Airport Reflections

I’ve been travelling on airplanes since before I could walk.  At the age of seven I took my first flight alone.  I’ve been blessed with a family who has the means and passion to see the world.  My mom knew the moment that I left for college that I wouldn’t be back.  Throughout college volleyball season, we travelled nearly every other weekend, logging quality hours in the C terminal of the Atlanta airport, spending our entire meal per diem on Swedish fish and trail mix from The Grove.  I spent most summers during college traipsing around Latin America studying Spanish or volunteering.  Six weeks after graduating college, I boarded a plane to Swaziland.  At the airport, my mom dropped me off at the curb, hugged me goodbye, and drove off.  Needless to say, I have been beyond blessed that travel has been such a monumental, yet routine, aspect of my life. 

            For most Swazis, travel is a luxury few can afford.  In a country the size of New Jersey, many have not travelled outside the border into neighboring South Africa.  I am regularly asked which khumbi (mini-bus) I take to America.  As I explain the logistics of travel to America, I receive the same response: pointing to the sky as they gaze into the clouds, “Hawu!  18 hours?  Up there?  Above the clouds?  Will you hit a mountain?  Hawu!”  For many of the people I interact with regularly, their world spans only as wide as the community. 

            So, it goes without saying, that a trip to the airport is a pretty big deal around here.  Schools take field trips to the airport just to watch the planes take off.  I only just recently grasped the novelty of travel for Swazis as I joined my host family to bid farewell to my host brother who will be studying in Taiwan for the next four years.  As my alarm went off at 5:00 am on the morning of his departure, I contemplated forming some sort of excuse (a “very important meeting”…with my bed, a warm cup of coffee, and some episodes of New Girl…).  What difference would a goodbye make if it were at our homestead or at the airport?  Reluctantly, I dragged myself out of bed and piled into the backseat of the car with my Babe and sisi.  We arrived at the airport to find my bhuti, dressed in a fresh new outfit and looking more confident than ever, surrounded by the rest of the extended families who greeted us with tears in their eyes.  The actual goodbye was anticlimactic, as my family is relatively unsentimental, a stark contrast from most overly dramatic Swazis. 

            The true beauty of the event came as we stepped outside to join the other families watch the plane take off.  I can’t ever remember being fascinated with observing this process.  To me, it was just something that happened, planes were a means of travel from point A to B, but the journey in itself was nothing worthy of admiration.  As I stood among the crowds of extended family members, church pastors, teachers, and coaches who had come to this monumental sendoff, I realized how blessed I am to take travel for granted. People stood on benches to glimpse over the crowds of people huddling around the lookout area.  As the passengers stepped out onto the airstrip, they waved to the crowd, who erupted into cheers and cries of praise.  As the plane slowly started its way down the runway to turn around, the crowd followed intently, and family members disputed which route it would take to Johannesburg and whether or not it would turn around to take off.  The moment the wheels left the ground, the true commotion began as women began crying out songs of praise to their loved ones and then men waved vigorously, fighting to hold back tears.  Words don’t do justice to the beauty of the moment and I felt blessed to be a part of it.   My eyes filled with tears as I recognized the implications of this departure.  For those fortunate few inside the plane, this marked the beginning of a new life, a life beyond the confines of their small Kingdom and most likely a ticket out of poverty.  For those left behind, it meant the loss of their loved ones as they remained behind, returning to their small worlds within the limits of their chiefdoms.  I feel that often we, as Americans, fail to celebrate these monumental life transitions.  Sure, we host the obligatory baby shower and bring miniature Converse shoes or designer car seats, but we don’t freely sing out joyous praises or wail in the misery of a goodbye.  I often complain that those that I work with here make a big deal about the things that don’t really matter (i.e. washing your clothes with the proper technique) and fail to prioritize those things that, in my eyes, do matter (i.e. attending the business workshop that will teach you how to make money).  In this case, however, Swazis have it right.  Their ability to fully feel with every ounce of their being is both inspiring and terrifying and I think we would all benefit from occasionally allowing ourselves to let our emotions take over without restriction.  So next time you board an airplane, remember how blessed you are that your world is bigger than your hometown.  And remember that it’s okay to celebrate those monumental moments in your life.  And its okay to celebrate those moments that aren’t so monumental too.  Like when a meeting I plan actually begins on time, or when the kids at the school call me “sisi Nosipho” instead of “umlungu.”  If my time in Swaziland has taught me anything, it has been that life is much more fruitful when you celebrate the simple, everyday victories.

The days following my bhuti’s departure have been filled with much discussion of the time difference between Swaziland and Taiwan.  Nearly every day I receive a knock at my door from my sisi asking, “Nosipho, Make is wondering what is the time in China?”  Every day when I return home, Make and Babe greet me on the porch with a discussion of what my bhuti is doing at that moment, what the weather is like in Taiwan, and whether my bhuti will have to subsist on a diet of frogs…

Making Moves...One Year In

As the first school term came to an end in early May, I gave myself an ultimatum: if I was still feeling equally as useless come the end of the second term (mid-August), I’d call it quits.  As a determined, goal-oriented person this was difficult to come to terms with.  Peace Corps had been my dream for so long and returning home early would haunt me for years.  However, I realized that my mental health was suffering and that if I was going to be depressed, I might as well do so comfortably, close to my family and while enjoying the luxuries of showers and washing machines.  Thankfully, it never came to that.  Here I am, second term complete, and finally feeling like myself again.  I’ve retired from my brief addiction to cowboy romance novels and have rediscovered my passion for non-fiction, my dreams have shifted from settling down in a quiet, rural community to traveling the world, and while I am counting down the days until my visit home in December, I am finally feeling content with my life here in Swaziland.  That doesn’t mean I don’t spend countless hours whatsapping with other volunteers about all the wonderful things we miss about America, but I am finally feeling that my time here is not a complete waste (if anything, I’m becoming well-read, logging some quality hours in my hammock, and finally catching up on all the movies and TV I’ve missed in the past 22 years of my life). 

            Within the past several months, many of the projects I’d been trying to get off the ground since January have finally fallen into place.  This by no means suggests that this falling into place has been smooth sailing, but it’s certainly a start.  Finally, one year later, I finally have an answer to “What are you doing in Swaziland?”  So, in an attempt to shed light on this mystery, here’s a bit on what I’ve been up to over the past few months:

• Library Project:  Thanks to generous donations from many of you, I’ve been working with the local high school to improve the functionality of the school library.  This experience has been an eye-opener, to say the least.  Students in the area have a choice of attending three different high schools, and Siphofaneni HS is by far the least competitive.  Among the 55 students in last year’s graduating class, only 3 of them had the grades that would even qualify them to apply to university.  Education is simply not valued in the community and this apathy towards learning permeates the attitudes of both students and teachers.  In an effort to inspire a culture of reading at the school, I have been working with the deputy (vice-principal) to transform the existing library into a space that would encourage students to become invested in learning.  The school currently has a beautiful library space, complete with tables, chairs and many shelves of books that have been donated from the States.  From a distance, the school appears well-off, library-wise.  Yet the majority of the donated books that fill the shelves are college-level textbooks.  Call me crazy, but kids who can barely get through Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys aren’t going to be fighting over who gets to check out Biochemical Engineering Volume 1 or The History of the State of Virginia…Through the generosity of friends and family at home, we have been purchasing a significant number of age- and content-appropriate reading material for the students.  Many of these books are short chapter books with illustrations that tell stories of African children with lives similar to their own.  Our hope is that these short stories would help foster a passion for reading as students will be able to relate to the characters in the books.  However, convincing the kids to choose reading over soccer is no small feat.  We still have a long way to go and will spend the next school term designing programs (reading competitions, class visits to the library, etc.) to encourage use of the new library books.  The money we raised was also used to purchase three computers, which were originally intended to be used to teach students internet-research skills.  The school had agreed to install internet as their contribution to the project, yet unsurprisingly this promise has yet to be fulfilled.  Thanks to rapid inflation over the period between when I applied for funding and when the grant was fully funded, we ended up with more money than we anticipated.  I’m hoping to purchase some educational computer games to install on these computers to prevent them from accumulating dust in a closet as the school waits for the arrival of internet.  The logistics of collecting the books and computers has been a bit of a nightmare and, in typical Swazi fashion, has taken two months longer than anticipated.  As school resumes for the third term in September, I’ll be working more closely with the librarian and teachers to ensure that the new resources are being fully taken advantage of.  Thank you to all who donated to this project – you are making a huge difference for these kids!
• Reading Club:  In conjunction with the library project, I’ve been working to start a reading club at the high school.  My American Gogo (thank you Gamby!) was generous enough to send about 15 copies of The Heaven Shop, a story about a Malawian girl and her struggle as she loses her parents to AIDS.  While attendance has been low and our meetings often cancelled due to a plethora of excuses (sports competitions, after-school meetings, cultural field trips, etc.), the few meetings that did actually take place were relatively successful.  The students seem to be enjoying the story and have begged me for permission to take the books home.  They returned the following week having already completed the book and even the macho older boys reported that “it was a touching story.”  The other teachers see the club as a failure due to the low attendance, but to me it seems worth it for the impact that it has on the five students who do attend.  I’m hoping to encourage more teacher participation in the club during the next term in an effort to make this club sustainable, although I have a feeling that this may be one of those things that I’ll have to accept will cease to exist when I leave.  However, for the next year I’ll keep on pushing for it.
• Life Skills Classes: Since January, I have been hounding the principal of the high school to allow me to teach life skills, yet he has always dismissed the idea, asking me to come back the following week.  Finally, one day in June, he pulls me into his office and begins to enthusiastically share with me his brilliant idea to “fully utilize me as a resource” by placing me in the classroom to teach life skills.  Conveniently these also happen to be his classes, which he has failed to teach all year, leaving the kids with a free period to flirt and goof off.  Whatever, I don’t care if he’s buttering me up and pawning off his work on me, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to work with the kids.  I’m teaching three classes of “Career Guidance” at the high school.  While it has been a fiasco trying to find a teacher that can tell me which day on the ever-changing, rotating schedule I will be teaching, it has been a blessing to have a chance to interact with the kids, who are much more malleable and eager to learn. 
• GLOW Club: entry coming soon with more about GLOW
• Condom Distribution:  When I got my assignment to be an “HIV/AIDS Community Health Educator,” this is exactly what I envisioned future life – toting around the big black penis model and tossing out condoms like confetti on a parade float.  Too shy to do so alone, I have been working with another volunteer who lives close by to distribute condoms throughout our local shopping town.  We’ve only done so a couple times and plan to resume a more regular schedule in September.  My friend, Christine, is fearless and on our first outing we headed straight for the sketchy part of town where all the locals hang out and drink, joining drunk old men and women as they gathered in mud huts and downed cup after cup of putrid-smelling maize beer.  Handing out condoms like candy may not have been the most effective means of sex education, but it was good for some laughs to say the least.  You know things have changed when your texts with your friend read, “Hey, can you bring the vagina model today?” or “How many boxes of condoms should I bring with me?” As we move forward, we’re planning on having a more structured plan to distribute boxes of condoms to local bars and restaurants and to couple this distribution with education sessions with the help of a local Swazi counterpart.  I’m excited to see where this leads and am thankful for the opportunity to work more closely with Christine, who has become a close friend. 
  
• Handicraft Market Project:  In my last entry, I used the handicraft market project as a representation of the speed of progress here.  And yes, the saga continues.  Since I last wrote, here’s what has been going on.  After finally gaining ownership of the land, the next step is to hold a three-day workshop to teach bomake some basic business skills.  I had originally been counting on bringing in a local NGO to do the teachings, but recently discovered that they lack funding to do so.  So, Plan B: frantically scour the Peace Corps office for any income generating manuals in an effort to teach myself as much as possible about running a business in order to fool the women into believing that I know what I’m doing.  Thanks to help from my dad (the recent graduate and business guru), PC staff, and the internet, I think I’m in a place where I can at least convince bomake that I have an inkling of an idea of how to run a business… Next issue: setting a date for the workshop.  Every year, Swaziland hosts its biggest holiday, the Reed Dance, during which scantily-clad young virgins spend a week trekking across Swaziland to cut a reed to deliver to the King (I seriously need to brush up on my Swazi cultural history…that was an embarrassingly poor description of the event).  One of the members of our group is a member of the inner council and may or may not have to accompany the girls on their journey.  So, not only are we unsure of whether this lady will be able to attend the workshop, we are also unsure of the official date of the Reed Dance, which was announced a mere two weeks prior to the event.  As of now, our workshop is planned for the first week in September, giving me a good amount of time to read up on the logistics of starting a business.  In preparation for the workshop, I’ve been meeting with the women to teach them how to make their own personal budgets, hoping to instill some basic financial management skills.  During one lesson I asked them to write down their financial goals.  One woman responded, “What should I do if I can’t write?”  Needless to say, we’ve got a long way to go, but I’m excited to watch these women grow throughout our journey.
  

When I write it all out, it looks like I’m doing a lot.  For the last two weeks of school break, I have been enjoying a rigorous routine of running, reading in the hammock, watching an entire season of New Girl in one sitting, reading some more, replaying the singing scenes of Pitch Perfect with my sisi, whatsapping with Jami about sustainable agriculture and the top 20 cities to meet men in your twenties, and then reading some more.  As the third term of school begins, I am ready to gear up for actual busyness, something I have yet to experience during my time here.  Life here is still full of ups and downs and vacillating feelings of hopefulness and hopelessness.  Yesterday, the women for the handicraft market cancelled the workshop for the third time.  Yet, this morning a Portuguese man from the European Union agreed to fund a World AIDS Day Event that I’m planning with some other volunteers.  Each day brings new challenges and unexpected victories, often back to back.  Cancelled meetings and disappointments will never get easier, but the tide seems to be turning as I head into Year 2. 

Daily Life in Photos

As usual I have failed to write up an entry prior to coming to town with internet.  Of course now that I'm here the internet is fantastic, so I thought I'd take the chance to upload some photos of daily life in community.

May-July is sugar cane harvesting season in my community, meaning these huge trucks come barreling down the dirt road outside my hut until early in the morning.  While I won't miss the dust and noise, I love watching the neighborhood kids chase after the trucks in hopes of snagging a lose piece of sugar cane.  After school, all of the school kids can be found climbing around the empty trucks scavenging for scraps.

Study sessions in the back of the pickup

Proud landowners of land for our handicraft market

riding in the back of pickups

soaking in the beauty

teaching volleyball lessons at an orphanage in northern Swaziland

photoshoot with Make waSlindile and Basanda

morning prayer at the high school

I promise an update in the near future about what's been going on, including Emily's visit :) 

Redefining SLOW

I realize that the majority of my infrequent updates have involved some mention of the slow pace of progress here in Swaziland.  So, what exactly does slow really mean, you may wonder?  Swaziland, as with many developing nations, takes the term slow to a whole new level.  In order to illustrate the pace of progress here, I thought it best to provide a basic timeline for one of the projects I am currently working on.

            As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, my community is located adjacent to Swaziland’s most luxurious game reserve.  This results in an influx of foreigners (typically white) coming through the area.  They park their cars next to a local shop located right off the main road.  From here, they load into safari vehicles and head into the bush in search of rhinos, giraffes, elephants, lions, and whatever other creatures exist in the mysterious abyss of game reserve located so close to my home.  Historically, this pickup point near the shop has become a hotspot for begging, which has only been reinforced by tourists who arrive bearing foreign candy and large bills of money that they nonchalantly distribute to fortunate passer-bys.  This, combined with a history of handout-based aid programs, has fostered an attitude of dependence and an expectation that foreigners will provide for the needs of the community, without any contribution or effort on the part of the local residents.  Not only does this make my life miserable, as many of my most beautiful interactions with locals have been tainted by the inevitable request for money, food, school fees, etc., but it also halts the development of the community as people rely on NGO and foreign aid, rather than taking ownership of their own development. 

            In an effort to combat the detrimental impact of candy and cash-bearing tourists, I have been working to establish a market at the pickup point for the game reserve.   Here, community members could sell handicrafts to tourists entering the game reserve or passing by on the main road leading to South Africa.  Ideally, this would give tourists an outlet for their spare cash and would reinforce an entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic.  I had been pondering this idea for quite some time, yet my lack of creativity and handicraft expertise had held me back from acting on it.  Earlier this year, I consulted with another volunteer who has been working with a group of women with a well-established handicraft business.  Gail, the volunteer, often brought their beautiful jewelry, made of recycled magazines, to large Peace Corps gatherings to sell to other volunteers.  Gail suggested that rather than go through the lengthy process of creating a quality product, I should gather a group of women to sell the products that her boMake (women) were producing.  Her boMake lacked a stable market and my boMake would be able to make a quick profit.  So, finally around mid-June, Gail and I decided to put this plan into action.  Here’s an overview of how the project has unfolded thus far:

• June 22: Discuss logistics with Gail and gather a sampling of necklaces, earrings, and handbags to show to my boMake to get them excited.
• June 23: Return to community and discuss ideas with Make WaSlindile (my neighbor/BFF).  I assign her the responsibility of identifying a total of 6 women (herself included) to take part in our business.  We decided that members must be reliable and also have a legitimate need for the additional income to cover their medical costs and food for themselves and their families. 
• June 24: Begin the two-week process of identifying who owns the land on which we are hoping to build our market.  This involves multiple inquiries to the local shop owner for the contact information for the manager of the game park.  When this fails, I resort to daily visits to the pickup point in hopes of asking one of the guides as they come to gather their guests.  Two weeks later, I finally have an email address.
• June 26: Spend the afternoon sitting on water jugs (aka chairs) under an acacia tree with three of the women who we will be working with.  As I explain to them a bit more about how the purpose of the business is to provide them with money for transport to the local clinic and for food to take with their ARVS, their eyes begin to fill with hope.  They spend the rest of the afternoon in a dreamlike trance as they discuss how wonderful it will be when they can afford to eat fruit everyday.  This is the most enthusiasm I have witnessed from Swazis in my community, with the exception of when they are discussing meat or soccer.  I want so badly to get excited at this point, but am wary of doing so, knowing that the probability of this project failing due to unanticipated setbacks is about 50/50.
• July 3: Receive an email response from the director of tourism for the game park informing me that the land does not belong to the game reserve, but rather to the community elders, from whom we will need to ask permission to use the land.  Thus begins the fun of dealing with the inner council… 
• July 6: Contact the bucopho (director of development for the community) to request a meeting with the inner council.  Protocol requires us to first contact bucopho, who will serve as our liason to the inner council, who control all affairs of the community.  Bucopho tells us to come the following Thursday.
• July 11: After clearing my schedule for Thursday, I wake up in the morning to rain.  Yes, it is dry season and it hasn’t rained since May.  Meeting cancelled.  Try again Saturday.
• July 13:  Get a call that morning telling me that the inner council can’t fit us in because another community group will be occupying the entire meeting time.  Try again next Thursday.
• July 18:  Finally, the day has come for us to face the inner council.  There are few things I dislike more than attending these meetings.  This day only reaffirmed my reasoning for this aversion.  The morning began with lots of hype from boMake, who insisted we leave promptly at 8:30 am.  In typical Swazi fashion, we left for the royal kraal around 8:45, walking at a snail’s pace to put us at the royal kraal, the community meeting point, around 9:30 am.  Inner council meetings always begin with a secretive meeting amongst the counselors, after which they begin to call in individuals, and finally conclude the occasion with a general community meeting, open to everyone.  The exclusive meeting of the counselors begins at 9 (more like 10…), so why we needed to arrive to early is beyond me.  Then comes the waiting.  This waiting exceeds the pain of any DMV experience you’ve ever had.  At least at the DMV you get to sit in chairs and understand the language.  As the inner council meets inside the community meeting structure, the commoners (us) are forced to wait on the ground outside.  Royal kraal rules require women to sit with their legs directly in front of them, which is no small feat for a Freeman who lacks any semblance of flexibility.  Let me tell you that tight hamstrings are not conducive for a pleasant royal kraal waiting experience.  The women are gathered under one tree, sitting uncomfortably on their sarongs laid on the ground, which is littered with thorns from the acacia trees.  Meanwhile, the men are free to sit on logs and spread their legs, sit cross-legged, or do whatever they damn well please.  So, I sit there amongst a group of women babbling in siSwati, hamstrings aching and thorns poking my butt through my sarong.  And then we wait…for 4 hours.  I pass the time making lists…lists of projects I want to do, lists of sounds unique to Swaziland, lists of all the foods I miss from America.  When I have exhausted my list-making capacity, I start to lose it.  Finally, around 1 pm we are called into the meeting with the rest of the community.  Bucopho stands to introduce us and our cause to the inner council, requesting permission for us to use the land for our market.  BoMake who accompanied me to translate stare at me blankly, failing to explain any of the conversation that has occurred entirely in siSwati.  Thankfully, I understand enough to know that bucopho has covered all the main points that we had hoped to discuss.  However, everyone stares at me expecting me to speak.  I had prepared a speech in siSwati beforehand, yet bucopho had already touched upon the points I had planned to make.  Confused, I stand and recite my speech anyways, which, as usual, incites laughter from the crowd.  Nothing like a white person speaking siSwati to get a chuckle out of Swazis.  What followed next, I’m not quite sure due to a sub-par performance of my translators, yet when the meeting finally lets out around 2, I am informed that we have been granted permission to use the land(!)  However, a simple granting of permission would have been far too easy.  In order to complete the process, we must meet several of the counselors on the actual land the following Wednesday…
• July 24:  When I woke up to a phone call informing me that boMake were already on their way to meet the counselors, 30 minutes early, I knew that today would be uncharacteristic of my experience thus far.  Swazis, early?  The world was being turned upside down.  We gathered at the local shop, waiting at the land where we hoped to build our market.  The inner counsel members arrived within 30 minutes of our designated meeting time.  We sat separately from the men, while bucopho ran back and forth, relaying messages to us from the inner council.  Yet again, my translators failed to explain what was occurring.  After 15 minutes of undecipherable negation, the members of the inner council invited us over to them as they began to map out the land that would soon be ours.  I’m still unclear of what all transpired that morning, yet I knew as I watched huge smiles transform the faces of boMake that something good had happened.  As the inner council members gathered into their truck to leave, boMake shook my hands vigorously, “Nosipho may God bless you!”  So, nearly a month later, we are official landowners! 

Hopefully this provides a glimpse of what slow really means.  This entire process was simply to gain ownership of the land and while this was a huge accomplishment, we still have a long road ahead.  At the end of August we will host a workshop to teach boMake basic business principles and saving techniques.  Hopefully, by mid-September we will be up and running, but I expect that unforeseen obstacles will likely set us back.  I’m learning to tap into a whole new well of patience.  This new pace of life and work has certainly been a difficult adjustment from my life in college, balancing schoolwork, volleyball, jobs, and social life.  While I am working on redefining productivity in terms of my life here, I still am unable to suppress my need to accomplish something on my own time.  I’ve been completing a marathon training plan in order to satisfy this need for productivity, which has helped me to take a more relaxed approach to my work.  However frustrating it may be to adjust to the pace of progress here, it is incredibly rewarding when things finally fall into place.  Over the past month, many of my projects have begun to come together, making the misery of the setbacks seem somewhat worth it.  Here’s to hoping the second half of my service continues to reveal the fruits of my patience…

Warning: This one is a bit of a downer...

Yet again, an unacceptable amount of time has passed between blog updates.  My bad… Truthfully, the reason for this extended silence has been my inability to put a positive spin on the fact that I have pretty much nothing to report.  I’ve put off updating my blog, not knowing exactly how to articulate my feelings over the past several months.  However, after reading a blog entry from a fellow Emory grad who is a PCV in Benin, I am encouraged to write honestly about my struggles, for therapy, if nothing else.  She does a much better job articulating, so I suggest you check out her blog as well (meginbenin.blogspot.com).  I’ve started many blog entries, only to abandon them; as if putting my feelings into words would somehow make it more real that life here just kinda sucks at the moment.  Now that that’s out there, I’ll elaborate. 

The beginning of this year was devoted largely to organizing the health fair, running around Swaziland to meet with various NGOs and government health officials, learning the ropes of grant writing, requesting permission from the inner council, and sorting out the logistics for the big event.  Despite some minor disasters (as expected), the event was a success.  Over 200 community members attended to hear presentations about non-communicable disease prevention and HIV.  About 100 of those community members tested for both HIV and diabetes.  Most importantly, despite much concern from community leaders over the quantity of food (specifically meat) that would be available, all attendees received a traditional Swazi meal, thanks to the hard work of a group of women who spent the entire day preparing the food. 

So, the health fair was a success and the community leaders seemed quite satisfied with the turnout.  Since all of my efforts until that point had revolved around producing this health fair, in the aftermath of the event I was left feeling somewhat lost, thinking to myself, “Okay, now what?  What am I actually supposed to be doing here?”  I’ve been struggling with this question ever since. 

As health volunteers, we are not assigned to a specific clinic or school, but rather are supposed to identify groups or institutions that need our help and do what we can to help.  Since I was unsure of where to turn within the immediate community for where to help, I sought to get involved with the schools, hoping that here I would find some direction, perhaps some routine, and most importantly get a chance to mentor some young girls and boys.  I proposed starting a girls empowerment club or teaching life skills and each time I received the same response, “Oh, this week we are busy with sports, come back next week and we will discuss (substitute sports with any possible excuse).”  After weeks spent walking 5 miles to the school in the scorching heat, waiting several hours for a meeting only to be told to return the following day, I became increasingly discouraged.  Eventually it became too late in the trimester to start any major projects and I accepted that I would abandon those efforts for the time being and resume again after my mom and sister came to visit and when the new term began.  Throughout these months of failed attempts, I continued to receive requests from community members for sponsors, infrastructure projects, food donations, and money.  While these requests have been constant throughout my service, I became increasingly irritated by them, feeling that I was only valued in the community for what monetary or tangible aid I could provide.  There seems to be a significant disconnect between what I can provide as a Peace Corps volunteer working towards sustainable development and what the community wants and expects from me.  I am in no place to judge anyone for these requests.  For most people in my community, their only interactions with foreigners (aka white people) have been through receiving donations in the form of food or clothing.  Many NGOs choose to initiate their pilot programs in this region of Swaziland and many of them are largely donation-based, which seems to be a double-edged sword as it creates a sense of dependency among locals.  Additionally, one of Swaziland’s nicest game reserves is located within our community, which means large tour buses of white people come parading through, often handing out money and sweets to local kids hanging around the entrance (side note: if you are ever on safari in Africa, NEVER DO THIS! You will make the life of the local PCV a living hell!).  So, given their interactions with foreigners and aid agencies, I can’t blame my community for reaching the logical conclusion: all white people have copious amounts of sweets and money that they love to give out for free!  If I were living each day wondering where my next meal would come from or how I would find money to pay my children’s school fees, I would certainly take the chance to ask the umlungu (white person) for some cash.  So I don’t blame them.  But it doesn’t mean that it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside to be miles away from my home and being asked to sacrifice my meager paycheck, as if leaving everything familiar to me to attempt to help out isn’t enough.  I’m realizing that while volunteers are often praised for their selflessness, there is also an element of selfishness that accompanies the decision to devote one’s time and effort to “helping others”.  Ask most volunteers and they will tell you that a genuine desire to improve the lives of others is generally not their leading reason for choosing to join the Peace Corps.  Most desire the adventure, the chance to experience a new culture, the opportunity to travel, etc.  Adventure, cultural exchange, and travel are all awesome aspects of Peace Corps, but right now, I desire to feel valued for who I am as a person, not for the color of my skin or the money I allegedly have, and to feel useful, as if I have something worthwhile to contribute.  I have been fortunate enough to be surrounded by family and friends who have loved me for exactly who I am for my entire life.  While I still feel very much loved and supported, these family and friends are now several time zones away and I am forced to rely on faith for a sense of purpose.  I question my competency – what can I, a 22-year-old from suburban California, offer to an HIV-stricken community?  Is my time here really worth it?  Can I really make a difference…for anyone here?  I am forced to look to those meaningful relationships that I do have for confirmation that God does want me here, right now, at this point in my life.  When I come home to my neighbor’s two-year old son, arms spread wide open and running towards me for a hug, or when my neighbor gets teary-eyed talking about how hard it will be to say goodbye to me, I am reminded of why I am here.  I often get carried away focusing on the poverty and injustice that this community faces on a daily basis, and feeling so small and incapable of addressing the larger issues affecting those who I have come to know and love.  But I am not here to completely reverse the viscous cycle of poverty and HIV; I am here to touch to the lives of the individuals that live within this cycle. 

During training, we were taught about the “life cycle” of a volunteer, which describes the roller coaster of emotions that seem to be typical for Peace Corps volunteers worldwide.  It seems that I am certainly not alone in my feelings and the period of time around the one-year mark has been dubbed the “mid-service crisis.”  During this time volunteers question their purpose, competency, experience a renewed sense of loneliness, and begin to wonder how they will possibly make it through the next 15 months.  It is encouraging to know that I’m not alone in my frustrations.  In speaking with other PCVs who are farther along in their service, it seems to be universally agreed upon that the second year is when volunteers see their failed efforts take a turn for the better.

 So, that’s where I’m at.  I praying that what these older and wiser PCVs say is true and trying to focus on the relational aspect of my service. I keep coming back to this verse: James 1:2-3.  “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.  Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”  Well…I wouldn’t exactly consider this period of my service pure joy, but I believe there is a lot of truth to this verse, regardless of your religious background.  So, I push on in faith that this suckiness is temporary and that these struggles are only laying the groundwork for bigger and better things to come. 

In an effort to end this entry on a semi-positive note, here are some visuals of what keeps me going:

The sun beaming through the clouds at dusk

This kid

Her smile

Can you tell I'm obsessed with him?

Impromptu dance parties with my closest friend