Wardrobe Malfunction

   I am moving across the street to my new flat tomorrow (YAY!), which means that I am once again packing up all my clothes into tiny little rolls and cramming them into my gigantic traveling pack.  Which in turn means that I'm a little bit low on accessible clothing today.  So, I'm wearing a skirt that I haven't worn in a few days (it comes right about to my knees, which is a little shorter than I'm comfortable with on a kombi or walking up hill on a windy day).  The makes* at the guest house were very excited by this.  Apparently, I've been wearing 'trousers' (the same two pairs of jeans) a little too often for their taste.  

"Ah!  Rebecca!  Today you look so nice!  Today you are a she, not a he!"  

I think I should probably go clothes shopping asap.

*mah-gay.  Mothers and/or women.  Bomake is the plural, if you want to be grammatically correct in SiSwati about it.

Photographic Evidence

I feel like this bookshelf says a lot about my next few months.  I think I'm in need of some more trashy novels.

The taxi rank in Manzini.

Me and Latoya -- two years later.  Aren't we cute?

They finally finished the garage -- can't you tell?

Dance Monkey, Dance!

                Ministry of Health meeting: accomplished.  It wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been – once it was actually established that they hadn’t switched the meeting to the week before without telling me and that I’d have to wait until November before making my case.  (There was a deeply unpleasant 36 hours earlier in the week in which that was nearly true). 

                 I’m not saying I particularly want to repeat the experience any time soon or anything, but I didn’t feel out of my league or like maybe I was about to be unceremoniously kicked out of Swaziland.  Also, nobody threw stuff at me and yelled “Dance monkey!  Dance!”  Which I consider success any day of the week.  They want some changes, but nothing terribly drastic.  Hopefully me and my awesome research assistants can start interviewing people within two weeks.  Hooray!  Hooray!

               

                Right now I am in the waiting phase – waiting for final IRB approval, waiting on another potential project to sort itself out, waiting on the move to my new apartment.  (Which should happen Friday.  Theoretically.  Probably.  Hopefully.)  This waiting phase is how I justified spending most of today in bed watching America’s Next Top Model (the one with the short girls!) and yelling “Ty-ty, you so crazy!” every time she talked about how letting girls who are 5’6 ½” rather than 5’8 model is revolutionizing beauty.  Sorry Tyra, they’re still stick thin blonde girls.  That particular revolution is a non-starter.   My teachers in Steenbok would also point out the high degree of ‘portability’ inherent in a tiny blonde girl who is both a size 0 and 5’4.  To this day I don’t know what it means to be “portable,” but based on my experience watching television and travelling around this week, it seems to be a physical trait that both rural South Africa teachers and Sports Illustrated value.  So…that must mean something?  I wonder if the fact that I am highly transient also counts as being highly portable and therefore ups my sex-appeal?  Probably not.

                Saturday morning I had a three hour meeting with a gentleman who will be helping me out a lot as an informant in my research project.  It wasn’t an actual interview – I can’t do those yet – but more of a chat to establish things.  I spent the whole time in fear that he would say something really, really interesting and I wouldn’t be able to use it.  Science gives you weird priorities.    As I just gave my research assistants an elongated lecture on the importance of confidentiality and privacy and so on, I actually don’t want to write all that much about what we talked about.  Suffice to say though, this gentleman is completely fascinating.  He and a driver picked me up in town and drove to his homestead.  On the way he told me the history of the Swazi military, the University of Swaziland, and the first high school in Swaziland (all of which he was fairly instrumental in starting up) and then pointed out a few trees and other landmarks under which King Mswati II (the current king’s grandfather) and Sobhuza (the king’s father) used to sit or otherwise grace with their presence.  So…that was pretty awesome.  He also mentioned “that anthropologist lady who came through a few years back.  I spoke with her here…she was also from California.”  By “that anthropologist lady” he meant a woman named Hilda Kuper*, who wrote essentially the only Swazi ethnography anybody has ever bothered to write, and which people are still citing.  (Mostly because it is, in fact, the only comprehensive thing anybody ever wrote, even if that writing happened in the mid-1960s and one or two things have changed a bit since).  I’m excited to go back and talk to him for an ‘official’ interview.  I have no doubt that it’s going to be a completely fascinating conversation.

*Because Lithuanian  Jews by way of southern California really like doing ethnography in Swaziland.  This is  by far my favorite coincidence of the day.

Distinctive Writing Styles FTW

Um…I’ve already said this to everyone I think, but in case you were still worried: I’m not in London, I’ve never been to London – though I hear it is a very nice city.  I haven’t been mugged -- at gun point or otherwise -- and wiring $1,900 to a random Nigerian bank account is not going to do me any good.  If you really like, I have my very own US bank account that you are welcome to donate to, but I’d be just as happy with a link to a youtube video of a monkey riding a turtle while wearing a cowboy hat.  Or something equally awesome.

I have to say, it makes me deeply happy that about 90% of the people I talked to in the wake of my brief flirtation with email disaster said something along the lines of, “Oh…I knew it wasn’t Becca.  She would never use so many comma splices.”  And people say that Comparative Literature is a useless undergrad major.

Donkey Jive, Redux

Yesterday --  while my email account was busy being hacked by Nigerian princes  intent on terrifying my family members, supervisors, professors, and ministry of health contacts, ensuring that my mother never lets me leave the country again once I get myself back to the US – I was getting my butt back to Steenbok.  (Mimic that syntax, random Nigerian hacker.  I dare you.) 

I left Mbabane at 6:30 in the morning, and made it to Steenbok at 11am.  It was absolutely bizarre to be back on a taxi, driving through Tonga, Kamhlushwa, Naas, past Dludluma, seeing the signs to Malelane and Komatipoort.  It was more disorienting by far than anything I’ve done yet since I got back.  The time I spent in Steenbok seems so encapsulated in a way.  These two years had such a discrete before and after.  I am still friends with lots and lots of PCVs, I call Latoya occasionally, but that experience was so distinct.  Its like a snowglobe, where I can look inside and shake things up but certainly never climb back inside.  Or maybe its more like those little pill capsules, the ones where you can see the powder inside, and the little clear bit on the outside will dissolve in water eventually.  Or stick to your hands if you handle them too much, which is why you’re not supposed to handle them too much.  That’s what it felt like on the taxi in to Steenbok.  Was this something I could go back to?  Those two years – they are the most separate two years of my life.  There is no bleed through.  The person that I was, and the things that I did (in a good way) were so utterly of a piece with the place where they happened.  I could not have been that person and done those things in any other place than Steenbok, and it has shaped nearly all the choices that I made since.  I felt like I was rolling those little pills around in my hand, trying to play with what was inside, slowly eroding the barrier that kept then separate from now. 

I shouldn’t have worried.  Its true, of course.  My time being a PCV and living in the village was totally contained and delineated in a way that few other experiences could ever be.  And the phrase “you can’t go home again” kept rolling around in my head.  Here’s the thing I learned though, and the thing I keep learning – people are people and they keep on doing their thing.  Just because all I know about Steenbok are two particular years, that’s no reason to think that it really did just stay so separate. 

I walked into my key school, and waved at the first teacher I saw.  Teachers came pouring out of the office and we were hugging and laughing and grabbing each other like we just couldn’t believe it.  I couldn’t believe it.  I am much slimmer now.  Many people mentioned it.  One of the best moments was walking into Bonga’s classroom.  I stuck my head in, and all I hear is “NOMVUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!” and there’s 6^th grader streaking towards me for one of the best hugs of my life.  We went together to find my host mother, and Izora.  Izora is…a person now!  Not the loud fat dirty baby I fell in love with, but an absolutely adorable first grader with the cutest smile and absolutely no teeth from eating too many sweets.  I asked her, “Do you remember me?”  She did.  It felt so good to hug her again. 

I walked to another school, and there we repeated the process.  The hugs, the exclamations, (the commenting that I’ve lost some weight and “now you look like a young lady!”  WTF?  What did I look like before?)  I could only stay for a couple of hours, since it was going to be another 5 hour process back to Mbabane, but I swore up and down to come back.   I got to see Latoya, only for a few minutes, she had to go and write an exam.  She showed me pictures from her matric dance (prom) that they had held the week before.  She looked beautiful, of coruse.

I know that right now I’m romanticizing my experience a little bit.  It was a weird, fast, awkward, visit.  I forgot that I did in fact live way the hell out in the boonies, and that I also lived in one of the warmer and dustier places that people can comfortably live without air conditioning.  Assuming you vastly expand the definition of the word ‘comfort.’  I’m going back in a few weeks – with a rental car.  I want to stay a little longer, so that I have the chance to sit down and drink tea and actually visit with people, not just drop in with a bang and a “hi!  Bye!!  I’ll be back!”  All in all though, not such a bad start.

Coming and Going

                I did my first round of training on ‘qualitative methods and ethical considerations’ with my research assistants today.  I am fairly certain that if you had asked me a year ago if I would be able to feel confident putting on a training for a group of Swazi university students on qualitative research methods (and also finding those students in the first place) in the relatively near future, I would have said: “What in the world is qualitative research?” 

                My relative newness to the field notwithstanding, I think it went pretty well.  I have a good feeling about them, they’re a sharp bunch (lucky me), who seem genuinely interested in learning about new ways of doing research.   I like teaching, in general, and I like watching the evolution of understanding that happens even over the course of a few hours.  As we spent a lot of time on informed consent and fairness to the participant, I won’t actually go into much more detail than that.  After all, even if your respondent is happy speaking to you, is it fair to report out what they had to say if they didn’t know you were going to be telling other people when you spoke?  (Did you follow that syntax?  Good.  The correct answer is ‘no.’) 

                I make my presentation to the Ministry of Health one week from today.  I have very little idea what to expect, hopefully it will go pretty well.  Keep your fingers crossed next Friday that I perform my 15 minute song and dance in a way that Ceasar finds entertaining.  Otherwise it’s being fed to the lions of “oh-shit-whats-my-plan-B?!” for me.  I’d really like to try and avoid that.

                I keep trying to find a day to go out to Steenbok.  I really, really want to.  Just thinking about it makes me smile.  But it seems like every day I make a plan (I love that phrase, btw.  Very Swazi) every time I make a plan to head out there, something comes up for that day.  I need to see an apartment, or have a meeting, or prep for a training.  Now its looking like Tuesday.  I so badly want to go soon.  I want to see Izora and not let go of her for the whole time I’m there.  I want to hear from Latoya and see Jabu and her baby.  I want to give so many of my teachers the biggest hugs.  There are so many people who were my community and my family for so long.  Now that I’m settled in, every day that I think about just being three hours away from them and not getting to see them makes me a little bit crazier.  Tuesday.  Absolutely.  I am clearing my schedule.

Living Arrangements

    It seems that living in a city isn't nearly as interesting as living in a village or backpacking halfway (okay, maybe a quarter of the way) across Africa.  Well, from a perspective of "here's a story about something absurd that happened to me yesterday and also 5 minutes ago" it's not as interesting, but Mbabane does have marginally more to do than Steenbok and for that I should probably stop pining for absurdity and be grateful.

  Last week  I spent about four days down in Durban at the University, eating a lot of curry, hanging out with a good friend, meeting the staff with who I'm vaguely affiliated (they're all completely lovely) and having quite a few really helpful conversations with people who have been doing this a lot longer than I have.  I gave a brief presentation on what I'm doing out here, which was attended by 'the media' -- in the form of a very nice gentleman from the University newsletter.  He took photos.  Apparently I am a famous US researcher.   

  I've spent the rest of my time attempting to get myself situated -- finding university students who are interested in working with me as research assistants (my offer of payment: "On the days we go out to the field, I promise to take care of transport and feed you.  Also, you get a certificate."  I figure this is about equivalent to what I get to come out here, so it's fair), figuring out where, exactly the Ministry of Health has relocated itself to (the offices over the abandoned gas station, obviously), and generally sorting out my next six months in Mbabane.  I want to spend some time describing Mbabane, and the bit of Swaziland that I've gotten to see so far, but I know from experience that I'll probably get it horribly wrong and only be embarrassed about my assumptions three months from now.  So maybe I'll stick to the physical for now, and see what else I can figure out about this place later.

     

     Mbabane is a good city -- I like it.  I'd rather live here than Pretoria, or Dar es Salaam, or Nelspruit for example.  It's exceedingly small, in the way you'd sort of expect the capital of one of the smallest and most rural countries in southern Africa to be.  Everything somehow manages to be uphill from everything else, a trick that I'm still not certain how the city planners managed to pull off but is definitely true.  I live a 10 minute walk from the town center going (thats the downhill part) and maybe 15 or 20 minutes coming back (which would be the severely uphill part).  "Town," such as it is, is glorious.  There's a grocery store in which I can by quinoa -- quinoa, people!!!  A few western-type restaurants (that means they sell coffee that approaches decency), a few fast food places, a couple of internet cafes, and lots and lots of shops where you can basically buy whatever you need.  Sure, it still shuts down on Sundays and after 6pm, but mostly I feel like pretty much anything I need is just down the hill.  I'm still adjusting to this idea.  

     Fifteen minutes in the other direction is my gym (I know...a gym!) that is just as nice as the gym I went to in the US.  It features circuit training, spinning classes (the major ex-pat social event on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, as far as I can tell), a restaurant with wi-fi and -- as happened a few nights ago -- occasional fire walking seminars.  You don't have to tell me about the absurdity of this, I already know.  

     In between me and town and me and the gym is this strange mix of University and NGO outposts (Baylor, Columbia, and UNFP to name a few, and I know JHPIEGO is lurking around here somewhere), middle-income type homes (middle income for Swaziland), kombis driving by, men and women in bright yellow vests selling airtime, and shockingly little livestock.  I can't remember the last time I saw a goat or a chicken wandering around in the road.  It's sort of freaking me out. 

      Overall, it seems like the city is partially geared towards the general administration of the country -- government offices, people in suits, places for the running of errands -- parts of it exist almost entirely for the benefit of NGO workers, and parts of it are just your average city in which people are attempting to live and get things done and dodge everyone else who has come in for the day or the year.  All in all -- not bad.  Certainly not all that exciting, but not a bad place to hang out and shoot the breeze.  Which was pretty much my entire goal in the first place.  Success.

   

Background

(aka: “Wait…you’re doing what where?”

                I have -- as careful readers may have noticed -- recently moved to Swaziland after a two year sojourn in the US which  – as even more careful readers may have noticed – itself followed a two year and change sojourn in South Africa.  Why, you may ask (my mother has repeatedly asked herself, I imagine), have I gone back to the world of bucket baths and marriage proposals for six months and abandoned the world of Lush cosmetics and convenient roof-top gyms?

               

                First of all, I have a shower this time.  This is a key fact, and maybe one of the most important things I learned about myself in Peace Corps:  I really, really like showers.  I may be back in southern Africa, but I’m staying in a very nice guest house and shortly moving to a REALLY nice apartment in the capital city (Mbabane).  Bucket baths and chamber pots will happen only in moments of extreme extremity.  I will still be taking “local transport” (kombis and busses), because kombis make you tough.  Bucket baths may make you tough too, but I repeat:  F that noise, I like showers.

                That out of the way, let’s get back to the point.  What the hell am I doing here?

                For the second half of my master’s program I need to do a practicum.  This means I need to go hang out ‘in the field’ for at least 3 months in order to prove that I actually do like the idea of international health and community based what-not, and that I have possibly even learned something about international health and community based what-not in the preceding 9 months of coursework.  At the end of this process I hand over a 30 – 50 page essay about how educated I have become, and JHSPH cashes my check and coughs up my MHS degree.

                Most people are very smart and find a suitable international organization that places them in a suitable international internship, at which they possibly have a defined job and tasks to accomplish, and frequently somebody besides them makes at least one or two of the arrangements.  (I'm not saying this is easy, I'm just saying it is the usual route).  I am not this smart.  I am doing an independent research project here in Swaziland that I spent about 8 months doing a lot of fast talking and application writing to get some funding for.  Two organizations, the Center for Global Health at Johns Hopkins, and the Health Economics and AIDS Research Department (HEARD) at the University of KwaZulu Natal, decided to bet that I’m maybe not a total idiot and are curious to see what I come up with out here.  Which is as follows:

                I am here to study traditional stories and songs.  The idea is that stories and songs (“oral traditions / literature”) are one of the primary transmitters of cultural values in a society.   Stories are one of the first things that you hear as a child, and they are a large part of how a culture explains and transmits itself.  Stories, fables, myths, fairy tales, and all the rest, speak to people on a different level (I think) and as such are a really good way to access what is important and valued in a society.  The idea is two-fold: 

1)      See what values and ideals are being transmitted in traditional Swazi stories in order to get an idea what cultural values and ideals may be affecting the spread of HIV in this country.  What is the perspective on gender roles?  On polygamy, relationships, the necessity of having many children, what it means to be sick and who is responsible for preventing illness/making you better?  I think that stories and songs are a really interesting way to access these ideas. 

2)      What is the role and structure of these stories in current Swazi society?  Can they – or something similar – be adapted to a curriculum of some sort that would teach prevention or harm reduction or care or whatever else?  Do they still have enough weight to be useful (I think so) and are they a medium that people will recognize and respond to better than billboards and radio ads? (I hope so).

  So that’s the plan.  We’ll see how it works out.