"What's the Solution?"

8/28/10

Gone a month. I try to find the rhythm of this world where I used to live. I follow the current. I am silent. Attentive. I make a conscious effort to smile. Nod. Stand. Perform the millions of gestures and sometimes insincere kind words that constitute a Peace Corps volunteer in Swaziland. I study these gestures, these words, until they become reflexes again. But I am still haunted by the idea that life goes on back home.

My first week back in Swaziland, school is out, and I find myself with nothing to do. I feel uncomfortable. I feel alone. I’m trying to latch back onto this world but it’s difficult and the anxiety builds. Like going back home, coming back to Swaziland is a challenge after being in what seems like a dream for the past month. A dream filled with love, family, and friends. Back to the stares, the shoves, being naked in a crowd again. I walk along the tiny “bridge” that connects my community to Sphofaneni. The King Fisher is still hanging onto the phone line looking down at the watery dinner below. Jealous of his simple life. Eat. Fuck. Sleep. Samsara: Live. Die. Rebirth. I want someone to reach out to me. I need something. A young girl passes, a young boy by her side. She stops and whispers, “Simphiwe.” I look down. “Buhle!?” The girl that lived with Nonjaboliso. Both girls suffering from the old man’s abuse. Raped by her father and brainwashed to accept it. I struggle to ask her how she’s doing. Where she’s living. I ask her to follow. We find someone to translate.

“Can you ask her where she lives?”
“With her aunti.” The woman tells me.
“And where is her grandfather?” I ask.
“She says he is in jail.”

My caring heart is happy the two girls are alive and well. My vengeful heart smiles that because of me he is in jail. I am starting to feel complete again. Have I become some vigilante/ Peace Corps Volunteer? Where’s the sustainability in that?

Back in action again. I have made friends with a nurse from Ghana. For three weeks he is working up north with doctors from all over the world. Here to take Swazi foreskins. 15 billion in US AID to take off every man’s little sheath of skin in this tiny country. It’s been interesting for me to study all the different solutions people in the outside world with money have for this HIV problem here in Swaziland. The UN thinks condoms and antiretrovirals are the solution. The Christians want chastity and fidelity. The Ugandans and Kenyans claimed they lowered their rates by what you call “Zero Grazing.” Don’t preach the unrealistic goal of abstinence, they say, just simply sleep with one person. The Christians, of course, hated this idea.

Since the 1960’s, money has been thrown at this continent, mostly by the American government, in very ineffective ways. With the question and aim, what’s fast and easy and requires billions of dollars? You have authors like, Dambisa Moyo, with her PHD in economics from Zambia asking non Africans with money to let the actual Africans figure it out.

“It has long seemed to me problematic, and even a little embarrassing, that so much of the public debate about Africa’s economic problems should be conducted by non-African white men. From the economists of Paul Collier, Jeffrey Sachs, William Easterly to the rock stars like Bono, Bob geldof, the African discussion has been colonized as surely as the African continent was a century ago.”

“In the past 50 years over US 1 trillion in development –related aid has been transferred from rich countries to Africa. The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world. Aid has become part of the entertainment industry. Governments respond in kind, fearful of losing popularity and desperate to win favor. Aid has become a cultural commodity. Millions march for it. Governments are judged by it. Aid has been and continues to be an unmitigated, political, economic, and humanitarian disaster.”

In a similar corner of this debate, you have Helen Epstein who wrote “The Invisible Cure.” Whose book I still stand by. She asks the question, Why is HIV spreading so fast in eastern and southern African countries? She blames two practices that both regions have embraced. One, boys are not circumcised in these regions. Two, most of the populations there are engaging in MCP’s (Multiple Concurrent Relationships) or informal polygamy. HIV is more easily transmitted in the first few weeks of someone becoming infected. If this newly infected person has casual sex with anyone in this sexual web between people, the whole network will rapidly contract it. In the States we are seeing serial infidelity as well. However, the rate is much lower. If one person gets infected, in the States, it is likely they will pass it on to their partner but less likely they will pass it onto anyone else because by then they are less infectious. (Keeping up?) Her suggested solutions aren’t as sharp and painful to hear as Moyo’s (maybe because she's not actually African) but she too gives more responsibility over to the actual benefactors of this aid money: the Africans.

She gives example after example of the countries in Africa who have received expensive fancy free medical facilities and free antiretrovirals AND condoms that still suffer with incredibly high HIV rates. Higher than those in more impoverished areas and receiving less aid from the outside world. She preaches Ubuntu and explains the countries that helped themselves, that communicated, and spoke out about the problem of AIDS, are the ones that are surviving.

And now the outside world is singing “Circumcision for everyone!” in southern Africa. At first, I was skeptical especially when I heard the words 15 billion in AID. I worried if preaching, “Circumcision will lower the chances of a man getting HIV by 60%!” would encourage young men to forget about the condoms they don’t want to use anyway(which are higher in preventing transmission than wacking off the foreskin). Would people start to get offended by this message? Would they tell us their foreskin is part of their culture? Would they tell us American men with our circumcised penises and women who know nothing about the uncircumcised penis to FUCK OFF?

But I know why we were singing this tune. Because nothing else seems to be working. You can preach abstinence all you want but they won’t listen. They're poor, desperate, nothing to live for, "LIFE ENDS TODAY" and all they have is their personal relationships: their sex and greed. You can put free condoms in every shop every clinic every restroom and NCP but they’ll just use them as water balloons. "You can't eat the candy with the wrapper on it." You can encourage women to take matters into their own hands and use a female condom. But her lover will only accuse her of cheating or being untrustworthy and either be beaten or left behind. In some African countries women have taken these free condoms, taken out the ring, and actually sold them as bracelets. You can build your fancy free health clinics but you still won’t see a single man in there getting tested. Just a sea of pregnant scared women. You can hold soccer tournaments and demand these young men have to get tested in order to join but their actions won’t change whether positive or negative they will still fuck without protection. You can start girl empowerment clubs. Teach them the thrill of kicking the soccer ball around, knitting a scarf, drama classes, or pottery making. But at the end of the day, they're going home. Home: A male dominated society. And it doesn’t matter how much they love to dance, sing, or play soccer with you. In this world, it’s all about marriage and babies and what the man says goes.

So we must look at the facts. Southern and Eastern Africa has more AIDS. Why? These are countries where circumcision is almost unheard of. (Well they used to practice it but they don't remember anymore and you can blame "Christianity" for that one). It has been proven that being circumcised does lower your chances of getting infected. The foreskin carries receptors that actually attract the HIV virus and once the penis becomes flaccid, post sex, the virus becomes hidden inside the sheath sitting there for maybe days.

The outside world is shouting, Behavior Change! A workshop here a workshop there. A workshop on "Behavior Change"? When really they should be shouting, Culture Change! I mean that's what we're talking about here but no one wants to say it. We all know it takes TIME. So let them keep doing what they’re doing, having unprotected sex with EVERYONE, and all we ask is 15 minutes to take off your foreskin. Because we all know Cultural Change/Behavior Change is an unrealistic goal. But a procedure that takes only 15 minutes, come back two days later for a check up and you're done, that only costs 15 BILLION. Now THAT the money makin western world can do.

My Ghanian friend invites me to spend two days with him and the crew. There are 6 different stations throughout Swaziland performing these circumcisions during the school break. And their goal is to do 6,000 in just three weeks. I arrive in the evening to the Simunye Country Club. An oasis, mirage, of northern Swaziland. Full of color, grass, and greenery. Oh, and a POOL. A circle of introductions and we’re seated around picnic tables eating dinner and drinking our red red wine. I meet one of the American doctors, Jim, a urinologist (doctor of the pee pee we shall call him). Jim, middle aged with two kids back home. One of which is studying to be a doctor. “After paying thousands and thousands of dollars for that girl’s education, she’s going to go and blow it on something like Doctors without Borders. Making nothing.” Jim and I fundamentally disagree on a lot. However, we’re both here trying to do the same thing.

I listen to his stories after being here only a week and a half. Excited and curious. “Man. This place sure is every man’s dream. Men live like a King here. What they need is to switch out these Swazi women with African American women. Can you imagine the war?!” But soon Jim sings a different tune. He’s outraged at an article that made the cover of the Swazi Times. The headline read, “PSI (the organization performing all these circumcisions) Goes Wrong with Circumcisions!” He yells, “6,000 men circumcised and in 6,000 only four young boys were left at the bus rank and we were unable to see them that day.”

PSI not only circumcises for free but they provide free transport to pick up the patients at bus ranks. They provide a free emergency line to call if there are any problems. And even provide free house calls to check on them if there are any problems in the middle of the night. “6,000 men and only four we forgot to pick them up the following two days. We forgot to pick up four boys to bring them to a clinic built by US grants. To doctors brought over from across the world by US grants. Driven out to the clinic by US grants. Provided free medical care at their homes by US grants. And they have the right to bitch? Is any of this coming from their national budget? I don’t think so. Every dime from the US.” I laugh and say, “Welcome to Swaziland. In many ways, a spoiled child.”

I show him a different article that pissed me off. A reaction I feared would happen. Princes and leaders in the area questioning the motive of us outsiders and our call for circumcision. Claiming we're doing this only to make a profit. Theorizing if we provide free clinics and doctors, Swaziland will have to then purchase the equipment to do the procedures from America. When actually EVERYTHING scalpels and all, are free. The idea of doing something out of your heart is foreign here I tell him. “Why are you in the Peace Corps doing what you do?” They ask me. “Is it for the pay? For a job back home? Had nothing better to do?” They don’t believe me when I say, “It’s out of the kindness of my heart. I was given everything growing up and I want to return the favor.” “You must be a spy!” They scowl.

“A certain part of our national budget goes to making this world a better place.” Jim continues, “That’s all we want. 100,000 circumcisions means 25,000 people don’t get HIV. It’s about math. It’s about logic. It's about Reason.”

“This is Swaziland.” I tell him. “With all due respect, we don’t live in THAT world Jim.”

Dinner and serious discussions over. The wine is getting to our heads and I ask the Swazi nurses if they’ve ever skinny dipped. “Skinny what?” They ask. I explain. “But Simphiwe, it’s too cold. It’s winter.” They say. I tell them, “That’s the best time to do it.” One brave girl agrees to do it with me. Surrounded by all the nurses and doctors, with their wine in hand, a young brave Swazi woman and I take off our clothes (undergarments left on- come on now i'm not THAT bad) and jump into the freezing pool. She screams and runs to get out. "Just wait." I tell her. "Don’t get out, once your body is completely numb, lie on your back and stare at the stars." We studied the southern stars salting the night sky, imagining we were floating up above with them. Our breath circling around us and about a dozen eyes starring and mouths dropped.

The next morning, my body hates me. Hung over I make my way to the clinic to witness my first circumcision and interview some of the young men going under the knife. You can tell which ones have not yet gone, fear in their eyes. They look down holding on tightly to their file. Other boys walk around limping, walking proud, encouraging the scared ones it doesn’t hurt. I run down the halls high fiving the brave young boys. “You guys rock!” I shout. One of the nurses walks over to me, “Simphiwe, put these on.” He hands me scrubs. “Today you’re going to be a runner. You’re the nurse’s assistant.” I think I’m still seeing double at this point unsure which end needs to let something out. But I agree anyway.

Scrubs on. I feel ridiculous. An assembly line of cots around me. Four stations in two rooms. A nurse at each station and two doctors going from cot to cot. Jim tells me to come closer to watch. A young man lying there. He doesn’t seem to mind I’m standing there hovering. He tells the boy to keep his head down and not look. After numbing the area he grabs the foreskin with a clamp-like instrument and with his other hand he holds what looks like a box cutter. I’m starting to feel REALLY hot. My head is on fire, my palms are sweating, and I try not to show how much I need to gag. One quick swipe and it’s gone. The nurse comes in does a few stitches and he is done.

And then, just like that, I’m done. I’ve had enough with the circumcision witnessing. I got my interviews and I hope to properly debunk these articles in the paper.

What’s even more exciting however…. Group 8 is here. Officially. And today they are being sworn in as OFFICIAL Peace Corps Volunteers. It was incredibly surreal sitting there in the audience watching this time. Their faces, excitement, standing, taking oath. I was there, just a year ago. Everything just seems to be falling right into place. Unlike our Swear In, they have managed to get the Prime Minister to come and speak. The King’s right hand man. And there he was. You see him all the time in the papers. But there he stood. At the podium. Welcoming this new group. And just like every other Swazi speaker at these events he spoke of how important our American Swaziland connection is. How friendly and welcoming Swazis are in this country. After each comment I knew who to look over to and subtly give a look. And that was the theme of the day. Subtle. I tried to keep everything subtle. These new kids (I say kids because everyone, no matter what age, is a kid when they first arrive to Swaziland) need to figure this puzzle out on their own. It’s important. And they will. Just as I did.

Then the head of a very important NGO stands to speak. He spoke at our Swear In last year. I watched him sit there on the panel waiting to speak last time. His head down, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed. I know he too wants to roll his eyes at the things said from others.. the sugary lies they tell.. but he can’t. He, like me, is not very good at faking the looks. Last year he stood up and gave one of the best speeches that day. “You’re going to see the worst. You’re going to witness the worst of mankind. You’re going to hate it at times. You’re going to come to my office and you’re going to ask me, ‘Why isn’t the government doing anything?!” Just wait.” And that pretty much summed up his speech. His words and our gulps of fear. This year, the same speech provided. However, because of all the circumcision hype, and the Prime Minister being there, I guess he felt it necessary to take advantage of the spotlight. “And if you don’t know anything about science or circumcision," He shouts. "Just SHUT UP!... Thank you.” I watch the Swazi Times and The Observer reporters scribble down these words. Oh boy, I think. What WILL the papers say tomorrow?

“Head of NGO says SHUT UP!” Titles tomorrow's paper that BRIEFLY mentions the new volunteers in this country. Inside a direct quote of him saying, “If you DO know anything about science or circumcision, SHUT UP!”

Like I said. This is Swaziland.

After having a few conversations with the new group I realize they are going through the same struggles I went through as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the beginning. Things they shouldn’t be battling. Things that have nothing to do with what’s going on outside but what’s happening WITHIN Peace Corps. That night I break down, finally, to MY group. “I’m sick of it! Sick of it! Something needs to happen. This isn’t right.” I shout. The room divides, and those who have had bad experiences agree, and the others, not so much. And all I can do is cry. As much as I HATE doing it in front of friends. (Family is another story. You take the best bite of my sandwich, and you’re family, I’ll cry) But friends. I don’t want to put them through this, it’s my job to comfort them.

I go and lie down, away from everyone. Another volunteer follows and sits next to me. She runs her fingers through my hair. She tells me she gets it. She and I both know so many back home won’t, Swazis don’t , the Office doesn’t, and sometimes even other volunteers don’t. “This culture is killing itself.” She says. “And we don’t know how to stop it or even know if it’s the right thing to do.”

“It’s hard enough feeling that this culture and these people are against us, I don’t need to feel it from our employers and co workers.” I tell her through my boogery sniffles. I know this reaction is just all part of coming back from home and reintegrating. Taking your head out of the muck for even a few days and then coming back to the muck… sometimes you don’t want to open your eyes to the outside world. Sometimes you just want to sit in the filth without knowing it’s filth.

Another PCV friend of mine,she went home when I did,sits with me on our stoop, watching the sun go down.

“Sure missed that African red sun.” I tell her.
“Yeah.”
“It was hard being home.” I say.
“Yeah. It was.” She says.
“They don’t get it.”
“No. They don’t”
I look down at the tattoo on my arm which reads, “Vula Emehlo”. Open Your Eyes.
“I want to make them get it." I tell her. "Everyone. I want the whole world to see.”
She leans her head on my shoulder and exhales.
“Good luck.”

"Over There"

7/30/10

Home. Even the word sounded strange to me. How unfamiliar would it be? How long had it been? Did it matter? Would it matter?

I soar up the green glaciers of Africa. Splinter past the tropical sun, past the jumping Massai in Kenya, through the pyramids of Egypt. My feet dangling over the African world below. Then, over the exotic taste of the Medeterranian, until finally I land into the heart of Italy: Rome.

I hadn't taken a vacation in over a year. The last volunteer to leave Swaziland. I can't recall the last time I had stayed put in one place for so long. Just a few moments ahead, waiting for me, my mother, Jesse, and little sister, Helen. But I had forgotten that also ahead of me was Italy. My life dream had always been to wrap myself in the shade and seduction of this country. The history. The beauty. But all I could think about was their faces. To smell and touch it again. Home home home.

I stand outside the hotel waiting for the airport shuttle to drop my family off. Anticipating.. waiting for our first embrace. Two hours pass and my tiny pea size bladder can't hold it anymore. I move from my spot and hope I don't miss this soon to be epic arrival. I round the revolving door starring down at the fancy tiles along the floor. The door circles round and I am pushed into the hotel lobby. My gaze moves upward and there in front of me I see myself. I see my home. I see my mother. At first I feel nothing. But as she holds me tight in her arms I begin to feel everything again. I feel the fall breeze and the turning leaves of our Indiana autumn. I hear Paul Simon's Graceland playing on our record player in our living room. I feel the wind blowing through my hair as I make the drive down the country roads to my father's house in our convertible. I feel and therefore I am home. The tears stream down my face and an audience gathers. People stare and tilt their heads in sympathy. Stares and curiosity are nothing new to me anymore. This is MY moment.

Inside the streets of this Gucci, Avante Garde city, in my avocado stained jeans, I round every epic corner, pass every epic building. Every inch is art. Instead of Starbucks on each corner there stands a museum. The cobble stone streets, the gargoyles, the weinerless naked man statues, gelato, pizza, pasta, Armani, Gucci bags and toy poodles in every woman's grasp. The beautiful men and women. Suits and heels riding little vespas around town. Their language flowing up and down. Traffic is no headache. Just tiny cars playing with each other. Women begging for change in Chanel. I wait and anticipate the culture shock everyone warned me about. I struggle to look inward this time. Is it effecting me? Am I still human or just another walking zombie, another product of Swaziland? One foot here in Rome, the other still in Swaziland. Two complete opposite worlds. Feel something please. Anything. I need to feel alive again.

I continue to walk up and down these streets, my neck in pain from staring up at the flying buttresses above. As I lower my gaze I am stunned and absorbed by something unfamiliar to me. Something I haven't seen in over a year. An old man stands talking with friends. His overweight yellow lab at the end of his leash struggling to grab a floating plastic bottle in the gutter beneath him. He pulls and stretches. His paws struggling until finally the bottle lands in his mouth. Success. He looks up at his owner, smiling and wagging his tail. The old man pets his proud pup and smiles. I steer off course to follow this smiling pair. Intrigued. People pass and smile. Some stop to pet this chubby lab.

Something begins to move inside me. My heart moves upward and presses against my throat. I struggle to hold back the tears. I am affected. People are happy at this dog's happiness. Connected. I am once again connected. I am feeling again.

My shock didn't come like Tom Hank's in "Cast Away": turning on and off light switches, fascinated by the ease of a lighter. It certainly wasn't the material and ease of Rome that shocked my heart. It was love. Simply love that brought tears to my eyes. Love between a man and his dog. Most of us have gone a long time without seeing love. To go from a country that has found survival in apathy, that literally has no word that distinguishes like from love, to a country that is written about in books and film for its passion, love, and grace. To me, this was the shock. This was that moment. And I allowed myself to sink into it, get comfortable with it.

Suddenly home again. As if I had never left. Swaziland. Peace Corps. Some weird lucid dream I've awoken from. My once 11 year old sister now 16, with a license, bra and attitude. No longer thinks I'm the coolest, smartest, person on the planet. The rest of the world, however, jaws drop when Peace Corps is mentioned. PEACE CORPS AFRICA?! "I can't believe you're over there. They got libraries over there!? And roads too?!" People ignorantly impressed by another charitable organization and your under qualified overachieving work of the past year. You hang on and try to endure the "they got that over there?!" questions. You skim over your experiences over the past year. You take a deep breath when they ask, "What's been your favorite part so far?"

"You know, the other day, I read somewhere that babies can be born from an HIV positive mother without getting it." You think, well duh obviously, when they share facts with you about HIV. But you have forgotten what you once knew before you started this journey. You have forgotten this isn't an AIDS world over here. You go through your old bedroom. Your closet. Your journals. You try to remember who you were before you left it all. It's been a year and you're bitter, angry. Things aren't easy. You realize there is no magic bullet way of fixing anything "over there". People hear the frustration in your voice and struggle to relate, to try and comfort you. But that's not fair, and that's not what you're looking for. You just want to be heard when you haven't been heard in such a long time. "We need to quit blindly throwing money 'over there'." I explain. "Swaziland is AID addicted and we're only making matters worse." My parent's biggest fear. They ask me, "Have you gone republican Mere?!" I could live my life penniless, a lesbian, a pot smoker. "Just don't kill anyone and for gods sake, don't become a republican." They mistake my realistic words for cold, callous, uncaring. When really what anyone who has been 'over there' for more than a few months living IN it will tell you the exact same thing. Our actions need to change because it's not working.

I try not to go into it with anyone beyond the parents. I tap into the bitterness a bit when friends and family ask. I watch their reactions, their faces carefully. Their eyebrows turn in, begin to un-soften and cringe downward. Their lips tighten and their gaze slides off my trailing words. Searching for what to say. Uncomfortable silence. I wrap it up with a quick, "But I'm learning so much over there...." OR "But its been an interesting year and looking forward to the next one." A quick but something.. to give this twisted tale a happy ending for their ease.

My friends embrace me,I hear them exclaim, "MERE!" Something I've waited a long time to hear, fantasizing about it in my hut night after night. I fear they will just be strangers with familiar faces to me. Awkward moments and interactions with x boyfriends. Hugs turn into side hugs. We try to keep it short and simple. Home for a beautiful wedding to tie us all together.

To remind us what we have all been through: the beauty and the pain of growing up together.

The things you regret doing, the things you WILL regret saying once you get back, the break ups, the fights, we have to put those aside for two people’s love. I sit and take stock. They haven't changed in so many ways but in so many ways they have. I fit right back into this puzzle of ours. We sit around the table sharing stories. Sleeves roll up and shirts are lifted. We show off our new tattoos. Like my favorite scene in the movie Jaws. Men bonding over their scars. Do they notice a change in me? Will they still be here when I get back? How much have I missed?

It's the evening before I go back to my world and that last light of the sun smolders blood red against the tops of the green green trees. Their after images are burning blue and black. I think back. This past month feeling so apart of something so familiar and yet, at the same time, so alone, so isolated, so ignored by relation. Sometimes incapable of entering into communication with anyone here. I fear going back. I remember the others telling me they could never go back home in fear they wouldn't return to Swaziland. I reach the deepest animal stages of exhaustion. Non stop going all month. In fact, non stop going since college. I have yet to just be home with my family. Traveling, searching, wanting to connect with every corner and person of this world. Trying to reach out the only way I know how. Finding myself through others.

And we're back. We're back in that moment again. Security and bag check ahead of me. Passport in one hand, carry on in the other. I have to branch off and leave my parents behind, one more time. It's hard for me to look into my sister's eyes. If she sheds even a single tear, I don't know how I'll get back on that plane. I want to tell her I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm not here holding your hand while you grow up. I'm sorry I've chosen to be with people who most often don't even want me around. Who don't appreciate. I want to tell her I'll always be her Sissy. I would die for her. I would kill for her. She is my everything. I want to tell my mother that I DO need her. I DO miss her. I am still her little girl. I want to tell my step-father thank you. For EVERYTHING he has EVER done for me. And there's no way I can put any of this gratitude into any sort of audible word. I know if I do i'll collapse and I need to be strong for her, for Helen.

It's harder to leave them a second time. This time I know what I'm getting into. There's no exotic mystery up ahead for me. It's going to be a struggle. And I know it. We hug, and I see them fighting the tears back. I quiver as I try to keep the tears in. We hug. I turn to walk away. I let the tears loose. My mother shouts behind me, "When you come back.... You're back for good!" I turn to her and say, "For good. I promise."

And just like that, their faces were gone. And I was back on that plane. Horrible turbulence. A tiny plane. The irony is, I am horrified of flying. I hold onto the arm rests, I close my eyes, I hold my breath and count as I usually do letting out slow exhales through my mouth. A sweet southern savanna speakin woman pats me on the back. "It's going to be all right suga. We'll get you there. Don't you worry." She asks me where I'm from and where I've been. I don't mind the little conversation this time. I need the distraction. "Peace Corps Africa?! Well God Bless your little heart. Aren't you somethin." She asks me what they eat 'over there'. "Lots of Maize I tell her." She looks confused. "Corn." I say.

"Well goodness me!" She shouts. "They got teeth over there?!"

I land in South Africa. Here we go... I think. "Where are you going?" The man behind the glass asks. "Swaziland." I say. "Swaziland? How long are you visiting?" He asks. "Two years." I tell him. He hands me back my passport. "Well Ms. Brooks. Welcome home."

Shoved, pushed into the back of another kumbi (mini bus). Pressed up against the window, no matter which way I turn uncushioned bone pressed against me. The groaning soundtrack begins and is surrounding me again. The subcontinent's most distinctive gestures follow. "Ahhh wena!" "EEEshh!" They yell. A young man snuggles unnecessarily close to me. I'm missing the decent snug of humanity back home. I'm back in the scent of unwashed humanity after feeling the sterility of the altitude up above. Lost in contemplation. I want it back. I want it back. How am I going to do this?! I snap out of it. I have to. I need to keep moving. I need to be me again. Within twenty minutes I've made friends with everyone on this kumbi. I'm putting myself back together again. "Is polygamy Christian?" I shout. Not that I have a problem with either, just a question to get the ball rolling. Solomon, from the Bible, as usual, is brought up. The same arguments. The same mannerisms.

"What is that written on the back of your neck?" The young man asks me. "Ubuntu." I tell him. They are familiar with this Zulu word. Communal Harmony.Interconectedness. Working together to help each other. "I try to live by it." I tell him. "Well it doesn't matter what it says." He tells me. "You're still going to hell." I laugh. "And all that drinking and screwing around you just told me you do?" I ask. "Well of course, I'm going to hell too. We all are."

I've spent over a year trying to understand and study this culture, these people. I live in constant frustration trying to solve this puzzle with the rest of the world. Keeping this separation between me and THEM use to make it easier. However, being away for a month has made me realize I need to slow down and just appreciate what I'm "studying". I need to stop studying. I probably won't ever solve this problem. But I'm here and I can no longer look at these people as goals, as problems to fix. For the first time, crammed in this kumbi together, shoulder to shoulder with them, I simple saw them as they were. And it was overwhelmingly beautiful.

I said goodbye to my grandfather before I left. In his old age and diminishing health, I worry, will I see him again? He hugs me goodbye and thanks me for my writing that my father shares with him every Sunday morning over breakfast. Before I go he grabs my arm and say to me, "I know you're struggling over there. I know it's hard. But you're learning so much. Don't quit. Don't you dare quit."

I've got another year to go. For my grandfather, for these people, and most importantly, for myself, I know I can't quit.

Waiting at my bus stop, with my students, in these winter morning
hours. Cold. Dark. Our breath dancing around us. One of my students
leans in and whispers to me, "Did you hear about Thuli?" Thuli: the 16
year old girl I've been trying to help. Her parents died of AIDS and
now she's living alone with no food. She had told me about her Aunti
coming home on the weekends and kicking her outside to sleep with the
dogs. She told me about her older boyfriend she has sex with so he
will continue to give her food and money. She told me she didn't want
to rely on him anymore for these things. I connected her to SWAGAA
(Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse). They gave her a years worth of
food. "Simphiwe. Thank you. Now I don't have to rely on him for
things. I wanted to stop having sex." The last thing she told me, she
smiled and said, "I can be a real Christian now."

"What about Thuli?" I ask.
"She got pregnant. She hasn't been back to school in over two weeks.
We think it may have been one of the teachers who impregnated her."
"Why isn't she in school still?" I ask knowing the answer. Here, in
Swaziland, when a girl gets pregnant she is no longer allowed to
attend that school again. She has to wait until her child is born and
then find another school. A punishment, a warning, a lesson to all
young girls. But what about the young men? Well, of course, they can
stay. Some head teachers allow the girl to come back and write her
exam (to finish each grade you must pass a final exam). This gives her
the chance to finish whatever grade she's in without actually taking
the classes the rest of the year. I know our head teacher and I know
he won't even allow that much for her. I also know Thuli wouldn't want
to finish the school year and face the ridicule of her classmates.

"Everyone’s talking. She tried to self-abort and fell sick." The girl tells me.
I remember Thuli called me last week. I missed the call and forgot to
return it. She was reaching out to me and I wasn't there for her. I
wasn't there for her.

But I can be there now. I have to plead with the head teacher to let
her come back and ATLEAST write her exams so she doesn't have to take
this grade again. It'll take a lot on my end. I've heard stories of
him impregnating school girls and paying them money for sex. He's told
me stories of young girls seducing older men. "This is why I am happy
you are here Simphiwe. Teach these girls how to act like ladies." He,
like many here, point fingers at the girls. Let’s not forget his
constant attention on my non existent breasts. He never takes me
seriously. But I know his weakness. Young, white, foreign, men. I can
use my PCV friend and co teacher. I become invisible, tits and all,
when standing next to my male friend in front of this head teacher. So
I will bring him with me to beg for Thuli's education.

Today, however, without him, I go to the deputy head teacher (vice
principal). She works out at the gym with me and I would even call her
a friend. I ask if we can talk in private. I keep things anonymous for
now. I tell her about teachers sleeping with students. She grabs my
arm, "I know about Thuli. Simphiwe, I want to help her, I do. But this
head teacher is so stubborn. He does nothing for these girls." I tell
her I want to bring SWAGAA to come and talk to the teachers and
explain to them the laws they are violating. There are laws out there
protecting these children, but in the rural areas they get lost along
the way and no one enforces them. "I'm worried there are people here
violating these laws." I point to the head teacher's office.
"Especially THAT one." She stands and closes the door. "I know
Simphiwe. I know." She takes a seat and continues, leaning in and
whispering."I know about him just as I know about our agriculture
teacher who was sleeping with Thuli and other girls. I have my
suspicions, but no proof. You know, the other day, the head teacher
beat these children for being tardy so badly that they couldn't sit
for a week. They showed me their rear ends. Open gashes and the skin
had turned green. I had to send them to the hospital. The hospital
told them they must go to the police, but they were too scared."

She shakes her head. "A neighboring school, their head teacher was
recently suspended for having sex with his students. One of them was
even his niece. She is schooling here now, and is even in one of your
classes. Since then, the Ministry of Education has sent the ROA to
come to schools in our area and tell them what has happened. He told
me he has heard stories about our school and our staff. When I told
the head teacher what the man told me he got very angry and shouted
that no one can over power him like that. He then blamed these girls
that tell on teachers. Then, during assembly, he gathered all the
students together and warned them not to call any help line or go to
the police. That he is allowed to strike children and if anyone
reports anything they are not allowed to come back to school. If you
want to bring SWAGAA here Simphiwe, we must make it seem like we did
not know they were coming. We cannot tell him anything."

I have to cut our discussion short. It's time for my classes to begin.
I arrange the chairs in a circle. Today I am not a teacher. I am a
friend. I shut the door and take a seat. I look at the back of the
door. Someone has drawn a teacher with a stick hitting a young child's
behind. The child is crying out. "Today I want to talk to you about
that." I point to the drawing. I tell my kids I am here for them. I
explain what abuse is. I explain confidentiality. "I know when I tell
you Swaziland carries the highest HIV rate in the world. You don't
believe me. I know when I tell you the average Swazi lives to be 33
years old. You don't believe me. When I tell you how it is in
Swaziland you don't believe me because I am not Swazi. And that's your
choice not to, and I completely understand. What does this young white
girl know? But, as an outsider, maybe you can believe me when I tell
you how it is OUT there. And what is going on in your schools is not
normal. And wrong. Abuse is universally wrong. Teachers sleeping with
students. Head teachers beating you so bad you can't even sit. This is
wrong and you need to know your rights." I explain to them what
happened in other schools in Swaziland. "Someone was brave enough to
speak out and the teacher was suspended. One voice can bring about
many and this is how change happens." As I'm telling them this though,
I feel like it's a lie. Here there isn't much power in one or even
many voices. There is little to no support out here. I have had many
meetings with SWAGAA about this. The idea of encouraging students to
speak out when there's no one there to listen. SWAGAA, in the city,
has a hard time reaching out to its other rural world. How am I going
to support them if and when they do speak out?

Back in the other world, I find Thuli at home. Her belly protruding
out of her torn and stained tee shirt. I hand her a coke.

"What happened Thuli?" I ask.
"I got pregnant." She won't even look up at me.
"Do you know who the father is?" I ask.
"Yes. The older boyfriend I told you about.
"But I thought because of the help you got you were going to leave him."
"I told him I was. I told him about the help I got from you and that I
didn't want to have sex with him anymore. We ended up having sex one
more time. A few weeks later, he kept asking me if I was pregnant. I
thought it was strange. How did he know I had missed my period? And
then I found out I was. I found out he had torn the condom before we
had sex. He didn't want me to leave him. He knew I didn't need him
anymore."

I walk home heavy with this lump in my throat, fighting back the
tears. What if I had never gotten her the help? What if I had never
came to Swaziland? What if I had done things differently? Would Thuli
be pregnant still? What if I hadn't intervened? I should have looked
closer.

Back to my primary school with three thousand books to
organize..alone. My school, two years ago, received 1500 books from
Wales. 1500 books sat in boxes collecting dust for two years. And I,
naive, got them 1500 more books from the US. Now, 3000 books sit in
boxes untouched, unloved. Twice a week I come and organize and clean
what I can. Without any help from the teachers, they tell me to hurry
up. "These children want to look at the new books. When are you going
to finish?" I tell them, "I'd probably be done if I actually had help
from staff." They laugh and walk away. Before Mid Service (the two
week workshop) I tell them not to touch any of the 300 books I have
organized on the shelves. "They are in order. We can't check any books
out until I have catalogued every book." I leave for two weeks. When I
return, I find books on the ground, on top of shelves, back in boxes,
out of boxes. An old, white, woman stands in the middle of the room
smiling. The head teacher introduces her as one of the people from
Wales who donated the books a few years ago. She leaves us alone to
talk.

The beaming woman shows me photos she had taken last week. "And as you
can see here they are checking out books to the students, every
Friday. Isn't that wonderful?" I pause. I could go one of two ways
with this. Let her go back smiling ignorantly or give her the reality
of the situation. Obviously these people from Wales are doing what
most charity organizations don't: monitoring and evaluating. They were
right to come here and see if their donations had actually done
anything. I watch her smile fade as I explain that these books have
been sitting in boxes for two years. That this is all a show. Next
time they should come unannounced. And that this parade of books has
actually taken my work back two weeks. There's an uncomfortable
silence.

It's half past ten. Lunch time. The students run outside with their
bowls in hand. Sour porridge for lunch. The staff and head teacher
enter the room. "Why are they eating only porridge today?" I ask the
head teacher.
"We have no more food Simphwie."
"But what about (insert NGO name)'s donations?"
"They only provide for the first and last terms... we always run out
in the second."
It blows my mind that this organization isn't providing food right
now. This isn't harvesting season. Nothing is growing. This is winter,
when we need food the most. School food is most of these students’s
ONLY meal for the day. Sour porridge. A watery slime leaks through the
children's fingers as they watch through the windows.

The lady from Wales is leaving tomorrow and the staff wants to show
their appreciation for the books. This organization had also paid for
one of the teachers to go to Wales for two weeks and watch how they
are teaching there. "When are YOU going to take one of us to the USA
Simphiwe?!" They laugh. I know this teacher has learned nothing over
there. I've watched teacher after teacher go to workshop after
workshop, paid for by outside help, on how to provide psycho-social
support to their students. How to engage the students. How to spot an
OVC or a child in need. I ask them what they learned when they get
back. One teacher draws a circle on the board.
"I learned what psycho-social support is."
"So, what's the circle for?" I ask.
"It's a cycle.. like a circle... you know cycle social support." The
topic of the seminar.. Psycho Social Support.. and she couldn't even
give me the definition of it.

The staff brings in traditional Swazi attire for the old lady from
Wales. They dress her up and do a little song and jive for her. A
child brings in a tray full of food, coffee, and tea. They sit to eat.
I look outside. Children watching through the windows with their food
snot in hand and empty stomachs.

We, as non African spectators, need to open our eyes.

NGOs litter this area. Money jumping out of foreigner’s pockets. It's
never enough. 15 billion for water canals and irrigation piping. Water
pouring into the sugar cane fields. Promised water taps on every
homestead will have to wait until the sugar has drunk. 15 billion
spent to bring in workers from neighboring countries: Mozambique,
South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Young hardworking men away from their
families. Away from their wives. Their camp site built directly across
the street from my primary school.

"I watch them Simphiwe." A teacher tells me. "Young girls coming out
of these camps. Our female students with money in their hands. They
hand over the cash to their mothers and aunties. I watch the men, with
cars and money, picking up young girls and driving off."

15 billion spent to bring water to a desperate community. Their money, their
labor, their disease.

Outside health organizations assigning us to do their data collection
for them. "Is what we're doing.. effective? Are the people getting the
food they need?" They ask us what they are doing wrong. A volunteer
says to me, "These organizations have absolutely no data on these
children. There is no monitoring and evaluating. They throw the money
and the food at these people and have no idea where it's going.
There's talk they want to pull out. I'll be so pissed if we do all
their data collection and then they just leave these people." Unmilled
maize thrown at the impoverished. Unmilled maize which they then have
to take to a mill and pay to be milled. With what money? Food
literally dumped off the back of pick up trucks and then being sold by
others. Never touching the hands of those who really need it.

"The Japanese came in and spent all this money building my community
an electric water system. Millions of dollars spent on a system that
provides water only if you can afford the electric bill every month.
All that money spent and no one uses it. We still walk miles and miles
for our water."

World Cup just around the corner. A volunteer working with a clinic
tells me, "There is so much TB in this area and people are spreading
it like crazy. We've asked for tents. Somewhere to separate those with
tuberculosis. The infected are going home to those with compromised
immune systems and spreading it which is killing them. But the
government won't allow us to get tents. With all the world cup
footage, with all eyes on southern Africa, they don't want this
country looking like a 'refugee camp'. So thousands will suffer."

An African tells me how much he loves President Bush for all the money
he's given to his continent. Funding, which we as volunteers can use
but only if we jump through its ignorant obstacles. To get the funding
we must preach an unrealistic message. Funding for a price. For a lie.

As volunteers, we are all stand ins for any foreigner who comes to
Africa trying to "help". Many of us have ignorantly, naively, and
idealistically traveled here with such a black and white, sweet and
sour, wrong and right interpretation of African reality. Aid work in
Africa, we are realizing, is grey. Is messy. Is forever changing. One
year ago, we finally felt alive.. free from school and the 9-5... in
what seemed like this exciting new world. But soon we became the
wide-eyed non-African spectator watching humankind succumb to its
worst instincts. We wanted to change things, but as a peace corps
volunteer you can't help but witness and get sucked into one trashy
development plan after another. You become a constant apologist for
the things you cannot change. For the things you did not see a year
ago. And for the things you will not see until a year from now when
you are on that plane and out of here.

Volunteers, aid workers, teachers... the foreign help, the foreign
money, are in this fight for Swaziland's survival. We are stuck in a
forest and we can only see the trees in front of us; unaware of
the bigger picture. The more time you spend here, however, you start to see past
the trees. You start to notice the donations collecting dust in a
corner, the water that never gets to the people, the food that gets
stolen and sold, the workshops to a deaf audience, the millions, the
billions wasted. And this is the nature of aid work. You can't just
click on a website and see a picture of smiling African babies, their
arms outstretched, and say.. wow they're changing people's lives. You
watch footage of Africa.. the turtle drums playing in the background.
Colorful. Tropical. It gets you thinking; maybe I should go to
Africa... and help.

We need to take a closer look.

I need to take a closer look.

I think about the past year. What have I done? Who have I touched?
Changed for the better? Have I monitored or evaluated any of my
actions? I remember Nonjaboliso. Thirteen years old. Raped by her HIV
positive grandfather. Cared for her parents until they died.. AIDS.
Then deprived of food and forced into bed with her grandfather. I
remember getting her out of there. I remember walking onto her
homestead and feeling in my gut something was wrong. I remember
shaking the old man's hand with thoughts of ripping his dick off. I
remember the threats and the warnings. "He is a witch Simphiwe. Stay
away." I remember the snake in my hut that night. I remember taking
Nonjaboliso to the half way house. Watching her cry while she told the
police her story. That was almost 9 months ago. And I’ve only been
back to see her once.

I last saw Nonjaboliso in January and I need to know, did I do the
right thing? Did my actions help? Is she finally living up to her
name- Nonjaboliso "Happiness"? I walk through Manzini up the long hill
to the chained fence that locks these unwanted children in. A young
boy wanders to me. He smiles and grabs my hand. His swaying movements
and constant humming show me his disability. The unwanted. "This one's
disturbed." A woman tells me. "He's dumb. Can't talk." The young boy
grabs my hand and puts it on the lock around the gate. He wants out.
He points to the sky and says, "Da da." He walks me to little naked
babies in the corner who cry at the sight of me. Someone turned inside
out; I’d scream and cry too if I saw me. Another woman walks towards
us. She remembers me. "Simphiwe. It's been a while." We shake hands.

"You're here to see that girl. The dark one?"
"Nonjaboliso. Is she here?"
"She left Simphiwe. In February. We got her a good home. A boarding
school with all her friends. Up north."
I smile.
"Is she happy?" I ask.
"Very happy Simphiwe." She smiles.
Tears start to collect in the corner of my eye and I ask, "Then I did the right
thing? Taking her away from her home?"
"Of cours!" She laughs and slaps me on the back.
"Was she still wearing the necklace I gave her?"
A St. Christopher pendant I put around her neck before I said goodbye.
"He protects you while you're away from home Nonjaboliso. He will
protect you while we're apart."
"It's still around her neck." The woman affirms me.

I walk down the hill. Back to town. People stare, wondering what this
white girl is doing in this part of town. I may never do anything
sustainable here . Maybe I won't change anyone. Maybe I won't help a
single person before I go. But Nonjaboliso, coming here for two years
was worth being able to reach out to her. Coming here will all be
worth it knowing she is out there with her name, and she's smiling
again.

Tonight I lie in bed thinking of all the OVCs (Orphaned Vulnerable
Children) out there. Their parents dead from this virus. They left
their babies alone, in the hands of relatives who promised to take
care of them but have failed to do so. I think of Nonjaboliso's story.
She lived on her grandfather's homestead with her parents when they
fell sick. Her mother chased away by her grandfather because she
wouldn't sleep with him. Her husband too sick to notice. She dies away
from her husband and child on her parent's homestead. She never sees
her daughter again. Nonjaboliso's father close to death. She's at his
side. She cleans his infected thrush. With a rag, she wipes away the
maggots coming out of his mouth. He begs his father to take care of
his daughter once he is gone. Nonjaboliso's father dies and the real
nightmare begins for her.

The ghosts of dead parents, I hope they can't see what's happening to
their babies. Does her father know, she's smiling now?

My phone rings. It's my Proud African.
"Simphiwe. Vula emehlo." He laughs.
"What?" I ask.
"Are your eyes open yet?"
"I'm getting there." I tell him. "I'm beginning to see."

"A Year Later and The Sidewalks Are Still Watching Me Think About You..

6/1/2010

“Any transition serious enough to alter your definition of self will require not just small adjustments in your way of living and thinking, but a full-on metamorphosis.” Martha Beck.

Down another bumpy road, an old man fiddles with his car radio as he tells me about the one that got away. “South Africans- they stay for no one. I guess I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t worth it. But man. SHE was the ONE.” The radio calls out, “Young men, come and work for your King! Be a soldier!” Swaziland’s occupations: teacher, nurse, soldier.

He puts his hands back on the steering wheel and begins the series of usual questions. A free ride ALL the way to town, I’ll answer any question he asks. Why, where, when, and what are you doing here?
“For how long?” He repeats.
“One year and one more year to go.” I reply.
“How long?!”
“Two years.”
“Two years away from home?! Why, you’ll go back a stranger!” He laughs.
I politely laugh back and shift in my seat with discomfort at this realization.
“But did you REALLY know yourself before you came to Africa?” He asks.

It was almost a year ago, when I didn’t really know myself. It was almost a year ago when we came to Africa. I remember shaking hands with “Season 6”. Shaking the hands of those who had been here a year. The circle of introductions, “I’m Meredith. From Seattle.”
“Me too!” A girl from Season 6 exclaims. We exchange addresses. Two years ago, only a block away from each other. “Can you explain it to me?” She asks me.
“Explain what?”
“Home.” She says smiling.

At the time, my mind was fresh with scenery, smells, and color. But now, I have difficulty remembering what it was I told her. Now I have difficulty remembering home (Seattle or Indiana). But I remember what she said to me after I talked her through a tour of how “home” was when I left it. She said to me, “Thank you. I needed that.”

And it was almost a year ago when our APCD, Chad, handed us a piece of paper with the Peace Corps logo on top. “A letter,” He told us. “A letter to your future self. What do you want to tell yourself a year from now?” After we’re done writing, he collects our letters. “I’ll return them to you in one year.” I can no longer remember what one year ago Meredith wrote to me. I wish I could.

And now, a year into service, Season Six is starting to leave. In just a few days, the first eleven will take their journey back home. Back to the routine, the order, the color of the outside world….. HOME.

Myself, many from my group, and many from group 6 leave for the weekend before their departure. A three day concert/festival: Bush Fire. For eleven group 6ers this will be their last experience here in Swaziland with us. We enjoy outdoors, music, over-priced arts and crafts all going towards a good cause, drinks, and camping. It’s been a long time since I’ve been around so many “white” people. I say white, not because all foreigners to Swaziland are white, but because visually it was shocking and at times hard to handle. Most of us have forgotten how to act around “Westerners”. We know how to act around our fellow PCV’s and the Swazis, but we haven’t been around anyone else in a long, long time. Socializing has always been easy for me, but now, I find myself incredibly awkward and unsure what to say. Watching men and women holding hands, holding their children, love and affection, direct eye contact. To me, this has become the abnormal. We run into other PCVs form neighboring countries: Mozambique and South Africa. Loud and in your face: Americans. I’m immediately turned off.
“So much public transport and so easy to get around! Beautiful mountains and nice weather! You guys got it SO good here!” They exclaim.
“Hold on. Wait. Is this where we, as Peace Corps Volunteers from different countries, get into a ‘brag off’? Who has it harder?! Who’s more hard corps?” My sarcasm is thick and for once I'm around people who can pick up on it. Peace Corps Volunteers: We love to get together and talk about who has it worse. It’s annoying.

It’s Saturday night at Bush Fire and tomorrow morning eleven volunteers from Season Six will be gone. As I’m watching the last performance on stage, a volunteer from my group nudges me. “Look Mere. They’re saying their goodbyes.” I look over and see the crowd of Group 6ers. A handful of them make their way to each person, hugging and crying. Words are being exchanged but I’m too far away to hear. I want to be there. I want to be in this moment with them, but this is THEIR group. I want them to experience it alone. I watch the handful that is leaving break apart from the other group 6ers and make their way to the taxi. One of them stops and turns. She stops to look at someone from her group that is not leaving and is actually staying another year with us. I know they were once in a relationship and I know it didn’t end well and they haven’t spoken to each other in a long time (which is difficult to do in such a small country). She walks up to him and he takes her in his arms. She’s wiping away tears as he makes funny hand gestures trying to make her laugh. They say goodbye. Their reconciliation brings tears to my eyes.

As she’s walking away I run up to her. We embrace and she tells me what every volunteer should tell another, “You are making a difference…. Just hang in there.”

And then they were gone.

Another workshop with my fellow Season 7ers. A year ago we began with Pre-Service training, then In-Service training, and now: Mid Service training. Peace Corps knows we’re all reaching that realization of, “Oh my God, I ONLY have one year left. Or, Oh my God, I have ANOTHER year left.” They gather us and our “counterparts” together. A two day workshop with a Swazi we’re working with in our community (a counterpart). They try to get us energized and organized about projects to start with them. Most volunteers bring the “counterparts” they were originally assigned. Most have not worked with these people at all because counterparts lack the motivation. Peace Corps explains to the Swazis that a volunteer is a CO facilitator a CO mentor a CO learner….. YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO WORK WITH US! WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO WORK FOR YOU. Many volunteers roll their eyes. They know full well when they go back to their communities they’ll never hear from their counterpart again.

I bring Justice. Justice is motivated. Justice is empowering, wonderful, and my bright light. I’m lucky to have found him. Unfortunately, I’ve got a viral infection that’s been going around so I do what I can in between trips to the bathroom. “We have to start a club Meredith. Where in order to be apart of it you have to get tested.” I explain the dangers of forced testing, but I like his enthusiasm on getting people tested. We want to do a workshop for young men during the World Cup. Justice’s youth center is one of the only places in our area where people can watch it. We want to take advantage of the audience. When else can you get a hundred men in a room together?

Our counterparts leave us and our workshop turns into a two day Grief and Loss Bonding experience. We talk about the year ahead. We talk about Season 8 arriving in less than a month. “We have to make this transition as easy as possible for them. We have to be careful what we say. We have to be prepared for the tough questions they’re going to ask us about the realities here and our work.” Did Season 6 have this same conversation about our arrival?

Our country director steps in. She talks about perspective. She lies down sheets of paper. Written on them : “I want to go home.” “This is what I came here to do.” “What am I doing here?” “I can see the difference I’m making.” “What a great opportunity” “I made a commitment and I’m sticking to it.”

“These are quotes from other volunteers at their one year mark. I want you to find where you’re at, your perspective. Go and stand where you feel.” We all have difficulty with this. Everyday we go through every one of these perspectives. In this moment however, I’m at “What a great opportunity.” You can’t help but feel relieved and yet saddened at the few who have stepped on “I want to go home.” “What am I doing here?” and “I made a commitment and I’m sticking to it.” We are seeing we’re not alone in this struggle.
We get in a circle, hold hands, and begin the sharing. One volunteer, someone I have so much admiration and respect for and one of the strongest people I know, raises her hand. She has difficulty talking through the tears. “I love you guys. I do. And I don’t want to go home, but I’m finding it so hard to stay. What I’m going through, I don’t know how much more I can take.” Several of us get up to give her a hug. I keep my hand on her knee. We all want her to know she’s not alone in this.

Later, the few group 6ers running the workshop, ask me to be on a panel of those who have experienced grief and loss. “We know you’ve lost a lot of your dogs, and we thought you’d like to share. Maybe it’ll get other people to start sharing.” I feel kind of stupid. On the panel with me are my friends who together have lost a homestead sister to homicide, another promised her training homestead father she would come back and see him but he died before she could, and another who saw the hanging body of someone he knew who committed suicide. Then there’s me and my dogs. But I know I carry something WE all can relate with. Something we are ALL going through: Guilt.

“Back home, like I know many of us were, I was kind of the counselor. I was the one you went to lean on. I was the hand you held. I was THERE for them. For my family, for my friends. Leaving them for two years for people who often don’t even want my help, kills me. My inability to keep in touch. To write letters. To dig deep into their lives. To tell them about mine. I’ve lost that personal connection. I’ve lost my role in their lives. A few got angry. But now, they’re OK without me. And, I guess, that kind of hurts. And it shouldn’t. And my little sister. Alone. Going through puberty. No one there to tell her “they” don’t matter. You’re cool just the way you are. I feel so much guilt. And sometimes I feel like I don’t know myself anymore. Or maybe I’m finding out who I always was.”

We’re asked to close our eyes. Our group leader begins, “I want you to think of someone you’d like to see. Someone you wish you were there for. Someone who you’ve lost touch with. Someone you want to ask forgiveness from.” I think of my brother. I think of a dream I had just two nights ago. Another nightmare about him. He’s alone in an attic with pieces of tape covering every hole and crack in the walls and floor around him. My sister appears and is standing next to him as he sits hovered over on the edge of his bed. “He doesn’t want the voices to get in through the cracks, so he covers them with tape.” She doesn’t understand why I’m crying. I pick up the roll of tape on the ground and begin to help him cover the cracks, but my tape won't stick. It keeps falling and the voices are getting in. I have these dreams of those I left behind.

“I want you to stand in front of this person now. I want you to take their hand and tell them, “You’re sorry.”

And for the first time, in a long time, I let the tears come out. I hear others crying around me. I try to wipe them away before we’re told to open our eyes but they continue to pour out of me. I’m trying to let go of the guilt. We’re all trying to tell ourselves it’s ok. We did the right thing in coming here. We want forgiveness. I want to forgive myself.

Our PCMO (Peace Corps Medical Officer) stands to talk. “You are all bearing witness. You are bearing witness to a country that is experiencing massive die out. Generations are being lost. People are dying everywhere, and you’re all witnessing it. Let it out. You’ve got to let it out.” And that's just it. We're all just witnesses and we want to be MORE than that.

We light candles as each of us says something about our group. It's my turn, “A year ago, we said goodbye to our APCD, Chad. None of us really knew him that well but we all saw how much he meant to Group 6. At his ring out ceremony in September, he said something that didn't really resonate with me until now. He told us, choking back the tears, for a while he had given up on Peace Corps. He didn’t know if he believed in it anymore. But then he pointed to us and he said, ‘But you guys, volunteers, I never stopped believing in you.’ And that’s exactly how I feel right now. I love all of you and I am in such gratitude to be serving with people with such big hearts and SO much compassion. With all the apathy that surrounds us out there, it is so empowering to be with all of you now. Every one of you gives me strength and affirms my belief in humanity and in the people again. I am honored to be serving alongside all of you.”


Our Grief and Loss ceremony is ending. One of the volunteers wishes to share a song with us, “This song always reminds me of us.” She plays a song by South African: Lucky Dube “Freedom Fighters”. As the song plays I open a letter our Country Director had passed to all of us. Inside is a piece of paper with the Peace Corps logo on top. It begins with, “Dear Future Meredith.”

“Do you remember a conversation you had with your best friend when you graduated high school? She asked you what you wanted to do with your life. You told her you were going to join the Peace Corps and she laughed and said to you, “Maybe you should just stick with Americorps…you can't handle something like the Peace Corps." I hope you are still here with the Peace Corps Meredith. I hope you know you FINALLY did it. And you are here because of YOU despite what everyone thought. I hope you are happy and smiling. And I want you to remember, FINALLY, I am proud of MYSELF.”

It truly has been a life changing year for me and I’m looking forward to the next one. Group 6 will be gone soon and we’ll be the ones welcoming Group 8 with open arms. And maybe this time, during our circle of introductions, someone will say their name and they’ll say they’re from Indiana or Seattle. And they’ll talk me through a tour of home. And I’ll smile and say, “Thank you. I needed that.”


"Freedom fighter standing on a mountain
In a foreign country
Trying to send a message
To his people, back in the ghetto
He had a home one time
Love of a girl
But he left that behind
Oh yes I can hear him clearly as he whispers in the air
His voice came out loud and clear
All he asked for was a prayer and as he turns to walk away he said

I'm still here in the house of exile
For the love of the nation
Sun went down on the mountain
Birds flew back to their hiding places
Leaving him standing there like a telephone pole
In the still of the night
You and I dream
Dreaming of Romeo & Juliet
All he dreams about is the freedom of the nation
When every man will be equal In the eyes of the law
As he closes his eyes
For the last time he said again"

Everyone Wears Purple

5/19/10

Shug: More than anything God love admiration.
Celie: You saying God is vain?
Shug: No, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it.
Celie: You saying it just wanna be loved like it say in the bible?
Shug: Yeah, Celie. Everything wanna be loved. Us sing and dance, and holla just wanting to be loved. Look at them trees. Notice how the trees do everything people do to get attention... except walk?

Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" depicts the life for an African American woman in the early 1900's. The story focuses on a young woman named Celie. Celie, like many African American women of this time, endures abuse from both races and both sexes. She is unloved until she meets a woman named Shug Avery. Shug, a muse and beauty, shows Celie what it means to be loved. She empowers her. And then one day Celie stands up to her abusers and fights back.

SWAGAA (Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse) calls me again. I take a seat. Sviso sits behind his desk waiting for me to begin. Even though it is I who has been asked to come, I begin the conversation. "So. What can I help you with?"

Sviso tells me his plan to empower the young men as well as the women. He hopes to hold an event in the city and to talk to young men and their fathers about abuse. He stares at me waiting for a response. I have none. It's a ridiculous plan. Who's going to pay transport fees. Who's going to feed them once they arrive? Who's going to do the children's chores while they're away? Even if you can empower the child, what's going to happen when the empowered finally find their voice and begin to use it? When they finally tell the crooked cop or the tired teacher who does nothing. The "piplines" are all cracked here. Shouldn't we focus on getting the support teams together THEN giving the kids a voice. I've experienced first hand what happens when a scared child finally speaks out. And I watch as they fall and no one is there to catch them.

I nod my head and pretend to play along.

AIDS has quickly taken a back seat to abuse. Abuse and AIDS:

It's all connected.

It's all out of control.

I teach Form 4 and Form 5 every Friday (the juniors and seniors of Siphofaneni High). Both forms are broken up into two classes with around 50 students each. I reach 200 students in two and a half hours. I ATTEMPT to reach them as a foreign, young, single, white woman teaching them in their second language in a hot hot crammed classroom. The boys in the back yell, the girls in the front snicker. I struggle to hold their attention. I more importantly, struggle to gain their respect. They demand candy. They demand games. They don't care about a course they don't get a grade in. They don't care to discuss a topic they've had crammed down their throats since birth. Who is this outsider, this child in our world, to tell us how it is HERE in OUR world? In OUR home. My hands are empty- no stick to beat them like the rest of the teachers. And they know it. I try hard to show fear does not equal respect.

You have to remain calm no matter what they throw at you. A joke with a joke. Sarcasm doesn't fly in a second language unfortunately. But I was a teenager once, and an even better smart ass.

End of class, tired.. .. Exhausted. Did I reach anyone? Or have I just been dancing for the past two hours.. only entertainment. I grab my bags, my flip chart, and markers, and go. A young girl runs after me. "Simphiwe! Simphiwe!"

I recognize her. She is one of my students from form 5. 50 shaved heads, 50 pale blue skirts- it's hard to tell any of them apart. This one is different. Bushy eyebrows, gap between her two front teeth, dark in complextion... the awkward look that grows into grace. Only an outsider would notice her beauty. "Simphiwe, may I accompany you?" She follows me off school grounds and towards town. "You can call me Nicoleson." (The volunteer who worked in this school before me was Nicole) "Did you get that name from the volunteer before me?" I ask. "Who? No. I did not. I just like the sound of Nicoleson." She smiles.

"Simphiwe may I ask you something? Why are YOU here?"
"What do you mean?" I ask as I stop walking- a bad habit of mine when a conversation turns serious.
"I mean, we've had others. Like you. Volunteers. Trying to "help". Nothing changed."
I'm not sure how to react to this slap of reality.

She continues, "I have this friend. She liked sex with men. I warned her. I told her just as you tell us. She didn't listen. She got pregnant anyway. But I remained by her side. She got sick. Her baby got sick. AIDS. But still I remained by her side. She tells me, 'You're just jealous. You're ugly and nobody wants you.' I'm angry Simphiwe. What's the point anymore? No on listens. They didn't listen to the first volunteer. So this is why I ask you, Why are you here? They say the white people come to take pictures of our black babies and show the whites back home. To give us money and things. My mother abandoned me when I was young, my father left for South Africa when I was born. I work hard to pay my OWN school fees. To pay for food. I am a servant to a family. I don't ask for donations. I do it on my own. But these girls. They sleep around for money for hair extensions and clothes. These girls don't deserve your help. They are just as stubborn and stupid as the men."

We're walking again. She looks around as she speaks. Afraid other students will notice her with me. She'll quickly be called teachers pet- showing off how well she knows English. "Simphiwe. I watch you teach. God has blessed me with the gift of seeing and feeling people’s emotions. Other volunteers, when they teach I can see their anger, their frustrations. They want to give up. In you, I don't see. I only see what you show us. I don't see the frustration. You don't judge us." She looks down ashamed. "Jesus, he didn't judge and this is why I keep alone. When I am around all this ignorance- I judge. I keep alone so I don't hate, so I don't blame. What's the way out? How do I get out of all of this?"


A fork in the road, before we part she stands in front of me and says. "I think I was meant to help you. I think this is my purpose. Together maybe we can give them a message. To the girls. I don't want to blame anymore. I am so alone inside. I don't want to be alone anymore."

My message this week in girls club is simple. We sit and watch "The Color Purple". I translate the southern accent and we discuss the story every thirty minutes. My message IS the color purple. You are beautiful. You deserve respect. "All of us can be Shug. We must hold up a mirror for our friends. Show them that they too are beautiful. Show them their color." Sometimes when I speak I can see tears collect in these girls’ eyes. Sometimes I hit a cord that pains them. All of them long to connect but are afraid to try.

I open up clubs in three different schools. Children peer in through the windows, rooms are crammed. It's hard to turn them away but I know to be effective I have to cut back the numbers. But I cannot empower the African girl alone; she has to find power with others. So when she finally finds her voice, when she seeks out help from the crooked cop or the tired teacher who turns her away, she will have her friends to lean on.

Today I bring a friend, another volunteer, to visit my high school and watch me teach the Form 4 and 5's. Two classes finished. We debate the topic "HIV Affects Women More Than Men". People are pointing fingers, voices are being thrown around, minds are thinking.. QUESTIONING.. today was a success. I'm constantly trying to show them the bigger picture. You have a culture of people locked inside a room. You go to unlock the door. You leave the key inside the lock- hoping someone, just one person, will come and unlock the it. Unfortunatley, these children, these people, don't even notice the door is even locked. You can't open it for them. They've got to notice and do it on their own. It's a slow process.

Two more classes to go. As I'm leaving the second class, one of my male students grabs my hand. He begins to kiss it. He pulls me forward and tries to kiss me on the mouth. I pull away. This would never happen to a Swazi teacher. We had just spoken about sexual harassment in class. I use this as an example and pretend to knee him in the balls. "And this is how you defend yourself ladies." My friend and I make our way to the staff room to find there is no staff in the staff room. I ask the only two teachers around sitting doing nothing,
"Where are all the teachers today?"
"Today is pay day." They laugh. "The teachers go to town to get things that they need. They don't have to come into school today."

However, the students are still required to come. Come to school to sit in a classroom and stare at a wall. My head teacher asks how my day is. I joke, "Oh just dodging kisses from students." A look of horror and shock on his face. "This will not do! This is sexual harassment!" He grabs his large wooden stick and pulls me outside. "He MUST be punished!" The bell rings and students lazily make their way back to the empty classrooms after break. Without teachers, what's the rush? The head teacher yells at them to run to class. He lets go of my hand to pick up large rocks. This overweight man begins to chase the laughing children, throwing rocks in their direction. They laugh as he trips and falls. I stand in the middle of this circus. Watching the herder herd his flock. As I stand alone in the middle of the fied- chaos tumbling all around, my friend stands amazed inside the staff room. She is sandwiched between two teachers trying to convince her that the entire world is controlled by two men.

"They work on wall street you see. This whole 'recession' thing is made up. It's all a conspiracy theory. We saw it in a movie once."

I run in to grab her. "Lets get out of here."

We grab our bags and walk the road back to town; trying to piece together what just happened. Searching for even one piece of logic within this crazy hour's events. A truck pulls up behind us and honks. It is my sweating head teacher. He rolls down his window, "Simphiwe, get in. I am taking you back to school. I found the boy. I want you to watch me give him four strong strokes on the back."

I respectfully decline and we continue to walk in silence.

We're on a bus going south. Tonight: Girls Night. Bottles of red wine, mature cheddar cheese, dark chocolate filled with almonds. We sit in our sleeping bags looking through an old Cosmo magazine. "Red Wine Helps Fight Tummy Flab" "Shoes Suck Out Toxins From Your Body!" "FIT FLOPS Tone Your Body!" Shinning shimmering lips, little white skinny bodies, Pantene pro-v hair, and creative sex positions for your pleasure. What is this world? I turn each glossy page and feel comfort in something that used to trick me into thinking I wasn't good enough. For now, I want to escape in this pristine plastic world. So much color- and we're all trying to remember.

We share our frustrations. I complain about the Swazi male students. "I'm spreading myself too thin. I need to focus on the audience I can reach. The girls. I need to quit teaching in the classroom and just work with the girls."

I ask them, "If Peace Corps didn't further your future career or education..would you stay?" Bodies shift.. an uncomfortable question. No one wants to think like that. Most say no. "Maybe if I were on a different continent. If I were in Jamaica or Eastern Europe. That'd be fun."

Tears collect in my eyes, "I guess I struggle with that. I can't be here if I'm not reaching anyone. It's not worth leaving those back home. I can't be in this for ME. Why should I stay if it helps no one?"

The best part about girls night is when someone hits this moment. Your girlfriend grabs your knee. She looks deep into your eyes with such determination to convince you and possibly even herself. And she says to you, "You ARE making a difference Meredith. You ARE."

"Don't give up on the boys Simphiwe." Another girl says. "They need your help too."

I return home and flip through my student’s homework. I had asked my class, boys and girls, "Why am I here teaching you about HIV?" The students wrote, "To teach us. We want to learn."

I had given up on teaching. I was ready to tell the Head Teacher on Monday, I can no longer work in the classroom.

Nicoleson had asked me, "Why are you here?" And it's a question we all struggle with everyday.

As Celie put it, "I may be black, I might even be ugly but dear God I'm here, I'm here."

I see what girls night can do for a volunteer. This is what I want to bring to the Swazi girl, a hand to hold. Someone to push you forward. A Sisterhood.

So I say to them, "I'm white, I'm a woman, and dear God.. I'm American. But I'm here, I'm Here."

"Them"

4.23.10

"Swazi Students Slashed 39 Times by Teacher."

Headlines the Times today. No reaction by me of course. Everyday it's violence in the schools. Violence somewhere. Trading sex for good grades. Kid Trafficking. Today, just more beatings. Pictures of three children, their butt cracks blurred out but visible red marks shown, puffed and raised. I put down the paper and share coffee with other PCVs. This morning we're at our usual cafe sharing breakfast and horror stories.

"Typical." One says in response to the article.
"This IS Swaziland. What do you expect?" Another says.

We tell our latest encounters with Swazis. We tell ourselves how different we are from them. We laugh and end it with the usual, "Well what did you expect from THEM?"

This IS Swaziland.

Our faith is dwindling, our patience gone. I pause for a minute and think back to when my group, Season 7, first arrived to this tiny country.

"You know." I say. "I remember, just ten months ago, meeting Season 6 for the first time. Some of them were great. Excited to see some new faces in this small country. But many of them hit me hard with their realities. Their negativity. Speaking of Swazis with such hostility, with little faith, believing in nothing anymore. I remember feeling so angry with their attitudes. Their opinions towards "them". And now, almost a year later, Peace Corps Season 8 arriving in just a month, here we sit...theming "them". When did I become so cynical? When did I start theming them and when did we all loose faith in them?"

We discuss how much harder it is now to discuss these "issues" to those back home.

"It doesn't translate." One says.
"They just don't get it. They tell me to quit being so negative. To suck it up, hang on, or just come home. They have no idea."
"And they don't call much anymore."

No one's fault, just the natural cycle of being away from home...we realize more and more how "they" don't understand. "They" the ones we were once closest to. Our friends and family back home. "They" the people we are around daily now in our new world. Swazis. Our host families and co-workers. "They" don't get it either. PCVs floating in this confusing in between. Floating in a purgatory grey between two worlds. No one understands. Sometimes it feels like we only have each other to assure ourselves we aren't crazy. I email other PCVs in other African countries. It's always the same. Stories shared then, "Well you know how it is."

But sometimes I ask myself, Is it them? Aren't WE the lunatics? Driving around in expensive cars with fancy acronyms painted on the sides. We're the ones throwing garbage in the streets. We're the ones just barely skimming the top of this polluted ocean. Pulling weeds from the head instead of the root. We're the ones giving ourselves Swazi names and pretending to be someone we aren't. Sometimes I think it's not THEM. Sometimes I think, WE'RE the lunatics.

Peace Corps drives the concept of INTEGRATION into your brain from day one. The last thing you want to be seen as is an "outsider". Your want their respect, their trust. Integrate. Integrate. Integrate. Take this Swazi name. You have no opinions on politics. You have no opinions on religion. You are "them". I've lost who I am some where in this. My sense of identity gone. What happened to cultural exchange? Sharing ideas, knowledge, and opinions in a respectful manner? I no longer feel comfortable being called Simphiwe.

It's important we don't forget ourselves. Two years is too long to be someone else. I am still Meredith. Just in a new place.

After coffee, I go back to Siphofaneni to teach. Siphofaneni: the small town of acronyms. SWADE, ACAT, SWANNEPA, LUSIP. Saturated with outside help. White people in fancy cars driving down the tar road that divides this small town. Tour buses filled with big people and big cameras driving through filthy Siphofaneni photographing "them", with their buckets on their heads. The fancy on their way to a mirage.... game reserves and paradise. And me, in my white skinned coat, with some made up name. Walking around in circles. Swazis only seeing me as "them"...pockets heavy with money. This umlungu got seperated from the crowd and the tour bus of money. I have to prove myself everyday to my community that I am not "them". My own host family even, who has housed a previous volunteer, everyday I am proving I am not her.

Us, all of us, with all our pre-conceived notions, need to put our fingers down and stop theming "them". Just co-exist. But it's never that easy.

Today I attempt to teach this to my high school students. We are discussing HIV and women. The boys in the back, of course, don't believe HIV effects women more than men. "Simphiwe." They tell me. "When an HIV person has sex with a negative person then that person is giving it to them. Both are affected. It is 50 50. You cannot say women are getting it more than men. That THEY are affected more than men." I'm unsure how to react to this completely ridiculous statement. I need to get at these kids before high school age. They are not being taught how to think big picture, critically, or dare I say.. accurately. They are not being taught AIDS IN SWAZILAND. AIDS is different in every country. And should be taught accordingly. One girl stands, "HIV affects women more than men because it is up to US. Men are stupid." She trembles. "They are born animals. When they see a woman's leg or breast they cannot be controlled. They cannot be taught. They are conservative. You cannot change a man. It is up to US." She sits.

"How does this make you feel?!" I yell to the boys in the back. They laugh, "We don't care!" They shout, "It’s true! We know it!"

Hands on my hips, "Here's what I know. I know the rest of the world agrees with this girl. You see propaganda in every NGO office. Billboards, school buildings, pamphlets. EMPOWER GIRLS!! Everywhere you hear, how can we empower the girls? Empower, to give strength. Why? Why are we targeting the girls so much? Has the rest of the world given up on Swazi men? How does this make you feel BOYS? We've lost faith in you. You aren't man enough to change. To take responsibility and help the dying. Help your country. This girl has compared you to an animal. I can tell you, I know if I were a man.... I'd try and prove every outsider and Swazi woman wrong. I challenge you to prove me wrong."

Next class I tell them we're going to discuss culture. "Your homework. I want you to think about YOUR culture. Your gender roles. What does it mean to be a man to be a woman in Swaziland? How is your gender expected to act? Do you agree with this? Do you like it? Men are told they are not men if they cry. Women are told they are not women if they don't have children. This is what your culture tells you. I want you to think about it and tell me how it makes you feel."

"But Simphiwe." A boy in the back complains. "I don't understand. My culture is all I know. I don't know how to question it. All I know is...it is right."

I am not trying to change a culture. I am trying to enlighten them about their own and others. I printed photos of Myanmar women with their elongated necks of gold, young Amish boys in dress, Ancient Chinese binding shoes, the hijab for Middle Eastern women. Looking at the BIG picture will help them analyze their own little picture.. their own little world. I am trying to help them with the questions, not the answers.

After class I hitch to Madleyna Primary School. We've gotten 1500 books from the US. This school has only a tiny room for 1500 books and with only a few shelves. If staff and students prove themselves to be serious about starting a library I will do everything in my power to get them funding to build their own. For now, I sit in a tiny room organizing books. I have requested three teachers and a handful of students to make up a "library committee" (people like titles and committees). For now though, I sit alone, books scattered around me. I look out the window. School is ending and the children line up for announcements outside.

Suddenly, one of the teachers, Sakhile (my age), barges into the room with three young boys at his side and a fourth in his grip. He's screaming in Siswati. A young teacher, by my side, is translating for me even though I have not asked her to. "These children were caught trying to leave school early by the teacher." Sakhile grabs a large stick and begins whipping each kid on the behind as 700 students shake themselves from their lines and watch through the windows laughing. The other teachers have left. Its 2:30 and they want to get home. Loud whipping noises echo in this tiny room. One boy refuses to be whipped. He is asking the teacher why he felt the need to drag him into this room. Sakhile grabs him by the collar and begins dragging him again. The boy struggles to breathe. "Are you going to do something?" I ask the teacher translating. "What can I do Simphiwe?" She responds half laughing. The whole school watches at the abuse by my side. The teacher picks the boy up by the neck then kicks his legs out from under him. The child flies flat on his face and winces in pain. Sakhile goes to pick him up again by the throat. The rest of the teachers have all left. Once again I feel obligated to interject. I run over to the teacher and hold him tight against the wall until he lets go of the child.

"No Sakhile. No. Count to ten. Breathe and count to ten." I let go of his chest and walk over to the student who is now hunched over struggling to catch his own breath. I put my hand on his shoulder but Sakhile only makes it to two. He pushes past me and swirls the kid around bending him over the desk. He gives him five strokes. The four boys and Sakhile walk back outside to join the rest of the students. Sakhile turns to me. Tears collect in his eyes. "I'm sorry Simphiwe. I should not have done that." The female teacher shouts, "She is a witness! And SHE will tell the head teacher! They will believe HER!" Sakhile sighs a long sigh. Guilt in his eyes. "I'm not going to tell Sakhile. I won't say anything. If you tell EVERYONE what you have just told me. Publicly apologize and tell these children violence is not the answer. I won't tell on you."

I stand by Sakhile as he apologizes to 700 students and asks the young boy to forgive him.

Later, I sit in silence. Everyone gone. And I am trying to concentrate on organizing these books. Sakhile walks in and sits on the ground next to me (Swazi men do not sit on the ground, next to a woman.) "I know what I did was wrong Simphiwe. I think it is a difference of cultures. Why I do what I do and why you do what you do."

"I suppose." I say. Still organizing and not looking up.
"What do you mean?" He asks.
"I mean, sometimes you can't hide behind your culture. Sometimes it is a matter of right or wrong. Tell me....how many times have you beaten the SAME student?"
Sakhile smiles big, "You're trying to tell me beating them is not effective?"
"I'm trying to tell you, you are teaching violence. It seems to be the only thing taught well around here."
"I'll never do it again."
"Yes you will. In a way, you're right, it IS your culture. You were taught violence the same way you are teaching them violence. A cycle of violence. I know it's hard to escape."

This evening I take a different route home. It's becoming fall, and like autumn back home, the lazy red sun sits heavy on the horizon. I lean against the narrow bridge to Siphofaneni, drink in hand. There's something about holding a glass bottle that makes me feel masculine. Powerful. Leaning against metal, one hand in my pocket, the other taking swigs of this bittersweet ginger beer. Cool and casual. Sun in my eyes. And that fucking sunset. There's something about a sunset that cheers you up when you are low and celebrates with you when you are happy. I know this sun. I remember her face. It's been almost a year now since I've seen it. Coming back to Africa ten months ago, sitting alone outside my training family's homestead, and that smiling African autumn sun whispering to me, "Welcome back Meredith."

I stand alone in this rapidly fading twilight. I watch people pass gawking, laughing, and proposing to me. Not understanding their shared words fully, just recognizing their shared wide eyes and groans. Their nods and sighs in the typical appropriate places. I don't need to understand their language, their mannerisms say enough. Sharp pins of light in their smiling wrinkled faces as they pass. I watch the sun's fire reflect sizzles and waves against the river's dark blue edge. A power-line hangs across the water and a kingfisher sits backlit against the sun. I watch him watching the bubbling water below. Searching for his dinner. Only a meal on his mind. He has no idea about culture and AIDS, History or Gender. About the things I think about everyday. His ignorance becomes my comfort. I think of the small things that bring me comfort here. The assurance that there will always be fat happy cats sleeping outside the butcher shop. Seeing a MAN holding his child and smiling. A lucky dog sticking his head out the passenger side window. A mother goat standing between me and her newborn, horns down and ready to defend. My pups growing bigger and bigger, smiling up at me by my side as we take our evenings walks.

I join a gym, in town, to work out these everyday frustrations with "them". Big African men lifting weights are eager to show me "how it's done".

"What is your name?" They grunt.
"Simphiwe." I say.
They laugh. "Good name."
I turn to leave, but stop.
"Actually. No. It's not Simphiwe. My name is Meredith.... You can call me Meredith."
"Merey di eff?"
"We'll work on it later." I laugh. "For now, can you show me where the big punching bag is?"