Dumisa Primary library, Mndobandoba, Swaziland

I realized I never updated the status of the library project on this blog. I took the above picture on the second day students at Dumisa Primary in my community, Mndobandoba, were allowed into their new school library. One thousand books registered, stamped, labeled and shelved! Very wonderful, dedicated, hardworking teachers and administrators at Dumisa made it possible. The excitement of the kids – so eager to check out books that we had to set a limit on how many could be in the small room at a time or be overrun – made my two years worth it. Thanks for the support of any who donated to bring books to these students!

So, I’ve decided to start blogging about the little things that make life in America pretty great. Some of these won’t apply everywhere (like grass, which I know is somewhat sparse in the Southwest). Yes, grass.

In rural Swaziland, the good citizens pull up or just plain set fire to anything green that tries to grow in their yards, out of a healthy fear of snakes in the grass, and not proverbial ones. The black mamba can knock you dead in under an hour, and let me assure you anti-venom is usually more than an hour away in the desert-like lowveld where I lived. Plus, you know, desert-like conditions make green stuff hard to cultivate anyway. So no grass in the yards. Which equals dust, lots and lots of dust. In the dry season it doesn’t rain for months. We’re talking the dust bowl effect, in your hair, in your eyes, in your clothes, in your home, in your food.

My host family's dusty, dusty yard

So, now that I’m back, a yard full of bright green grass is one of the nicest sights I can imagine.

Hlane National Park, birthday rhinos

Last year, my fellow volunteers and I, with the help of all you lovely folks at home, started 30 libraries in schools across Swaziland. The high school I work benefited from this project and is now able to provide books to kids who had never stepped in a library before. The project is being replicated this year, with my community’s primary school planning to open a library. Help me and others help the kids of Swaziland by clicking on the link below. Access to books means better education and a better chance at breaking the cycle of poverty.

Thanks guys. I wouldn’t still be here without all your support.

love,
Ali

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Dear Mrs. Hurley’s 7th Grade World Geography Students,

Thanks so much for writing, and sorry for the long delay in my response. That is just life in Africa! I am not able to get online all that often – usually once or twice a month. To use the Internet I have to go to one of the bigger towns. So it’s often just as fast for me to send a letter by old-fashioned mail, which usually takes about two weeks, as it is for me to reply to an email.

I’m excited you’re studying Africa. To answer some of your questions, I’m located in Swaziland, which is a tiny country in Southern Africa. Swaziland is almost completely surrounded by South Africa, with a small border with Mozambique. It is a landlocked country.

The languages of Swaziland are English and siSwati, which I am trying to learn. I find it difficult – siSwati is very different grammatically from English, and it even has a click sound – the letter “c” represents a click that sounds almost like a “tsk.” More educated people usually speak at least some English, because it is the language of instruction in high school here, but some people in my community speak no English at all. When speaking with them I can greet and talk about basic things like the weather, where I’m from, our families and the work I do. But if I want to have a more serious conversation, I have to use a translator. Luckily for me, knowledge of English is pretty widespread in my community. I talk with most people using a combination of simple English and even simpler siSwati, and we can usually get by.

You asked how people dress. Most women wear shirts and skirts – some do wear pants, but that is more in the towns, and only when they’re dressing casually. And any skirt above the knee is considered terribly scandalous, much more so than in the United States. Married ladies cover their hair with a hat or bandana. Men usually wear Western-style pants (rarely shorts) and shirts.

Traditional wear is a whole other story. People dress in traditional wear for cultural celebrations like weddings, and at two big national holidays, the Reed Dance, called Umhlanga in siSwati, and at Umcwala, a harvest festival. A lot of leaders, like chiefs and the royal family, will also often be seen in traditional wear. Traditional wear consists of big pieces of fabric called lihiya that are tied around the body – one as a skirt and one over the shoulder. Both men and women wear lihiya, just in slightly different styles. Men also carry a knobbed stick and wear an animal skin, usually that of a small antelope, around their waist, called emajhobo. Women sometimes wear lihiya as skirts even when not dressing traditionally. Lihiya often have bright patterned prints. Swazi lihiya might have a design of cowhide shields and spears, which are national cultural symbols, or they might have a picture of the king’s face.

The climate varies throughout the country. Swaziland is small but geographically diverse. In the highveld it can get quite cold in the winter (for Africa) – they even occasionally get snow – and it is rainy in summer. Where I am, in the lowveld, is completely different. It never gets very cold here and the summer is VERY hot and dry. Many days my thermostat tops 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and it can get up to 115.

I will be here in Swaziland for two years; my assignment is HIV/AIDS Education. Swaziland has the highest HIV infection rate in the world, with 26 percent of adults and 42 percent of pregnant mothers HIV positive. Peace Corps Volunteers work at the community level on education and other interventions. Every Volunteer approaches this challenge slightly differently, but for me this means working a lot at my community’s high school, where I have an after-school health club. We’re also setting up a school library – I’ll talk more about that later. I’m also very excited about a project I’ve been working on with community members in which we teach soccer coaches how to use games to teach their teams about HIV issues.

In other communities, Volunteers I know work with preschools called Neighborhood Care Points, where orphaned children (there are a lot of orphans due to AIDS) and children from poverty-stricken families come for a meal once a day. Other Volunteers help various Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to be more effective. Some of my friends are helping expand Teen Clubs, where kids who are HIV-positive (most were born that way and contracted HIV from their mothers) can come to talk about their struggles and issues.

I can tell you a little bit about the school I work in. In many ways it is like an American school – classrooms, teachers and a lot of students. But the school does not have as many resources as American schools, so there aren’t a lot of posters on the walls, or equipment like microscopes in the science rooms. Most rooms just have a lot of desks and a chalkboard. There are no lockers, and lunch is served outside. Schools here all teach agriculture, so there are big gardens surrounding the buildings, as well as a chicken house.

Life here can be very difficult, but I’m also learning a lot about the world and myself, so I’m very glad I came.

I dislike the summer heat – I know we sometimes have that kind of heat at home, but at home I can escape into an air-conditioned room somewhere, or get an ice cold drink from the fridge, which isn’t an option here. I dislike the loss of anonymity – I stand out in a crowd here, so I can’t go anywhere without people following me and asking a lot of questions, or shouting, “Umlungu – White person!” at me as I pass. I dislike how discouraging it can be to see the great need around me – there are a lot of problems that are not going to be solved in my lifetime, and there’s really nothing I can do to help the majority of people who need it. I just do the best I can with what I have to offer, which is my time, my knowledge on health issues and my connections with the NGO community.

I enjoy the experience and adventure of learning life somewhere completely different from life in America. I enjoy the interactions I have with most people – people are usually very welcoming and friendly and curious about the United States, which almost everyone tells me they want to visit. I enjoy the fact that a short drive from my house I can go to a game park to see giraffes, and that monkeys sometimes run across the road. I enjoy going to the ocean in Mozambique on vacation, or hiking in the Swazi mountains on the weekends. I enjoy when I have a good conversation with someone about HIV-prevention and feel I might be making a difference, however small.

It was so good to hear from you guys! I hope your studies of Africa and the world are going well, and I hope to hear from you again soon.

Salani kahle (stay well),
Ali Gowans

How many people die from HIV?
Technically, no one dies from HIV/AIDS. HIV destroys your immune system so that you can’t fight off all the infections and diseases that most people have no problem getting better from. So really, people with AIDS die from secondary infections like tuberculosis or viral infections, but it is HIV that makes them susceptible to those things in the first place. As for how many die from AIDS-related infections, I’m not sure. In Swaziland, however, I do know that the death rate has more than doubled in the last ten years, according to the Swazi government census. Also, the life expectancy here is VERY low, at around 43 according to the last information I saw, and that low life expectancy is directly related to HIV.

Why are so many people HIV positive?
There are a lot of really complicated answers to that question, mostly boiling down to: no one is completely sure. But what we do know is that there are several things driving the infection in Southern Africa. One of the biggest things is called multiple concurrent partners. This means that people have more than one sexual partner at a time. Part of the reason this is common here is that the traditional culture includes polygamy – King Mswati has many wives. But since HIV spreads through sex, having more than one partner at once is a way to spread the virus quickly. Another big issue is poverty and the imbalance of power between men and women. Women here often sleep with men who can provide them money, food, school fees, etc. The official term is transactional sex – not the same as prostitution, because this is not a career or a situation where the person is sleeping with just anyone. Usually it is a long-term relationship, but one in which one person is expecting material goods or money. Women might have one partner who pays their bills and another whom they consider their boyfriend for love. Also, women in such relationships, and in fact in most relationships, don’t have the power to demand their partners use condoms to protect against HIV infection. Another driver of HIV in this region is migrant labor. A lot of people travel to find work and can be away from their wives or husbands for months at a time. During that time they often have other girlfriends or boyfriends.

Animal questions
Do people have dogs and cats or just lions?
AND Have you seen animals at your window? Do they get close?
The animals I see the most are cows, goats and chickens. The cool African animals you see on the Discovery channel only live in game parks, sadly. In game parks, I have seen cheetahs, zebra, warthogs, giraffes, rhinos, elephants, hippos (my favorite), water buffalo and lots of kinds of boks – which are like antelope or gazelle. There is one game park that is next to the highway about a 20 minute-drive from my house. They have giraffes, and sometimes you can see them behind the fence as the bus zooms by!

Language questions
How do you say “hello” in SiSwati?
“Sawubona,” to one person and “Sanibonani” to multiple people. They’re pretty phonetic – “sah-woo-bone-ah” and “sah-nee-bo-nah-nee”

What are some common names?
I like the names here because they always mean something. Really common ones for boys are “Themba” – Hope and “Sipho” – Gift. Really common ones for girls are a million variations of “hle” which means beautiful. “Hle” names include Lihle, Zidhle, Sihle and Buhle. My favorite names are both for girls: “Khanyisile” – Bringer of Light and “Thembalihle” – Beautiful Hope. My siSwati name is “Nonhlanhla” – Fortunate.

General questions
What are some differences between Swaziland and America?
AND Are the people there different than us?
Where to begin? There are so many differences between Swaziland and America, I could write a novel. But I would stress that though things on the surface would appear very different to you – like language, how the government works, food, music, ceremonies (like weddings and funerals), etc. – at heart life is the same. People go to work or school or stay home, spend time with friends, take care of their families, just like in America. I’ve come to the conclusion that more is similar than different.

What do you do all day? What is your schedule?
Right now it is so hot, I get up by 6 a.m. to get as much work done as possible before the sun gets too high. Work around my house includes the usual things like dishes, but also filtering my water, (I have a special filter from Peace Corps), hand washing laundry and polishing my concrete floor. I’m lucky to get my water delivered, so I don’t have to fetch it, which is REALLY hard work. Sometimes I have meetings with community members to talk about projects. Around noon is time for napping and reading, lying on my concrete floor, which is cooler than lying on my bed. In the afternoons, I usually go to the high school, where I’ve been working on getting donated books ready for the library the school is building. I also have an after-school health club. Then I come home, cook dinner and read, write letters or watch a movie on my laptop.

The snake slithered up and down Lydia’s arm, a thrilled expression on her face, as the Times of Swaziland photographer snapped away enthusiastically. As of Sojo printing, we have yet to see if those photos made it into infamy.

For those of you, dear readers, looking at my own photo included here, who are thinking, “Oh no! Lydia and Rob! We don’t want to lose you to snake bites! Back away from that!” – never fear. The snake is a Cape File, not deadly to anyone but rats and other snakes, which it reportedly eats whole, starting with the tail and doggedly swallowing until the entirety of even the black mamba — to whose venom it is immune — is consumed.

Description of this grisly scene and many other priceless tidbits of snake lore were imparted to me, Lydia, Rob and a crowd of other enthusiasts at a Swaziland Natural History Society lecture delivered by “Snake Whisperer” Thea Litscka-Koen on June 14 at Mountain Inn.

“It doesn’t kill them!” she said of the File’s attack on its cousin serpents. “Just swallows them alive!”

I leave it to you, reader, to discern the difference.

Thea rescues snakes from homesteads, houses and sugar cane fields. She has provided snakes to traditional healers for use by the royal family. She coos at images of deadly vipers, imploring, “If you find this snake in your garden, please enjoy it!” over an image of a boomslang.

Boomslangs hardly ever bite, she insists to the audience. When they do, their venom will make you bleed from the eyes and ears. But really nothing to worry about.

Such assurances aside, she estimates 25-30 people die in Swaziland each year from snake bites but that far more spend months in the hospital recovering from horrific wounds, and many lose limbs to tissue-corroding venom. Her organization has a fund to purchase anti-venom for Swazi hospitals, which costs R1000 a vial. For a black mamba bite, she said a minimum of eight vials are needed.

Last year her group distributed 400 vials to area hospitals, all of which are now finished.

Notably, the anti-venom provided in the region is a cocktail that treats the venom of all the local deadly snakes except the boomslang, which has a separate formula. So you don’t have to try to identify the beast that bit you while freaking out about being bitten.

Other tips and facts from Thea:

- Snakes are most active at night. So no midnight trips to the latrine without a flashlight – you could easily step on one in the dark.
- Snakes are vital to the ecosystem – without them, there would be lots of rats and rodents, which would eat all the maize and sugar cane and just be generally gross.
- Alarmingly, however, snake populations are mysteriously dropping worldwide.
- For this reason, don’t kill snakes unless you have to. Just leave them alone, and they’ll leave you alone.
- If you must kill a snake, however, she recommends a shotgun – if you’re close enough to kill it with a stick, you’re close enough for it to kill you first. (Mfanafuthi take note: We at the Sojo officially recommend skipping both shotgun and stick and letting Gogo handle it. She’s had practice.)
- There are more than 80 species of snake in Swaziland, most of which are not venomous.
– Here is when you should be worried by a snake:
- If it has bars or bands (common to cobras)
- If it rears up and makes a hood
- If it is over 1.5 meters
- If its mouth is gaping
- If it inflates its neck
- If it hisses
- If you’re bitten by a black mamba, you should feel symptoms within 15 minutes – tingling around the injection site, fire up your limb, then tingling around your lips, followed by slowly losing motor control – and will need either anti-venom or life support in 45 minutes. You can actually survive without the anti-venom if you are on life support for 12 days, the time it takes for your body to flush the toxin.
- Finally, she reminds all that snakes and alcohol don’t mix. Right.

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Cheers!