toes in the deep dark carpet below and turned to my left. A worn out record player played tunes I couldn’t hear. But there, lying on top was Paul Simon’s “Graceland”. And I quickly realized I’ve been here before.

I was home. Sort of.

My step-father walked pass me and I grabbed his arm to see if this was all real. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and I quickly rolled them down as I always did. “Let’s build something!” I shrieked looking up at him from what seemed like a very low angle. “We can’t” He told me. “There’s no more legoes to play with.” He pointed to the window sill behind him at 5 large legeo homes. “Can’t we take them apart and start again?” I asked. “No.” He said with annoyance. “We already built the homes. We can’t build anymore EVER again.” And then I heard a familiar deep bellied laugh behind me. I let go of his arm and walked inside our living room. My sister Helen, sat in diapers. What? I looked up and see my brother twirling in circles above the ground. He held on tight to the fan above and his eyes were wide with excitement. My step-mother appeared next to me and mumbled, “He’s got the demon in em.” Since when did she have a southern accent? More importantly, when did we become a religious family? Then I heard a knock on the door and my best friend stood with her arms outstretched and tears in her eyes. She was covered in her own blood and a box cutter dangled in her loose grip. She said to me, “I’m sorry.” I told her, “I thought I hid all the razors.” A line of people, I knew, stood behind her. “Why did you leave?” They ask me. “Why did you run away?”

The phone rang, and I woke up. Relieved.

“Mer-a-dit?! Mer-a-dit!” The African voice yells.
“Yes?”
“It’s me!”
“Me.Who?” It’s 5 in the morning and I am using my ‘Why did I give this person my cell number only to have him call when there’s 90% discount to call me at fucking 5 in the morning’ voice.
“It’s Justice!”
Justice has been in D.C. for 10 days at a workshop and it’s his first time to be in MY country.
“JUSTICE!” I shriek back.
“Yes Mer-a-dit. I’m in D.C. YOUR country. Oh my God Mer-a-dit. Oh my God. God must have been HERE when he created Heaven and Earth. Because this is absolute perfection! Heaven IS on Earth. And it’s YOUR country!
“D.C. is a beautiful place.” I tell him.
“Not just that. I was standing outside the White House yesterday and there were people shouting at Obama angrily. They were shouting, ‘Obama! Obama!’ They were yelling at him! And no one stopped them. One little old lady told me she had been there protesting for 35 years. Such freedom you people have. HEAVEN ON EARTH!” He exclaims.

We say our goodbyes and I decide to just get up and get on with the day. I make my way to school.

“YOU Americans.” Maziya, another teacher, shouts across the staff room on this slow moving morning. “No culture! YOU Americans!” He continues.

Maziya had a passion for busy ties and suit jackets that carried special buttons. He loved bold colored shirts that said I’m here world and always moved and spoke in exclamation points. His collars were stiff with starch and he paid particular attention to how he rolled up his sleeves when he had something controversial to say. Which he always did, and I was his new shiny toy. I wondered if he purposefully placed my desk on the other side of the staff room so he could shout out at me, letting the whole world hear his ridiculous opinions of the day.

“You know what your problem is Maziya?!” I shout back from my tiny desk. “You think culture is all traditions and ceremonies. Leopard skin attire and coming of age rituals. Women over here, men over there. Old men smoking pipes under a tree and young ladies collecting reeds for the annual Reed Dance. There’s more to culture than what you see. It’s written down. It’s subtle. It’s tiny mannerisms or what we call norms. Our culture is a bit more practical and less decorative than yours- yes. The mere fact that you say ‘YOU Americans’, though, is proof in itself that we stand apart from the rest in our own way, our own CULTURE.”

“No culture.” He continues as if I had said nothing. Swazi men had a knack for doing this. “You’re a country with people from all over the world and YOU Americans get confused. You have no sense of identity so you come here trying to find it or latch onto ours. You're all running away from something.”

I pick up today’s paper and the headline reads, “Mamba King, King Maja Loses Speech”. And there it was, page three of the Swazi Times, the entire family lineage of the Mamba clan. Mamba was right. Everything from King Sohlolo being kidnapped by the Basetho to Maloyi rescuing him and being offered the throne. The dual Kingship was printed out for all to see. A teacher, from Zimbabwe, walks pass and points at the photo of King Maja, “He’s the REAL King.” He says surprisingly loud.

“Why doesn’t anyone else recognize that?” I ask.
“Oh they do. You know Swazis. They know how to keep quiet. Everyone knows HE was supposed to be King.”
“So why not do something about it?” I ask.
“They like to keep things quiet and peaceful, but soon something will happen. Just like it did in history.”
I walk over to Maziya and hand him the article. “What do you think about this history?
He stares for a moment, carefully adjusts his sleeves, and says, “That’s not history.” He points to the photo of King Maja. “THAT’S politics.”

Another Peace Corps party at our usual backpackers, shouting voices, drunken eyes, girls grinding on each other, talks of what our shit looked like a week ago, volunteers running up to me and screaming, "I heard you got the schisto!" as I lift up my shirt and show them the bloated belly. (A volunteer's two worst fears: AIDS and parasites). I sit with the only non American- an Irish-man outside. Sean used to be a volunteer but after a few years he went back to get his masters in International Development Aid Work or was it International Humanitarian Aid? To be honest it didn’t matter to me, and it didn’t seem to matter to him much either. “Sounds like a fucking joke doesn’t it?!” He laughs. “What did you all major in?” He asks Brook and I. “International Studies.” She says back blowing smoke from her cigarette in his face. “Sociology” I mumble back. “Ha!” He shouts. “Of course you did. It’s all the same. When you get your masters it just sounds fancier. Like we’re in some fucking comic magazine. University trained superheroes! We jump out of helicopters with our capes and wands out. BAM! BAM! Fixing the worlds problems.” He shakes his head and looks down exhaling, “If only…” He continues to jabber on and I’m wishing I hadn’t had that second glass of wine. His economic mumbo jumbo and how it pertains to the development of international aid in THIS country hits my interest but I just can’t follow it tonight. He lost me at ‘deficit’. “You talk prettty.” I drunkenly laugh, interrupting his rant. “You have no idea what I just said do you?” He responds. “Nope!” I laugh back. “Fucking Americans.” He says. And suddenly, without realizing, I jump out of my seat. “WHY?! WHY DOES THE WHOLE WORLD SAY THAT TO US?! WHAT IS SO WRONG WITH THE AMERICANS! Why isn’t it the fucking British or the fucking French?! What about all the crimes against humanity that caused EUROPE’S progress? It wasn’t US who drew those naïve, ignorant, and backwards lines in this continent. We didn’t divide tribes, people, and communities. We’re not the only ones pissing on Gaddaffi! Fighting over petrol! It’s like our nationality should be ‘You Fucking Americans!’ I’m a ‘You Fucking American’.” I shout out to the void.

“Look.” He laughs. “The bloody British and French are to blame as well. The problem with Americans is not that you’re American but that you THINK like an American.”

I take my place back inside and watch the white Swazis surround and stare at the swell of Peace Corps Volunteers gyrating in a circle like penguins in winter: 99.98% of them drunk women, and like most drunk women, they only dance with their girlfriends in a messy huddle. "I call them the heavy breathers." I say to one of the male volunteers pointing to the outline of White Swazis glaring at the penguins. "They're like the lionesses, crouched down hiding in the bush watching the tiny gazelles. You can only hear their heavy breathing as they pant and wait for one of the injured fawns to slip from the pack. And then- they make their move."

I move around the pulsating gazelles and accidentally bump against one of the white Swazis playing pool in an American jersey. “Nice jacket.” I tell him. “Fucking Americans.” He mumbles back.

I was beginning to put together these two words. “Fucking Americans”. At first I reacted defensively. I compared every country I’d been to, to my own. I focused only on the lacking. But after sometime I began to look further, deeper and finally, I was beginning to understand.

The next morning I sit down for coffee with some other PCV’s.
“You guys ever notice how many people roll their eyes and tell our nationality to fuck off?”
Everyone nods in agreement. “They’re just jealous because we have everything.” They say. “Because we’re a super power.”

But I knew there was more to it.

That night, Mamba comes over and I make us some good ol’ American tuna melts while he sits and talks politics. AGAIN. He walks over to my table and picks up a pair of earrings I got from a concert we recently went to. Earrings that were being passed out by NGOs that read, “Soka Ngcobe!” “Circumcise and conquer!” I had no intention of wearing them but I thought it was ridiculous how the outside world was turning this circumcision campaign into a fashion show. From the beginning I had questioned the logic of getting 152,000 men circumcised by 2012.

“Fucking Americans.” Mamba says putting down the earrings. Most of the funding was coming from America, through PEPFAR, so this time I could understand his ‘Fucking Americans’ comment. “We’ll see where these people are in 5 years.” He says. “We’ll see how long this circumcision fad lasts.”

And I completely agreed. Even before this proud Swazi came into my life, about a year ago Futures pulled PCVs aside and sold us the circumcision idea. It was like one giant Budweiser commercial. Who knew foreskin removal could be SO exciting. But, at that point, I was beginning to think like a Swazi. I knew any man would hold onto the fact that circumcision reduces the chance of HIV transmission by 60% and would hide behind this statistic saying, “Now we DEFINITELY don’t have to use condoms!” I mean it's called, "Circumcision and Conquer!" Swazis interpret this as NOW I've conquered AIDS we don't need any other protection. "But we counsel them before and tell them they still MUST wear a condom." It's amazing what the power of denial can do.

I we could get the school age children to come to clinics during school breaks. Peer pressure would prevail. And as an added bonus NGOs were now telling them, “Circumcision prevents genital warts in women.” Circumcision, ultimately, is more hygienic and therefore helps protect you from MANY STIs. But I wondered why were they pushing this one STD? They were trying to get the women to care and to pressure their men into circumcision. “You’ll get HPV if you don’t!” But those out of school. Those from the city. People like Mamba. A man's foreskin became a matter of pride. Culture. Who are you to tell me what to do with my dick? Are you telling us we don't know how to clean ourselves? Fucking Americans.

When Mamba says to me, “We’ll see where these men are in 5 years.” He means this solution is not a sustainable one. When these men grow up, every Swazi knows they won’t be circumcising their children. When these men have sex they won’t be using condoms.

I once wrote, “I need to see AIDS their way.” But now I was seeing, I needed to see aid THEIR way.

“When I went to Simunye, where many of the first mass circumcisions were held, I interviewed all the nurses circumcising these young men.” I told Mamba. “And I asked, “Are you circumcised?” And they all responded, “Why would I do THAT?! This is just a job. And I’m getting paid a lot to do it.” Not one of them was circumcised themselves. It WAS just a job for nurses who were promised, by NGOs, higher wages if they left their clinics for three weeks to circumcise in these tiny camps outside hospitals. ‘Why would we circumcise?! That’s ridiculous!’”

“And the doctors were American?” He asked.
“Of course.” I said. “Are there any Swazi doctors?”
“Of course there are! Fucking Americans. Aid money being pumped back into America. American doctors. Why not employ Swazi doctors? That’s got to be a lot cheaper than sending your doctors over here. NGOs brining in OUTSIDE workers paying them ridiculous amounts of money when they could be paying OUR doctors. Circumcision. See where they’ll be in 5 years. We don’t need to use condoms. We’re circumcised. That’s our logic. That’s our defense. That’s our last resort. We’ll do anything, not to have to actually change our behavior.”

I remembered Jim, the American doctor I spent four days with while interviewing his clients. “They’re giving me SO much money to cut foreskins over here for three weeks. It’s insane how much I’m getting paid!” He says as he yells to his nurses in the bar, “Drinks are on me boys!” He shouts as the male nurses raise their glasses and glance dirty glares my way: the outsider with a notepad. He tucks 200R in my pocket and whispers, “I know if your parents were here they’d do the same. Since they’re not—I can.” I tuck the money back into his shirt pocket, “Hand outs aren’t the answer Jim.” And because he thought like an American, he had a hard time understanding what I meant.


Swaziland has manipulated us. Their victory lies in their ability to manipulate our anguish, our white guilt, our naïve conscience. It’s a monopoly on our pity. And man do we have a lot to give. The entire world is here to save these poor, helpless, Africans as if they didn’t have the thumbs to dig their way out of their own mess. But it came with a cost. We’ll save you- OUR way. We told them. With OUR doctors. OUR way. You won’t change your behavior, fine then, we’ll put a band aid on a gushing bloody stump. A temporary fix to ease the bleeding hearts of the public eye. We’ll hold “Behavior Changing Workshops” and hope you listen because we’re throwing meat and food at you. Listen to us and you get chicken and lipalishi. That’s “Swazi” enough for ya. Give us your foreskin and you’ll live longer.

NGO’s diet of: circumcision, abstinence, be faithful, use condoms, orphanages, donate library books, behavior changing workshops. This is not the menu of a Swazi.

“I’d love to talk to your father about what he thinks.” I tell Mamba.
“You wouldn’t like to hear what he has to say about the outside world and OUR HIV problem.”
“Go on.”
“He would tell you that ARVs were a BIG mistake.”
“What just allow people to die?!” I shriek back.
“No. Allow people to live. We’re not a pill taking country. We need to see our problems to understand them. You cannot tell us 32% of our country is positive and expect us to believe you. People are living longer with ARVs now. 10 years ago when we didn’t have a steady supply I was going to at least four funerals a weekend. We KNEW AIDS was there. AIDS was the cause. But now, people come in talking about pills that save your life and now it’s not AIDS that kills you it’s opportunistic infections. That’s why these people tell you, ‘He died of stomach ache.’ We no longer have to fear AIDS. We don’t have to change our behavior because we aren’t seeing AIDS like we once were. We need to SEE AIDS to change the way we behave. ARVs have taken the fear and the fear is what would have changed us. Now we just circumcise. Now we don’t have to change anything. We don’t have to be faithful, abstain, or use condoms. You see, the answers are not about what all the Hillary Clintons and ambassadors are saying. They’re giving us Western solutions but what is the African solution? Have respect for our culture. Only his Majesty has the power to say ‘Circumcise’. He did it in a western order. Not a national order.”

I was beginning to see, we had an American way of dealing with Swazi problems.

“So it’s money in exchange for white guilt?” I ask.
“No.” He says. “Nowadays it’s capitalist guilt. America is where it is because it pisses on other people. 15 million for circumcision you tell me? Well, now your little capitalist brain can sleep better at night.”

Another conversation about Libya. "We all know why you're there. What about Darfur? Somolia? Saddam? Israel? How long did it take you to protect the million that died in Uganda/Rwanda/Burundi? It's about America's personal gain. And now Gadaffi is threatening to give oil to the East. Americans the British- you guys CANT have that. You hide behind the word 'defend' but it's an 'invasion.'"

I couldn't argue with Mamba's opinions on America and our politics.
"But what about our character?" I ask him. "You say Swazis are communist by nature. Swazis take care of each other and they don't put your elderly in homes for someone else to take care of. But I can't tell you how many child-headed homesteads I've been to. Neighbors robbing these children. Aunts turning their nieces and nephews into slaves, beating them and taking their dead parent's money. Your culture is adjusting to AIDS and it reeks of apathy."

American volunteers in Swaziland are constantly laughed at for their accents and the way they cringe when they see a dog beaten or a chicken beheaded. "Your people live in a landlocked country with little diversity." I tell Mamba. "One tribe. When Americans of Indian decent, Asian, or Latino come to your country to volunteer Swazis are shocked to see such a mixture of races. We are one country but we strive hard to live harmoniously together. We know not to make fun of people's accents. We understand what it means to respect a different culture. We come from a history of change because we are trying to meet the needs of every person despite our differences."

As Peace Corps Volunteers we try hard to integrate. We take on a new name. We sit for hours at umphagatsi meetings and try to respect the culture where time does not matter. We are called weak for not being able to slaughter a chicken so we swallow hard, hold back emotion, and slaughter one ourselves. We turn the other cheek when we see a dog being beaten. We carry wood on our heads. All to prove a point: we are not weak. My family laughs at me when I bury another dog and cry. My mother tells me, "Don't show them your tears." But I'm proud of my tears. Yesterday a dead calf lies in the middle of the road while its mother hovers over her child licking the dead body and crying out. People carried on as I sat down next to the calf and stared. Sure they laughed at me, they pointed fingers. Just as they do when I sit on my Siphofaneni bridge looking out at the sunset.

Mamba can write off Americans and their politics but we are people who respected and appreciated things in a different way than Swazis. And I was proud of that.


I introduce Mamba to some of my friends ‘extending’ (those that finished their two years in the rural communities and are now extending for another year working with an NGO in the city.

"This is Laura. She'll be working with WFP this year." I tell him.
"Oh nice. Tell them thank you for putting me out of business."
Laura looks angry. Confused.
I pull Mamba aside. "You can't do that. This is a person who WORKED hard to get this position and NEEDS to believe in the organization she's working for. It's what gets us through this."
Mamba smiles, "Food production in this country is now down 40% because of all their handouts. Why not pay Swazi Farmers. You have to use what we have in a way that is culturally acceptable to solve OUR problems.”

“Same with PUDEMO.” He continues. “The outside world wants democracy for Swaziland so they back this VERY loosely organized organization that shouts ‘Democracy for Swaziland’ but they have no intention of getting that. They have no notion of the future. Nihilists. PUDEMO was created by jealous princes who wanted the throne for themselves. It’s all about power. We have no intention of democracy. Just grabbing power from those who have it. Democracy cannot work without economic stability. You can't think like American when you go into a country that is not American.”

I think of all the books, buildings, THINGS donated to Swaziland that lie in ruins now. Our idea of giving. Commercials showing images of bloated baby Ethiopian children. "Save this child. Give her money." And now, this:







This volunteer had gotten 1500 books from America for this school and a few months later all of the teachers ripped out the books from the boxes and threw them onto the floor. They continues to sit here for a year despite the volunteer's pleads for help. And this is one example of MANY. Or I'd say MOST.

I wanted to explore how the American campaign of circumcision and PEPFAR’s blind spending related to America’s place in this world historically and currently.


I tell Mamba the story of Sikhanyiso at the camp for children living with HIV. “He suffered for days with this gigantic open wound on his lip. I would stay up all night with him as he cried. I tried game after game to get him to smile. But in the end, it was his culture that brought him out of his misery. A young girl stands to sing a Swazi traditional song and all the children follow in unison. Sikhanyiso takes his place alongside the other young men and smiles big. It wasn’t the thumb wars of America or the Macarena he needed. It was Swazi.”

That was almost a year and a half ago and I realize how far I’ve come. How much more I’m beginning to see. I think about all the volunteers who signed up to stay in Swaziland another year. Who will be working alongside the NGOs in this country.

“They’re fucking CRAZY.” Other volunteers tell me. “Seriously. I can’t wait to get out of this fucking country. I’m never looking back. I hope this country bursts into flames. And it will. Our community alone has lost almost 20% of its population in just two years. And nobody cares.”
“Then why are these volunteers staying?” I ask. “They hate it here just as much as you do.”
“For Johns Hopkins. For the resume. They want to be doctors and aid workers. This is a direct in. Peace Corps isn’t enough these days. You need that NGO on your resume.”

Most extenders didn’t want to stay FOR Swaziland. But all of a sudden I did. I had this urge to stay. A rush of excitement. I was excited by fear, compassion, anger, and simply my ever growing morbid fascination for being around pain, love, and the unknown.

Riding one evening with Mamba, my three friends crammed in the back of his truck, he talks about how, economically, Swaziland has actually grown in the past 10 years.

“There was no Siphofaneni ten years ago." He says. "Come back in ten years and you will see how far we’ve come.”
Brook laughs in the back, “Yeah right. You can say that about ANY country. You guys aren’t special.” It was one thing for someone to bash this place to me, but to hear my friends bash it to Mamba I wasn’t going to sit back and take the disrespect.
“It amazes me, Brook, how you can just take any positive thing about Swaziland and turn it negative.”
“It amazes me,” She shouts back. “How fucking naïve you are about this country!”

Brook and I were fighting. Again. And everyone sat and listened- as they always do.

This was something I was used to. I’ve gotten in countless fights with other volunteers who roll their eyes when I try to talk about Swaziland and the things I’ve learned. Or I continue to ask, why? And tell them there MUST be a reason. Or when I stop to make friends with a beggar on the side of the road.

“He just wants your money! Keep walking!” They’ll shout.
“He isn’t really asking for money though. It’s his way of bridging the gap between how are you and I want to know more about you. It’s the only way they know how to communicate. It’s our job to show them there are better ways to achieve this. Sharing is a huge part of this culture. If you have money, you share. Watch these children break off a piece of maize and hand it to their friend. How many three year olds back home do you know that would do that?” I ask.

I can’t talk about Swaziland to anyone anymore. Most volunteers are consumed with the apathy they once judged. They have completely detached themselves from society here.

“Why do you like Swaziland?” My Head Teacher asks me one day. “Why do you think you’ll come back?”
“I suppose it’s because I feel apart of something when I’m here. Back home, I have no religion. No political party. No box I can check. I don’t really feel like I belong to anything. It’s easy to get lost in such a big country like America. But in Swaziland, I’m an American that doesn’t feel so lost.”
My Head Teacher rubs his big, bulbous, belly and sighs back, “Wait. You don’t have a religion?”

Last week a volunteer approaches me, “He is loosing his mind Mere. He freaked out on a kombi conductor the other day. He flips out at the littlest things now. We’re so done with Swaziland.” She tells me about her husband.
“He should talk to Mamba.” I tell her. “Mamba has a way of making you understand why it is ‘they’ do what ‘they’ do. And once you understand you become more at ease. You no longer see things in such black and white matter. He has a way of making you pick away the individuals and pull back all the layers- the history and the culture. It’s very humbling.”

That night we sit at a tiny bar in the middle of no where. Mamba is amongst all my Peace Corps friends and I can see he’s used to this scene. He’s been around “my kind” for years now. I look over at my friend’s husband who sits in silence next to Mamba. The ladies around them gossip about other volunteers while he fiddles with his phone or pretends to be interested in the rugby game, I mean “match”, on the television above, occasionally glancing over at the screen.

“Watch and learn.” I whisper to his wife.
I take a seat next to the two men and simply, plant the seed.
“Man- what do you guys think about this whole, the government has no money thing, Crazy eh?!” I shout over the ruby commentators.
After a few minutes, I gracefully slip my way out of the conversation and sit next to the wife. And just like that, for the next two hours her husband and Mamba talk politics. I watch both their faces light up. Hand gestures are flying, heads are scratching. I know what the husband is thinking, “But he’s SWAZI. How does HE know so much?!”

The next day the wife texts me, “He LOVED Mamba. I don’t know what he said to him but I’m so glad you got those two to talk.”

I look at Mamba now, handing him his tuna melt, and I realize how much he’s given me. An understanding and a deep tolerance that I truly needed a long time ago. How many months, hours, minutes we wasted watching Peace Corps staff re-enact how to act at Swazi funerals, how to act at Swazi umphagatsis, how to shake in the proper manner, or sit at the dinner table. A fucking movie. Just entertainment at best. Peace Corps, AMERICAN staff, training Swazis how to talk to Americans. But it only set the stage of the over-riding them, “Us vs. Them”. Mamba had closed that gap for me, and I don’t think he knew how grateful I was for that.

“I know that’s what all your Waterford friends think of me.” I tell him in between bites. “Just some silly little American volunteer, trying to save the world with band aid solutions.”
“And what,” He huffs back. “Your friends don’t just think of me as some Swazi? They talk to me like I’m retarded. With that ‘Swazi voice’ they use with Swazis. I’m Swazi so you must speak to me like I’m an idiot. It’s completely condescending. This is where they fail to integrate. I am Swazi therefore I am stupid. You have to see pass the language barrier. Even you. When we first met you told me, ‘Not gonna happen.’ as if I wanted something from you. You throw me in front of your friends and say, ‘See! Swazis are just like us!’ Trying to prove to them. You don’t need to do that Mere.”
“I just want them to see what I see. Why don’t you tell them to stop talking to you like that. I have countless times.” I tell him.
“They must figure it out for themselves. Just as you have. I don’t need to shout back. As you get older Mere, you will see and understand the urgency for calmness. That’s the only way change will happen.”

And he was right. It amazed me how many American volunteers swooned over Mamba. "He's SO interesting. SO smart. SO....cool!I love his hair!" They shriek in surprise- almost shock. Our expectations, our judgment, has been holding us back for so long.

“I'm having a really hard time leaving.” I say to him. “What if I told you, I don’t think Swaziland is done with me? That I think I have a purpose here?” I ask.
“Well I think I’d tell you, it’s because you’re beginning to understand. That’s all.” He smiles back.

I hand him his tuna melt and wait for him to take the two corner bites leaving a peninsula of oozy cheese and mayoey tuna in the middle.
I make my move. He turns back around and sees that I’ve eaten the best bite. “Fucking Americans.” He sighs.

One morning I speak with another volunteer, Katie, about Israel and Palestine for about....THREE HOURS, She says to me, “After four years of studying in school and my whole life growing up Jewish just observing Jewish life custom and beliefs, I realize, the more I know the less I actually know.” And this struck something inside me. A realization. Having a true knowledge about something keeps you humble, wiser, and leaves you with a sense of humility, and a desire to keep trying to understand. It’s never black and white. You see both sides. Mugabe vs. The White African. The Hutus vs. The Tutsis. The Dlaminis vs. The Mambas. The Palestinans vs. The Israelis. American vs. Swazi. We need to understand WHY.

I recall back to our Country Director’s first lesson. Her first lecture to us trainees was, “You Will Fail.” As a volunteer in Macedonia, she got funding to build a school for the mentally and physically challenged people in her community. But as soon as the building was built the community destroyed it. They wondered why this little American came to their desperate community to help the disabled, whom they did not value, and not them. Her story of failure was her attempt at comforting us for when we would fail. But you cannot look in terms of accomplishment in this line of work. It’s not about change. It’s about understanding. “Peace Corps Volunteers spend two years sitting on their homesteads knitting hats for themselves and creating art out of trash. Sheer boredom.” Other volunteer agencies will joke to each other. I was beginning to realize everyone was looking at it all wrong. "My chief hasn't seen me at the royal grounds in so long." A Peace Corps Volunteer complains, "He thinks I'm not doing anything in my community! But I am! I am!" She tears up. It wasn't about getting that golden star on your A+ paper. It's about understanding. But we weren’t given the tools for this understanding. We weren’t given the tools to keep our awe and hope surviving within us. And this was crucial. Without awe, without curiosity, how would we understand? Without understanding how can we move forward together?

“It’s interesting Mere.” Mamba says.
“My sister is an LCF with Peace Corps, a language tutor, and she says to me that all of you seem to come from broken homes. You come here hoping you can fix problems. Fix people. Because you weren’t able to back home. So you come here and hope you can fix us here. And you get so angry when you realize you can't.”

And this is where we fail.

I think about my haunting dreams over these few weeks. A ticking clock until I am home. Home, around the people I could never fix and the hearts I broke and were no longer my place to fix.

“I wonder what will happen to her when you leave?” A friend told me of our other friend. She had been suffering for years and I tried hard to help her. "I don't think I can be there for her like you were. I don't think I can do it. She tells me, two years ago just before I stepped onto THAT plane. Just after a sob fest in the airport of 10 of my closest friends who held my hand and said, "You've been there for us Mere. But now- we gotta give you up to the world." A year later the friend she spoke of, tried to kill herself and I had to hear it through email. And I ask myself over and over- why couldn’t I have helped her? Why did I leave?

This is no longer just another sad African story. This is OUR story. American volunteers in Swaziland.

After our night of gossip and lousy beer, at the tiny bar in the middle of the desert, Mamba drives all the volunteers back to their homesteads. When I get depressed in Swaziland, which was often, I always liked to sit in the back of his truck watching humanity whirl pass me. Some days I just needed to smell and feel the earth around me. Some how all my worries would resolve themselves on these open roads. This rugged scene didn’t seem so rugged when I could move freely pass it. All I would see is the people and THEIR landscape, so I hopped into the back.

“There’s enough seats inside.” Cameron tells me.
“I like it back here.” I respond.
Kris and Cameron look at each other and jump in the back with me. “We’ll stay with you.” They say.

We drive across tiny slits of savannah broken by volcanic points and canyon dents with their jagged rusty teeth. The roads presented us the familiar African backdrop: women with babies strapped to their backs, old men in traditional animal skins with suit jacket tops and cell phones pressed against their ears, cows weaving down these gentle golden lanes, the assembly of barefooted children running on the crumbly rock below. I remember a time when I used to look at them differently. I looked at this world as an American crammed full of statistics. I saw these people and I saw AIDS. But now, I see life.

“This place used to be covered with game.” Mamba once told me pointing out at the barren Siphofaneni terrain. “Trees, long grass, and vegetation once grew here. Now, because of Swazi nation land people are just given land without having to work for it- they abuse it. Swazi nation land has caused over-grazing and no one cares. Every patch of land has been overworked.”

This scorched earth quickly coats Cameron, Kris, and I in dust and we crunch down on the grit between our teeth. It tastes almost metallic. Giant aloe cactus trees push pass us and the familiar achea leans heavy against the setting sun. The dust whirls up towards the sun turning her ends into a deep purple haze. Tonight, it’s an Arizona Western sun. The dark air is cold and I watch Cameron, one of the volunteers staying behind another year, looking out into the distance. He watches these yellow lines along the tar road, wondering will they take him home? He holds on tight to his fedora hat and shivers hard. Kris leans against the truck rocking out to Kanye, Metallica, or some other stupid band- like he always does. I curl up in the middle and lie down against the back. "I think I'll cry when you leave." Cameron says to me. "It just won't be the same without you here." He looks down sighing heavily. I pull Cameron close to me and grab Kris by the arm. We lie together, spooning, trying to keep each other warm. I smile and watch power lines tower up above as we fly down these roads.

We once were strangers in this country, but now we’ve wiggled our way into each other’s lives. Into a story. Over the years, we’ve shared our tales of who we were in America and the people we left behind. We cried and talked about the people we lost. One volunteer's story: "I think the hardest moment in my life was not the day she passed away but a week later when I went to grab the shawl she always wore. I often smelled it to remember her. But this day, it no longer had her smell. And it wasn't until that day that I broke down."

Maybe Mamba's sister was right. Maybe we all did come from some sort of broken or split family. Maybe part of us came here to fix those we could not back home. Maybe something was even broken in us all that we desperately were trying to fix. But together, we found something in this place. As much as we claimed to hate Swaziland we found something here. And I just knew, we were all afraid of loosing it. But equally we were afraid to face what we may have lost back home. Were there still Legos to be built? Would they see me in the same light? Would they still NEED me?

Justice tells me, Heaven is in America and the rest shout out, “You fucking Americans!” But where was I in all this? My father will ask how much more I like America now. But it’s never been about that. It’s about understanding. The more I travel, the more I see this universal connection. I realize, the more things change the more they stay the same. And the more I understand, the more I am aware of this overwhelming theme that I don’t think I could ever put into words for you to read.

You probably have no idea what I’m talking about. But you, American, I have hope that one day, you will.