Big Dead Place

“I'm afraid to let you go.” He said as he held on tightly to the back of my head methodically stroking it. Each breath he took- I felt how hard it was for him to hold in the tears. This became, one of very few, increased intimate connections we had had. I was his and I allowed myself to linger in this feeling for awhile. I had played out this moment, this very moment, a thousand times in my head for the past six months. What would I feel? How would I react? What would he say? Like most anticipated, and extremely emotional situations, I feared I would analyze it to death therefore feeling nothing in the end. What if I grew numb from planning? I had repeated these same thoughts and fears over and over again in my mind. But in this moment, this very moment, I felt it. We felt it. I buried my face and tears inside my scarf as he leaned it against his chest. He has always wanted to go to the end of the world, I thought. This was HIS dream. This was HIS adventure. And the end of the world told him no. I feared his sadness was only fueled by jealousy. But as he held my crying face in his hands I knew all this was much much more to him.

 I, like Antarctica, he was afraid of losing.

One of us had to pull away. I took my face out of his hands and he let me go. I moved slowly from his grip and whispered, “I'll get you down there. I promise.” He breathed heavily as I made my way to security. Looking back every few seconds, he stood there waiting. Waiting for me to leave him. And I did.

 A sea of red tagged bags stood in front of me. The old and bald. The southern accents, comical mustaches, and long braided grey hair. This was my crew. The plumbers, the carpenters, the heavy equipment operators. And me: their dishwasher. I began to remember the occupational hierarchy of the ice. Beakers (scientists) stood at the top. Below them the skilled labor: electricians, welders, and engineers from back home. On the ice they were glorified. And then there were us. The young liberal arts majors: dishwashers and janitors. No skill- just an education. And on this ice world we were at the bottom.

 Soon we would be herded from one plane to the next. We all knew the drill. A familiar feeling of desperation. The longing to belong- to connect. I smiled politely at these men. I reminded myself, like always, to think like an anthropologist. I am a researcher studying the behavior of those around me. To separate myself from them I proved I did not need connection. I would be OK without it.

We're soaring into the dark now, above the glacial horizon. All is quiet but the hum of the C17 in this dormant world. And suddenly with no passenger windows to determine a landing- we touch down. I look at these returning men. They are like joyous visions stepping out of a sea voyage painting. Crazed with adventure in their eyes. They come to life with grace and beauty against this parched atmosphere. I tried to imagine what their lives were like back home. The single ones with their belongings in storage and those with a family leave their understanding wives or girlfriends at home. For how long? A life on hold. A nomad's life. One turns to me and says, “I'm home.”

 I follow the example of the men around me. Big reds on. They gear up leaving their dark penetrating eyes exposed. The doors open and the contrails of our breath hang in pale clouds above our heads. Windless dark now. My first Antarctic breath. My lungs are smacked with an icy hand, and like last time, I cough. We leave behind a wake of heat and I step out. This time I could not see any white shimmering snow. No shadows below. Negotiating my feelings by touch and sound through this dark nothingness. The red and blue lights of the ice runway glow fiercely against the cold and dark.

 He should be here, I think.

 As we proceed further and further into the cold and into the vastness of this desert the aircraft slowly empties. My memory seizes here. It's all too fast. We are herded and deposited into the shuttle that awaits. No time for photos. “Get in!” They shout. The C17's engine continues to roar. Those in cargo, those who flew down with me, are immediately put to work. As fast as they can they unload 5,000 pounds of equipment and let this plane and its air force crew return back to Christchurch.

 Familiar angles start to take shape as we enter town on Ivan. McMurdo, still a dark construction valley. It's just as I left it. Nothing has changed. We walk into the galley in our moon boots and emergency weather gear on- our debriefing session begins- no time to think. The "winter-overs" lurk around us. Frank and familiar faces frowned by great drooping brows and glass rubbed eyes – they stare- annoyed of our presence.

The station manager, his hair like a mad scientist, sleepy eyed and worn out, with exhausted breath he tries to lecture us the same lecture he has been giving for years. He, like the other winter-overs, are walking zombies. Void of emotion and meaning they don't crave the flesh just their return trip home. I remember now, the slow and mundane, that familiar station life. Your only excitement are the free plastic meals that punctuated each day at regular intervals. And I see now, all these familiar faces- who had once pushed by my dish room- returning their dirty dishes to my wasting hands. Tomorrow I would re-enter this flow of an “ordinary day”. I fidgeted my way into friendships at every orientation, training, briefing, refresher course. At first I was afraid I wouldn't be able to connect with these people.

 Travel, for me, is only about connection. All of this would mean nothing if I didn't find it. But I knew- soon I would. The forthcoming and lonely winter-overs and I would soon bond. Inside jokes and memorable days were just ahead. We would find a commonality between us- that brought all of us here.

 This place, this Big Dead Place, is where love awaits us all and the kettle is always on the boil.

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.

A Box Full Of Stories

7/19/2011



The only two things I really remembered about school were the things that horrified me. OK, there were three. The first was the Super Volcano. And the Super Volcano story went something like this. My 7th grade teacher leans against his desk and begins to roll up his sleeves. He whispers to us, "It lies in Yellow Stone." We lean forward to hear more. "And it's over a thousand years over due to explode. It will be the end of mankind. And it will all start in the US." That year my father decided a family trip to Yellow Stone would be a good idea. I thought otherwise. The second horrifying memory I have was Ntzchi. Junior year in High School my Philosophy teacher relished the idea of tormenting us just before spring break. "What's the point of anything? Of life?" He asked us. I remember sitting back and letting that question seep into my naïve, little, brain cells. What IS the point? I thought in horror. Suddenly my 11th grade crush didn't seem to matter anymore. My dreams of making the world a better place seemed pointless now. He had destroyed any optimism I had left in my angry adolescent teen years. "Now, enjoy your spring break." He laughed rubbing his hands together. And finally, the last BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST, there was Stacey Davis. Stacey Davis was the epitome of cool, and of course, I was not. And for any teen, not being cool, was worse than any super volcano or bitter philosophy teacher.

To sum up school for me- I HATED it. I hated the teachers. I hated the students. I hated the hallways that reeked of sterile BO. I hated the fat secretary who wore rings on every little fat finger and greeted every student with the most insincere smile. Where the Red Fern Grows, Catcher in the Rye.. all may be wonderful memories for you- but there was something about reading them inside a gigantic textbook that told me to just skim and scam and watch Saved by the Bell instead. And now, ironically, today I am here trying to teach students to appreciate a school library, asking them to question their surroundings, to open their eyes, to wonder about the world and how it works.

Two years ago I asked them, "What do you want to see change in your country? In your culture?" They would respond, "Simphiwe, how can we question the only thing we know? What else is there?" I have tried to teach questions more than answers. We read newspapers, books, watched documentaries on civil war, animals, tribes and cultures all over the world. But how do you instill curiosity in a culture of obedience? How do you wake a zombie?

And today, with the last class I will teach at Siphofaneni High School, I again ask them, "What do you want to see change in your country? Your culture? They hold their hands high, "We want to be heard." "We want to look our elders in the eye." "We want to be able to elect our MPs." "No more Dlamini power." Suddenly, they had answers and even more importantly, MORE questions. People ask me, "Simphiwe, what do you teach? Are you teaching Life Skills? HIV prevention?" I correct them, "I try to paint, as best I can, an unbiased picture of the world for these students." I wanted everyone to realize that we are all connected. I beg them, encourage them, annoy them until they ask the question, "Why?" The more new things I threw at them the more I saw curiosity come out. Which eventually, I hoped, would lead to growth, understanding, tolerance, and eventually compassion. Peace Corps told us to keep our politics, sexuality, and religion inside. We had to memorize the THREE GOALS OF PEACE CORPS. 1. Sustainable development 2. Share your American Culture 3. Learn their culture and bring it home to teach others. But when talking with staff, goals 2 and 3 never got much attention. Instead we were encouraged to work with numbers, flip charts, power point presentations, NCP buildings, and libraries. But this was never me.

"Simphiwe, are you a Christian?" They ask me. And I tell them- always, "I don't know what I believe." To which they always respond, "But how? Why?" And then I explain. I explain with pictures, films, books about OTHER religions- other ways of living. Peace Corps would tell me to keep this inside." You have no opinion Simphiwe. You are Simphiwe. You are NOT controversial." But I am. And so- I show them. I may never be Swazi, they may never be American. But there is a commonality between us. We can be atheist and still be good. We can be gay and be great. I watch my male, PCV, gay, friend withering away. “I hate keeping this a secret. It’s killing me. I don’t like pretending. Living a lie. I’ve done that enough in my life.” He says to me. "Can you imagine?" I ask. "For two years you have established great relationships with your host family and Swazi friends. They see you and respect you. Now can you imagine right before you leave- you say to them that you're gay?" I understand the security risk, but the only way to grow and learn is to be around something new.

I fear for this generation of Swazis. They have all the ingredients for a very messy, violent, and chaotic rebellion. Extreme poverty alongside extreme wealth, an economic collapse, high rates of alcoholism, the indifference of the outside world, extreme jealousy of the successful, the lack of trust in relationships, a parentless generation, hierarchical centralized power, entitlement based on surname, and a generation of defeat and blind obedience. All it takes is for one brave, charismatic, lunatic whispering into the radio and the zombies would follow.

Yes. I thought, spoke, and communicated in controversy. I pushed, questioned, and demanded from these students. I tried to wake the zombie. But I was good at it. I had a way of understanding a groups' thoughts, gestures, and comments. I knew how to move them from topic to topic with ease. I understood where the line was and how to avoid it. Over the past two years I have watched their hands move away from their mouth as they spoke. The girls raised their chins and began to look directly at me. We no longer feared each other.

I return home to Mamba. With just a few days left we try to see as much of each other as we can. Today, he takes me back to my first family in Nkiliji. Its been months since I've seen them. Make ("Ma-gay"- mom) grabs my chest and kisses me on the neck screaming, "Swani (baby) Swani!" As she always does. She embraces Mamba and he shakes Babe's ("Ba-bay" Father) hand with the utmost humility. We take a seat in the living room and the three of them speak their language as I speak mine (playing with and talking to the cat). Mamba looks my direction and asks, "Do you know what they just asked me?" After two years I still don't fully understand SiSwati but instead have learned to read gestures and mannerisms. "They just asked you how many cows you will give them for me." I answer. Make and Babe laugh. "15?" Babe asks. I nudge Mamba, "Come on. You can do better than that." For three hours, we take advantage of Mamba, and speak effortlessly together with him translating. But the sun is setting and we have to hurry back to Siphofaneni to spend my last night with the children on that homestead. Tomorrow Peace Corps will pick me up in their white chariot they once dropped me in. They will take me to Mbabane to begin the closing out process during my last week in Swaziland. In just a week I will no longer be a volunteer.

Nkiliji Make leans her chin into my chest and I embrace her tiny body. "I love you Swani." She tells me. Tears collect in my eyes. "I love you Ma." Babe grabs my hand and holds it to his brow. "Thank you Simphiwe. Thank you." He says to me. I turn to Mamba trying to speak without tears. "Please, can you tell them how much they mean to me?" Make holds on tight to my waste, swaying back and forth repeating, "Swani. Swani." Mamba smiles back and says, "I think they know Mere."

We drive back to shitty Siphofaneni and I try to keep it together. "Do you understand now why it was so hard for me to go from THAT family to the one in Siphofaneni?" I ask.

After saying goodbye to the kids in Siphofaneni, I tell Mamba, "I'll be right back." I walk back to the spot I've come to fall in love with over these two years. Tucked away in our backyard, a tiny rock sits and waits for me to say goodbye. Normally, my dogs would accompany me but not anymore. In fact, I haven't been back since they died. I sit on my rock now, for the last time, watching the leaves tickle each other, as I've always done. I watch the cows follow the herd boy home. I listen to their exhales of annoyance- like a seal coming up for breath. I realize now, more than ever, the comfort of an exhale. And this was where I had come to do it for years. How many times I’ve exhaled on this rock after a long day. The blood red sun would set and my two dogs would sit alongside me scratching and sniffing. But tonight, I stand here alone- just as it should be- telling myself, "This will be the last time." And this is how it goes for a traveler who's been stagnant for so long. Everything you do, you say to yourself, "This will be the last." So I say goodbye to this spot. To the ghosts of my dogs. And to this rock, "I thank you."

These short, winter, hours come fast and suddenly its dusk. The sun squeezes its way between the leaves screaming at me to hurry home.

I return to my hut to find Mamba lying on my floor. No bed. No chair. Nothing that said I was here. These hut walls once carried images to remind me of the outside world- that it was still there. Walls that carried warm smiles of friends and family waiting for me to come back home. A reminder that I still had a home. But now, cold barren walls surround us. The only comfort lies on a blanket on my hut floor. "Come here." He says to me. He holds me in his arms and we stare up at thatch and again I think, “This will be the last.” He exhales loudly and whispers to me, "This will be the last time you have to stare up at this thatch roof." I roll onto my side facing him now. Surely he can hear the beating of my heart. He smooths back the chunk of hair I always keep on the right side of my face. "There you are." He says. "Why do you always do that?" I ask- annoyed. "Because. I'm absorbing you while I can. As much as I can while I have you." Waves of awareness fold onto me and his lips find mine. Stop thinking- I tell myself. Only feel. Try to just feel. But how can I trust my feelings when they can just disappear like that? When they have hurt so many? I hold on tight to his hands running my fingers across his scars. “I hate my hands.” He says. I open my mouth to say, "I love your hands." My lips ignore my brain and instead whisper, "I love you." My body tenses and I shoot up. "I meant to say I love your hands!" I shout. Bursts of laughter below me, Mamba holds his side laughing. "I hate you." I remind him.

The next morning I run to school to say goodbye to my students. The teachers have yet to acknowledge I'm leaving and when I tell them, they respond, "What will you leave us then?" To which I laugh and ask, "How's a library sound?" Annoyed, defeated, I stomp off. Other volunteers might think of my library attempt as a failure, but I stopped thinking this way a long time ago. I stopped checking boxes and counting numbers- instead I focused on the individual. For weeks up until my departure, after the students had found out I was leaving, child after child had approached me. "Simphiwe, I heard you helped a student. Can you help me?" For years, I had taken them to doctor appointments, connected them with agencies that could help with food, clothing, school fees, and brought all that I could to school with me. I held their hand as they cried to me, "Simphiwe, I don't mean to be a beggar. But I am a parent to my siblings. We need help." So today, my last day, I ask the deputy head teacher to give me 5 minutes, during assembly, to say goodbye to 500 students. I try to keep the tears in when I say how proud I am of them. They've changed my life. I hope they believe me when I say they are not beggars- but survivors. I leave help line information, NGOs numbers, and my personal contact. "To you I am Simphiwe.” I shout. “But the outside world only knows me as Meredith. It has been an honor to be Simphiwe for two years with you."

I know, Simphiwe is no one to you, to other volunteers, or even Mamba. But she meant something to these children- even if it wasn't for long. She tried to be a friend, a teacher, and a parent to those who didn't have any.

Afterwards, I try to leave but student after student approaches me. Every goodbye my heart sunk further and further.

I hope I never forget their faces. I hope they never forget mine.

I only have an hour left before Peace Corps picks me up in Siphofaneni. I open my hut door and see that I've left a tiny box in the middle of my floor. Inside, two years of stories. "Tell me your story." I have asked a thousand students- if not more. And they were all here, in this box. For weeks, I have parted with a lot of things- a lot of people- but this box I couldn't leave behind. I wanted to keep their stories. Forever.

My white chariot arrives to take me back to Mbabane. “Meredith. Are you ready to go?” The driver asks me. “I’m ready.” I say. I pick up my two backpacks, a purse, and one large box full of stories. Here we go, I think.

"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.

"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