Buses and Culture Clash

My parents always told me growing up that what mattered was not what you had done, it was how you handled the situation. This brings me to the biggest cultural challenge I faced this week: American call to action versus Swazi sense of passivity.

Today, 17 September, I had arranged to meet some friends in town. I would take the 11:00 bus in and arrive around 11:45. We would hang out, shop for groceries, and have a good time. I got to my bus stop at 10:30 just to be sure I didn’t miss the bus. 11:00 came and went, as did 11:15 and 11:30. I had given up hope on the 11:00 bus and planned instead to arrive late and take the 1:00 bus. Since I was planning to catch the 3:30 bus home, this would not be a problem. 1:00 came and went, as did 1:15 and 1:30. It became clear that this bus was not coming either. The Swazis waiting at the stop with me said they would wait for the 4:00 bus and try to go to town then. I went home, figuring that 3 hours was long enough to wait for a bus and knowing that the next bus to come was the one that I was planning on catching back from town.

If this happened in America, the person responsible would be fired. Angry consumers would call the company, write critical reviews on the internet, and maybe a letter to the editor of the local paper. The bus driver or company would be held accountable for the mistake, and it most likely would not happen again. Americans have a lot of control in the delivery and quality of goods and services, and we are not afraid to exercise that control through any medium we can.

In Swaziland, the Swazis shrug it off. When I asked the people at the stop if we could call the bus conductor, they laughed. When I asked if we could call a khumbi (a 15-seater van) to hire it, they said that they would rather just wait for the bus coming in 2.5 hours, even though the cost is the same. Swazis have a sense of passivity about them that is really frustrating to me at times.

I think that what it comes down to is a mindset that is based in culture. Americans feel very strongly that we have control in what happens in our day-to-day lives. We understand saving money for tomorrow because we are pretty much guaranteed a tomorrow. We live for our futures and the futures of our children. If a product is not quality, we write a review that will turn other consumers away. If food makes us sick or doctors make mistakes, we can sue for damages. If a car accident happens and it is the fault of the other driver, he or she has to pay for our repairs. If we get robbed, we call the police, who respond quickly and are ready to help.

Swaziland, like much of Sub-Saharan Africa, is different. There is an expression here: “Tomorrow is a lie.” When 31% of your country has HIV, and 80% of the people who have HIV also have TB, and you have a life expectancy in the 30s, there is a feeling of a loss of control. HIV, TB, malaria, dysentery, dehydration, injury, animal attack, yellow fever, and drunk bus drivers could end your life at any time. There is no point saving for tomorrow, because it’s not very likely that tomorrow will happen for you. There is no point worrying about the future of your children, because HIV or diarrheal diseases claim many of them before their fifth birthdays. When products or services are subpar, it doesn’t matter here, because not having control of your health makes you feel like you have no control over any part of your life. Tomorrow is a lie, so what does it matter if the bus comes today or not? I may not need those groceries I was going to buy.

The lack of control, particularly over health, became painfully apparent to me this week. I have been going door-to-door conducting a survey to get a picture of the community I am serving. At one of the homesteads, I found something that broke my heart. A gogo (grandmother) was sitting on the floor of her mud hut. She spoke no English, and kept asking my Swazi counterpart if I could do anything to help her. Her whole family died of malaria last year, so she lives alone. She had broken her ankle, and the bone was clearly visible. She couldn’t walk to get to the far away clinic or bus stop, and she couldn’t get food. She was eating the dirt to prevent herself from starving to death. I had no medicine, food, or medical training. There was nothing I could do to help her, and I had to walk away from her hut knowing that she will die of starvation within the next few weeks. I got back to my hut and cried.

There is a lot of work to be done here. I think that an attitude shift will lead to better health, so I hope to do a lot of work in that area. I had a family tell me that they couldn’t have a garden because they don’t have a Jojo tank and they have to walk to get water. They then told me they were starving. Instead of learning another way to store water or thinking to put the garden in the shade where it would need less water, they did not garden at all. Critical thinking and drive are lacking here. I think what this village needs is a motivated, driven, analytical, and facilitative American to turn things around. I sincerely hope that I am up to the challenge.

The Work Begins

I’ve officially been at my site for 2 weeks now, and the work is beginning. Over the next three months, Peace Corps has given us a list of things we need to do. This week I started on the homestead survey, which involves going door to door and asking a series of questions. The idea is that we’ll begin to understand the needs of our community, as well as being visible and forming relationships.

My community has 4 neighborhoods, and I started my survey with the one that is farthest from me. It has homesteads right up to the fence that separates Swaziland from Mozambique, and is a long walk from the last stop on the bus route. Of the 55 homes I have surveyed out there so far, not a single one has electricity or a water tap on the property. They all share 1 community tap. I found only 2 homesteads with cars, and only about half have a pit latrine. Less than half have a radio. Sadly, less than a quarter have a vegetable garden. This is the poorest neighborhood in the village. Of all of the people in all of the homesteads, I found only 5 that finished school and 2 that were employed. Almost every homestead had someone who asked me for money, a job, or unspecified help.

The hardest part for me was seeing the available resources that were not being used. World Vision has given almost every homestead a large Jojo tank for water, and almost all of them were lying on their sides unused. No one was harvesting rainwater, which would be a good thing to do if you have no access to a tap. Many homesteads talked about the scarcity of food, but do not have gardens or fields of any kind. The same goes for employment – I saw women making grass mats, and some people getting ready to plow, but they do not sell their products. It was baffling to me.

I also saw a few people who were very ill. One was an old gogo (grandmother) who had a severely injured ankle. You could see the bone where the skin was scraped off. She asked me if I was a doctor and pleaded for medicine. I could do nothing for her – I am not a doctor, and even though I have medicine, handing it out would set a precedent and expectations that I cannot maintain throughout my service. I had to just thank her for her time and walk away. That was brutal.

Most of the homesteads were mud huts with thatched roofs. This was all very shocking to me, as the neighborhood I live in does not look like this at all. Most of the huts in my area are concrete, everyone has a garden, the schools are in okay shape, and children are not exhibiting obvious signs of malnutrition. It’s clear where the previous volunteers have focused their work, and where they did not. I know that the neighborhood farthest from me needs help, and I hope to conduct gardening workshops out there.

The challenges of working out there are huge. Due to the lack of education, almost no one speaks English. Few can read and write. If I walk, it will take almost 2 hours each way to get out there. If I have to ride the bus out there every day, I will run through my money more quickly than I care to. The biggest challenge of all, however, is in the attitudes. In my neighborhood, the people are motivated. They remember the previous volunteers and are ready to work. In the far neighborhood, people would rather sit unemployed and wait for me to do something for them than take charge of their own lives. They want me to fund gardens, but they do not want to actually do the gardening themselves. They want me to give them money, build them houses, give them medicine, and change their lives, but they lack the desire to be active participants in the process. Getting this community up and moving is going to be a huge challenge, and I hope that it is a feasible one to overcome.

I’m sure there are challenges in the other neighborhoods as well, but I haven’t surveyed there yet. The work continues this week. I’ll keep you posted!

My New Home

I know that it has been a long time since my last post, but things got very busy these past few weeks (and internet became very scarce). On 27 August, I had my last session as a Peace Corps Trainee (PCT). On 29 August, all of Group 11 (G11) was sworn in as Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs). On 30 August, all the newest PCVs were moved into our permanent sites, where we will live for the next 2 years.

For security reasons, I cannot post the name of my permanent site on the blog. I live near a larger town called Siteki, and I am right on the border of Mozambique. I live on the plateau in the Lubombo region, so the weather here is pretty interesting. My wall thermometer tells me that it gets below 50^oF at night, and not above 75^oF during the day. As we roll into summer, I know that will change, and it will get hotter.

If you were to picture Africa in your head, that’s probably what my site looks like. We have the tall brown grass, scattered few acacia trees, and the biggest sky imaginable. The mountains of Mozambique lie in the east, and the valley of Lubombo lies in the west. The views are incredible.

The wildlife is also quite cool. Though I have primarily been fascinated by the plants, the animals are nice too. Except the snakes. I saw a black mamba today. My Swazi counterpart, Nombuso, kept me from getting too close without seeing it, and then she laughed at me as I got freaked out until it slithered away. Make no mistake, folks, that was one big, deadly, scary snake.

My village has about 3,000 people and 410 homesteads at last count. I would classify it as peri-urban, not as rural. My community seems very motivated and excited to have me. I am the third PCV to be here, so they know a fair amount about what we do and how we work.

We have a high number of orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs), as well as many child-headed households. We have a preschool, a primary school, and a secondary school. We have 4 neighborhoods, and each neighborhood has a Neighborhood Care Point (NCP), which is a school and food center for OVCs. We have a clinic, 2 small shops, 2 small markets, and somewhat-regular buses. It’s a nice place to live and work so far.

The question from home that I have come to dread is: “So what exactly is it that you do?” Family and friends, I do not have an answer to that yet. For the next three months, I am in a period of time called integration. I will conduct a community assessment, which includes a homestead survey (census at each homestead), school surveys, teacher surveys, job shadowing, community mapping, listing of daily schedules, creation of seasonal calendars, key informant interviews with community leaders, and much more. Once I have an understanding of the issues facing my community, as well as an understanding of how my community prioritizes those issues, I will develop a project proposal and begin work. Only then will I have the answer to that question.

So far, I have not had any overwhelming moments of loneliness while at site. Pre-service training (PST) was harder for me emotionally than this has been. My hut needs a bit of work, so that will be a project for the next few weeks. After some new curtains, paint, furniture, and decorations, this will be a perfect home for me. I am so happy with my placement, and I see myself finding a way to live and work peacefully and happily here for the next two years. I will have bad days and bad times, but I will also have good ones, and that is what I’ll focus on.

I’ll do my best to keep you all more updated, but while I’m settling and moving and doing all that sort of thing, I’ll probably not be able to get to town to access the internet much. Not hearing from me is not a bad thing – it means that I’m busy at my site and I’m having a good time!