They Should Have Sent A Poet

7/22/2011 Back into the wet and green of Mbabane. My white chariot, driver, and I cruise pass Swazi Times headlines on every telephone pole. They shout, “Schools to Shut Down! No Money!” “No More ARVs” “NERCHA Looses Funding” “King Encourages Swazis to Stop Pointing Fingers at Government” “Ministers of Parliament Not to Get Paid” There were becoming more and more planned protests and more and more police officers readying for battle. These days Swazi world was very much in limbo. We all knew people weren’t going to get paid. Requests for loans were being rejected. People who had already been suffering were going to suffer even more. The very few who had jobs were about to loose them. New Peace Corps volunteers were about to be amongst a torrent of suffering humanity that would sweep pass them. They would be trampled, smothered, inhaled, and then spit back out into the outside world. This new group has NO idea what they were in for. The canoe was going over the waterfall and I wouldn’t be here to see it. But so much of me wished I was. Instead, the dream of return was finally coming true. I would have to step back into my world. I had to realize the cold harsh truth that I am, once again, on my own.

 Peace Corps Medical Officer lays down all the details, rules, confusing brochures, and complicated jargon of the health insurance world. “As of tomorrow,” She says. “After midnight, you are no longer our responsibility.” Staff goes over how to build resumes, action verbs, and how to “utilize our skills”. We are told, “You will write your Description of Service for us. It is everything you have done in the past two years. “ Where do I even begin? I thought. Papers, brochures, websites, and instructional DVDs on how to integrate back into our world are all being flung at us. And then there was us. We scramble around trying to get everything in order here and there before we go. We want to make sure we fall on our feet when we return home. We become so distracted with the technical and the mechanical- we almost forget- we have to say goodbye to each other.

 How do you say goodbye to someone you’ve grown into? We hold each other in our arms and we haven’t a clue how to do this. No one gave us a manual for goodbyes. I was beginning to feel emotionally constipated. With every volunteer’s ring out, staff, other volunteers, and I say tearful goodbyes. But I couldn’t cry. In fact, I had yet to cry. I wanted so badly to cry. We depart in chunks every week and I didn’t know how much more I could take. After each person left I went home feeling a little emptier than before. At night I would lie in bed and imagine them flying over the world we shared. Their legs dangling over Mali, up to Egypt, and over to Atlanta. Flying further and further away. Until it was my time to ring the wheel and mark my closing of service. I had to transition with the rest. And so I did. For days, afterwards, I couldn’t sleep. Words kept reappearing in my mind. It was one thing to sum up two years of work, but to sum up what someone meant to you in a matter of minutes- was almost impossible. But we all tried and we all had something to say. “You don’t really know who you are until you’ve connected to others.”

 I tell our new Country Director during my exit interview. It was the only response I could come up with when he asked me the dreaded question, “How was your service?” There was an awkward pause. He sat with his legs crossed, leaned back in his chair, and began clicking his pen. As much as I wanted to ride this awkward silence out, see who was going to break first, I absolutely could not stand clicking pens. So I continued. “The other day I was talking to another volunteer and she was crying. Which was no surprise to me, she’s always crying. But she said something that made me realize something I had already realized months ago- but kind of forgotten. She told me during one of her chief’s meetings with the inner council he had asked them where she had been for the past two weeks. She was in the hospital and she made sure the inner council knew this. But when the chief asked the inner council where she was, they told him they didn’t know. And so, this volunteer was crying because she was upset that no one recognized her work. She was worried what her chief thought of her and she was tired of never getting any recognition. So now, you ask us how our service of two years has been and you’ll probably get a lot of similar stories. But my story is pretty simple. 

My service was everything I hoped it would be and that is, quite simply: personal growth.” Our last night in country, I pull out journals that have covered three years worth of writing. Letters I never sent, apologies I never said, my fuck ups, and my regrets. I once thought if I put it all down in writing then I would no longer have to carry it inside me. But I have. I was never ready to let them go. I start a fire at the backpackers and bring pages and pages in trash bags outside. They deserve better than this I thought. This is my history. I try to linger, afraid to read them again. Brook tears open the bag and looks through my journals. For once, I didn’t mind someone reading them. I’ve never felt so distant to my writing. “That’s not me.” I tell her. “I know.” She says. “I know once I get home all I’m going to do is sit on my bedroom floor and read this stuff. I won’t be able to move forward.” She stands up and hands me the journal. “So lets burn them. No more apologizing.” We rip out page after page after page. My words burn blue and red. They float up into ash and glide back down onto us. Penis doodles from all our workshops, scribbles from Antarctica, stories of family members, Eli and Ry, Seattle and Thailand. I wanted nothing to do with them anymore. Brook hands me the last page in the last diary and I decide to read this one before destroying it. “She’s 15 now. In two years she will be 17. Can you imagine? Who will be there to help her? High School isn’t easy. I never had anyone. Will she forgive me?” 

 For two years, these words have been my diary screaming out loud to you. Whoever you are. I’m not even sure if anyone is listening anymore. But this will be my last post- from Swaziland- and I have no idea how to end it. “How the fuck am I supposed to end this blog post?” A volunteer once asked me. “I mean do you end each post with a cheery note? I’m trying to tell the world how fucked up it is over here but I don’t want to depress the shit out of them either.” Peace Corps forced us to face this world. We have seen the most apathetic and the most sympathetic. We’ve seen that even we are capable of both. Nothing will ever be the same again. And I think, if anything, sharing this realization is ending things on a good note. Don’t you? 

 My last moments inside Swaziland, I stand by the kombi that will take me to South Africa. Like Antarctica, I wonder will I boomerang back? Will I ever see this place again? Mamba stands beside me. The conductor says its time to go and so we pull each other closer. “Will I ever see you again?”’ “Of course.” He says. “How do you know?” “I just do.” “Did your ancestors tell you that?” I laugh. “No asshole. I just know.” He holds me tight and the tears finally come. “I have to go.” I whimper. “I know.” We let go and as I start to walk away he pulls me back in and whispers, “I love your hands too.” For a culture that has no word for love- I had found it. I will miss sitting next to him and have him answer my questions for two or three hours at a stretch. Telling him how HIS country and HIS people are. And he would put his hand in the air and so cooly respond, “Hey asshole. Let me tell you how it is. Let me tell you WHY we do what we do.” I will miss how he laid out all the problems of his corrupt little country piece by piece. He was ready to solve these problems because, unlike many in his position, he still had pride to BE Swazi. And I know he would continue to try to straighten all that is twisted and turned upside down in this country. Where others saw defeat, he saw a chance. He was born into a history and a culture that I struggled to understand and wished so much I could stay behind and continue to put together.

 Maya Angolou once wrote that Africa was “The Source”. It was where we all came from and we should all return to it. I have always been drawn to this source. I remember being 12 years old and my father turning up his car radio. He said to me, “There are two tribes in Africa that are killing each other right now. The Hutus and Tutsis. They’re killing women and children with machetes.” At 12 years old I wanted so badly to be there. To bear witness to tragedy. I imagined and dreamt about this tragedy. The older I got the more tragedies I heard about our source. And so many tragedies I’ve shared with you over the two years. Will you remember them? Will I?

 I imagine, I’ll return home late at night. The rain will follow my mood as I lie down in my bed. I’ll watch the headlights of cars turning around in our court yard slide down my bedroom walls and speckled rain will travel down my bedroom window. I’ll listen to the comforting sounds as my step-father turns in his squeaky chair next door and listen to the slow mumbles of the TV downstairs stirring my night air like a fan. Our cat will purr in my sister’s bedroom. Our dog will snore in the hallway. Everything will be as it was- two years ago- before I left this place. I’ll lay nearly asleep. Almost dreaming. Almost alone. Almost gone. In between here and there. Unsure where I’m supposed to be. Where I want to be. I’ll dream of Swaziland and the two years that flew so fast. And the nights, like these dreams- like Swaziland, will disappear and become only a memory. I’ll rewind all these moments and all the people: Citizen of the world, African Queen, Nonjaboliso, Thuli, Nobandile, Bongiwe, Proud African, the ladies in the gym, the boys in the back of the classroom, Justice, Mamba. All these people, these moments, and faces I’ve never been able to describe to you. Their mannerisms- their wit. Their strength. The people I watched drown. The people I could never take my eyes off. The person who stuck out in a crowd. Shuffling along with the masses of Manzini. 

The moments when I only wanted to take photographs. The real images of Swaziland you will never see. A skeleton gets out of a kombi. Sores cover her mouth. Her hands tremble as she tries hard to get the money out of her wallet. She pulls out a bill and hands it to the conductor who refuses to touch her. Instead, he leaves her, bill in hand, and we drive off leaving her on the side of the road. I don’t know if I could ever forget her face. Her large eyes. Horrified. Confused. Rejected. These moments exist now only in my memory. Photographs have a way of taking a person along with you. For two years I have been examining atrocity after atrocity. I’ve been  unable to take their photos as a way of assimilating and being Simphiwe- not a tourist. 

So you find yourself moving away from it- detached. A photograph forces you to see it. It’s all you have concentrated in tiny pixels that shout back at you, HERE I AM! Feel something! If I had a picture of all these people would it appeal to your sympathies better? Would you feel the outrage I’ve felt for so long? Would you begin to understand Swaziland as I have? How do I paint that picture for you? Sipho once said to me, “Life is about the universal human.” 

It’s human to dream of change. All of us dream of love. We dream of death. We struggle to solve our world’s problems. We struggle to find meaning in it all, to find out what our purpose really is. We struggle so much to find that connection. Only the lucky ones do. And I found mine here. Soon I’ll be home. And you’ll ask me, “What was Swaziland like?” “What were the people like?” Overwhelmed with questions, I’ll realize that words can be meager things. They often fall short. And I won’t be satisfied with my reply. My little words. Like these words now. Small and barely there. I’ll take a deep breath and won’t know where to start. Or even how to. You’ll ask me how beautiful how horrifying it was, and I’ll pause for a moment and then I’ll say, quite simply,

 “They should have sent a poet.” 

 ~The end~ 

 They say a photo is worth a thousand words. Here's a few thousand of the people/things that were apart of my life these two years. Ntsikelelo and Lucky. The two boys who helped and continue to help with the set up and organization of the library, The owner of the infamous Backpackers. Ninja and Sarah. My babies for the last year. Siphofaneni Kids on homestead. Justice Dorthy The ugliest cow to walk the earth. And my best friend. My Siphofaneni Girls Shebali. My best friend. My Siphofaneni Boys Peace Corps Group 7 and 8 Cameron Mamba. Brook and I Traditional Swazi Dance Simphiwe.