Shop with the Red Rhinos!

In light of the Red Rhinos’ recent success, I feel suddenly inspired to promote their blossoming business wherever possible.  Some of you have suggested we set up an online site where the women can sell their goods abroad, but considering the general lack of wifi in this godforsaken Kingdom, exorbitant shipping costs, and the overall mystery that is the African postal system, I don’t see that happening in the near future.  BUT, today I’m presenting you with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shop with the Red Rhinos.  On April 4, my father and grandmother arrive in Swaziland and have agreed to transport goods back to the States for those of you who are interested.  Here’s how this will work for those of you pining for some African bling: I will post photos for the items for sale.  You shoot me an email at kefreeman9@gmail.com with your order.  Each product is individually crafted, so if you specify the general color scheme/pattern you’re looking for, I’ll do my best to pick out something that matches your request. You send money to my lovely sales reps (Cali folks, this means my mom, dad, or grandma.  ATL folks, this means the beautiful Megan Freeman).  You can expect to get your goods in mid-April upon my dad and grandmas’ return to Amurica.  I am hoping to purchase the goods on March 14, when I travel with Busi and Ivy (Red Rhino co-MVPs) to meet the group of women who are actually making the goods.  We will still accept orders up until April 4, but if possible, I would love to receive them by March 13. 

For those who need a refresher on the history of Red Rhinos:  The Red Rhinos are composed of seven women from a rural Swazi community that serves host to the nation’s most esteemed Safari Game Reserve.  The Red Rhinos have partnered with Bambanani, a group of skilled artisans from the south of Swaziland that lack a local market to sell their goods.  The constant flux of tourists through our community makes it the ideal location for a market.  Both Bambanani and the Red Rhinos are composed to women who play active roles in the community, volunteering as caregivers to serve the sick, elderly, and orphaned.  Caregivers are uncompensated and the women often use their own money to purchase soap, gloves, adult diapers, and food for the families they serve.  Many of my women are involved with the community HIV support group and lead their peers in exemplifying the meaning of “positive living.”  These women lack a reliable source of income, so this business partnership provides them with the means to purchase more nutritious food for their families, pay medical fees, and send their children to school.  This business has empowered the women from both groups to take ownership of their own lives and enables them to continue to serve their communities as volunteers. 

That being said, here’s what we’re offering:

More shots of the bags featured above - all are reversible and have different prints on the inside

Prices are as follows:

Earrings (woven and beaded): $5

Double-stranded bracelet: $5

Necklaces: $7

E-reader bag: $10

I-pad bag: $12

Bucket bag: $15

If you have a knack for rocking African jewelry, send me an email and we will hook you up!

Thank you all for your support! And special thanks to those who have listened graciously as I vented about this project and celebrated the revival of what I once thought was doomed to fail!

Life is Good

If you’d asked me 6 months ago what I’d miss most about Swaziland, I would have thought long and hard.  I probably would’ve responded with something vague: the sunsets and sunrises and the culture of greeting people.  I’m not sure whether it was the rejuvenating trip home that left me with a fresh perspective or the fact that everything came together over the course of the past week, but somehow I’m coming to realize that saying goodbye to these people and this place is going to be harder than I originally anticipated.  I fear that as my time here winds to an end and as I transition beyond this season of my life I’ll over-romanticize my experience.  I don’t want to forget the sleepless nights, the tearful phone calls home, and the days I nearly packed up and peaced out of Swaziland.  I want to remember those moments so that I can maintain a realistic vision of what development looks like on the ground, especially as I move towards a career in public health and international development.  But I also want to take a moment to celebrate how freaking AWESOME it feels when things finally fall into place, especially in light of all of the setbacks we had to overcome to get here.  The majority of this blog has documented the failures of my Peace Corps service, so today I’ll take advantage of the fact that there are actually some successes to report(!)  Here’s a taste of what’s been going on lately:

GLOW:  After attending training with my counterpart in January, our GLOW club is up and running this school year.  Somehow, we quickly went from zero teacher involvement to having three regular teacher counterparts who are sharing the responsibility of leading the club.  I played a much more instrumental role in club last year, but after watching and learning, these teachers are taking the lead.  Last week about 15 girls attended and learned about menstruation, a mystery to many of the young girls who are raised without a mother figure to help them navigate these major life changes.  When I see my GLOW girls in town or on the bus, they always ask whether I’ll be coming on Friday – it’s these little victories that make it all worth it. 

Library Project:  I won’t delve into the fiasco that it has been working with the administration at this school, but I will say that after purchasing the books five months ago, the new library stock is finally being put to good use.  Last March when we began working on this project, I presented the idea of a reading competition as an incentive to encourage the students to read.  Well, nearly a year later, the school is finally on board to get this thing rolling.  Last week they announced the competition to the school: “Last year Nosipho raised X amount of money from the American people to buy us books.  As part of her grant, she has to do a reading competition.  If we don’t do it, Peace Corps won’t let her go back to America in August.  Read books so she can go back.”  Not exactly how I anticipated the promotion to go, but it worked nonetheless!  Now during my career guidance classes, I find kids reading behind their notebooks instead of paying attention to me.  I guess I can’t complain too much…

Career Guidance:  The high school has now entrusted me with four Career Guidance classes, so I’m relishing the opportunity to mentor these students.  Some highlights from last week’s “getting to know you” complete-the-sentence activity:

-My favorite part of my body is…penis, vagina, my breasts, viginal (nice spelling, girl), and private parts (penis) (thanks for the clarification, buddy)

-When I get angry, I…will beat everyone

-I don’t like…rice because…it is asia food

-When I am sad, I like eating banana

-My weakness is…­stabbing people in the back

-My biggest threat is…fancy car, iphone, fiancé (Justin Beiber) (I think this got lost in translation somehow…)

Yesterday I mentored some young boys on how to release themselves from the grip of their “Sugar Mammas” – I’m changing lives over here, y’all.

Red Rhinos: 6 months later, I am ELATED to report that the Red Rhinos are finally taking off!  We still don’t have a consistent showing from all members, but we’re getting there.  Two of the members, Busi and Ivy, have inspired me with their commitment to this project, encouraging me to have faith in my moments of doubt.  Over the course of the past three weeks, at least one of them has been at the market every day, rain or shine.  They initially hid under the shade of a large acacia tree, not realizing that while the spot served as a refuge from the African sun, it also was not visible to tourists passing through.  The market is located at the pickup point for guests entering the game reserve, so most guests arrive early and park their cars in the dirt lot.  I have encouraged the ladies to move their goods out into the sun and closer to the lot.  It didn’t take long for them to realize that this relocation was well worth the heat.  I also made a sign using chalkboard paint on an old cardboard box and this seems to draw attention to the goods.  These two changes have led to a significant increase in business.  Last Thursday, the women sold nearly ALL of their stock and have sold at least one item every day since.   Upon witnessing their success, the rest of the members now have a sudden interest in the business.   To celebrate our recent success, we will start building a permanent structure next week.  Words don’t do justice to how awesome it feels to see this come together.  I am so encouraged by Busi and Ivy’s faith in this business.  They have picked me up when I was on the verge of abandoning the project and I could not be happier that they are finally witnessing the fruits of their labor – they deserve it!

Ivy

Busi and her son, Mcawe

It feels really good to be at a point where the cancelled meetings, endless excuses, and hours spent waiting finally seem worth it.  I’m thankful that I heeded the advice of the second year volunteers that claimed that Year 2 is what makes your service.  I’m starting to really grasp why Peace Corps is a two year commitment – it takes a significant amount of time and effort to truly integrate into a community and to gain the trust and respect of your work partners.  Over time, I’ve slowly expanded my network and understanding of the ins and outs of the community.  I will always be an outsider, but right now I feel about as “in” as I can hope for.  I recently found myself caught in the throws of family drama – it doesn’t get more integrated than that.  So, things are looking up as I approach the final months of my service.  I know that there will still be roadblocks ahead, but right now I’m savoring this success.

Inspiration

I thought I'd take the chance to share some of the words of wisdom that have helped to center me throughout the ups and downs of my service: 

"I wanted you to see something about her - I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.  It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." - Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language.  Do not now look for answers.  They cannot be given to you because you could not live them.  It is a question of experiencing everything. At present, you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day." - Rainer Maria Rilke

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs; who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt 

"Patience is a virile virtue; it does not mean lying down under affliction, but standing up under it and marching on."   -Walter Lowrie 

"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'" -Jeremiah 29:11

When Life Gets In the Way

Last June, as I bore the brunt of my “mid-service crisis,” I found solace in the lyrics of Sugarland, my country music obsession at the time.  For those of you who haven’t listened closely to the wisdom of the song It Happens, let me fill you in:

Ain’t no rhyme or reason

No complicated meaning

Ain’t no need to overthink it

Let go laughing

Life don’t go quite as you planned it

We try so hard to understand it

The irrefutable, indisputable fact is

Sh** happens

 I quickly adopted this as my personal Peace Corps anthem.  It spoke to my failure to accomplish even the simplest of tasks as planned.  The phrase “going off without a hitch” does not apply in Swaziland.  Mop floor and chickens come in and poop on it: fail.  Attempt to run 10 miles, reach turn around point, proceed to poop myself: fail (sh** literally happened).  Non-poop related examples: plan meeting, no one shows up: fail.  Train counterpart on female empowerment and husband refuses to let her attend camp in May: fail.  I could go on, but I’ll spare you.  I think you get the point: things rarely go as planned over here.  In fact, if you look at the majority of my work here from a monitoring and evaluation point of view, you could pretty much mark a big, red “F” on my entire service.  I’ve spent plenty of time sulking over the failures and frustrations, but I’m coming to accept them as part of the process.  Sure, some projects don’t work out because they were poorly designed or implemented.  But more often than not, life simply gets in the way. 

            Since last August, I’ve been trying to get the Red Rhino handicraft market up and running with a group of women.  God bless my family and fellow volunteers for sitting through hours of my rants about this disaster of a project.  I could fill a novel with the complications we’ve faced in getting this project off the ground, but for now here are some examples of excuses I’ve received for why they couldn’t meet or work on a particular day:

• Government-issued mandate that they drop everything to assist in the construction of a fence along the paved road to prevent cows from interfering with traffic (not sure if this is intended to protect the cows, cars, or human lives that have been victim to traffic accidents)
• Traditional dance practice for the King’s visit
• Government-sponsored field trip to “marula festival” – aka raging kegger with water tanks full of booze made from the seasonal marula fruit

Sure, some of these excuses seem a bit absurd, albeit legitimate.   These are the more outlandish “one-time” excuses that seem to occur semi-regular basis.  More powerful, though, are the near-daily excuses.  On any given day, its safe to say that at least two of the women will be sick or caring for a sick relative, one will be on husband-imposed house arrest to attend basic “womanly” housekeeping duties, one will be at the clinic to take her ARVs and test her CD4 count, and one will either be preparing for or recovering from a funeral.  That’s what I mean by life getting in the way.  Being raised in Western society where work often takes precedence over other obligations, including self-care, I was initially overwhelmed and exhausted by the constant stream of excuses.  Selfishly, I viewed them as an inconvenience and obstacles in my quest to feel successful.  In knew that true success lay in the relationships, but my hard-wired need to feel productive often interfered with my empathy towards these realities as acceptable excuses.  I struggle to know when to push these women to put forth more effort and when to simply take a step back and acknowledge their troubles.  I am blessed that my greatest hardship today was the loss of my fan’s functionality.  As I sit here at 4:30 am on a Sunday morning, I hear singing from yet another funeral night vigil in the distance.  Yesterday, I comforted a close friend who was receiving anonymous SMS death threats in response to rumors circling about her daughters’ alleged abortion.  A few weeks ago, I spent the morning at the local police station, bidding farewell to one of my closest friends and counterpart whose failed marriage with a Swazi had resulted in family drama, which ultimately led to his deportation back to his home country of Nigeria.  So yes, as Sugarland so clearly articulates, the irrefutable, indisputable fact is, sh** happens.  Although too often sh** is synonymous with life over here. 

This isn’t in any way to suggest that life isn’t complicated Stateside, because it most certainly is.  Sure, the nature of life’s complications differ between the two countries, but perhaps the more marked difference is in our response to life’s roadblocks.  In America, we often immerse ourselves in work to mask our personal or family troubles.  It serves as a welcome distraction and an outlet for our need to feel useful and successful.  We often work through the sickness and the heartbreak and we are quick to sacrifice sleep, self-care, and sometimes relationships in order to fulfill our obligations to our jobs or our schoolwork.  In our eyes, not playing through the pain is often equated to lack of work ethic or dedication.  It’s hard to shake that mentality, especially when my work is so intertwined with the lives of those whose lives are far more complicated than mine.  If a counterpart takes off to assist distant relatives in funeral preparations for a week, our plans get cancelled and I am left facing a weeklong One Tree Hill Marathon.  The cumulative effect of these setbacks gets discouraging, but after 18 months of selfishly allowing the constant stream of excuses and interferences to eat at me, I’m coming to view it in a different light.  Yes, when life gets in the way, it impedes progress.  Progress in the traditional sense, that it.  But on the contrary, I think us Westerners have a lot to learn from Swazis.  Family comes first for them, and if a family member suffers, they are quick to drop everything to ensure that they don’t suffer alone.   They truly live out God’s call for us to exist in community and while this community is certainly not devoid of finger pointing, shame, and pettiness, their reliance on each other is indeed beautiful.  I’m gradually coming to realize that sometimes its okay to let life get in the way.  I’m finding that my role is to walk with my Swazi friends as they navigate these setbacks.  This has proven to be significantly more fruitful and fulfilling than nagging to continue our work.  That is why I am here.  That’s why we’re all here.  I’m not saying quit your jobs and make it your personal mission to accompany all your friends to their annual mammograms, but I am saying that sometimes we need to take a step back and reevaluate our priorities and learn when it’s okay to let life get in the way.  Maybe that means making yourself available to a friend in need or maybe it means opening yourself up to be loved on.  If that fails, turn on some Sugarland.     

I'll leave you with a glimpse of my life lately:

my lil' Valentine enjoying cupcakes with blue frosting

hard at work at the market...

polar vortex?