American Childhood, African Manhood

William has become somewhat of a celebrity around Mbabane, and certainly in our neighborhood.  Swazis tell me that it's not uncommon to see white babies around town (although I haven't seen them), but I've gathered that it's extremely rare to see a young child with the father.  It did not take long for him to acquire a Swazi name, so William is known everywhere around Mbabane as "Mandla," which means "strength."  Although the "j" sound does not exist in some African languages, that's not the case with siSwati.  My name translates very well as "Joweli," and that is how I am known.  Swazis often leave off the last syllable of a word, so usually my name sounds exactly like it does in the States, only with two syllables.  [Technically speaking, that's the correct English pronunciation as well, but I like it just fine the way Americans say it!]

Back to the point.  Not only is it unusual to see a young child hanging out with his dad, but the backpack in which I usually carry William is an extreme novelty to people here.  Even in South Africa, I have been asked multiple times where I got it.  I guess they just don't see them here in southern Africa.  Anyhow, one of the things that we noticed right away after moving to Swaziland was how total strangers, even on the street, will absolutely fawn over William.  And when I'm carrying him in the backpack, women will wave and cheer, people will sometimes take photos on their phone, even the men will engage with him and be very friendly [in a good way!].

I had never thought before about how much Americans (in general society) tend not to interact with babies.  Mostly, my social circle has primarily revolved around church my whole life, and church people are generally very friendly and welcoming of babies and children.  But even in America, Allison and I noticed how much having a baby around brightened up a room and, to borrow Allison's phrase, were an over-all "happy pill."  But here in Swaziland, that effect is multiplied about ten times.  And other young children will want to play with William and include them in their games, too.  The family who lives in the flat adjoining ours is a single mom with two daughters plus the mom's sister who lives with them.  I don't know the exact age of the youngest daughter (it's hard to guess the age of Africans, they always look younger than Americans because their skin is so resilient to the sun), but she's somewhere between 6 and 8.  Her name is Nozi [sounds just like how it looks], and she absolutely loves it when William plays with her outside in our courtyard.  She doesn't speak much English, and William doesn't speak at all of course, but they really have a good time.

Going back to my original point again, the sad face of this coin is that many fathers in this culture are at least somewhat, if not totally, removed from their children.  For example, the gardener at the first house we lived in was from a village a couple hours drive away from the city, and would only go home to his family every month or two.  He stayed somewhere in the city during the week because it was too far to commute from his homestead every day, and I'm guessing that it was too expensive for him to travel home every weekend.  I think this is also true of other cultures around Africa as well, but it seems that here in Swaziland there is stigma against marrying a woman unless she has proven that she is fertile (and preferably, has already given birth to a son).  There are other cultural factors as well, including the tradition of lobola, or the "bride-price."  It seems that many men don't marry for the simple reason that they simply can't afford to pay it.  The net result is that it appears to have become traditional in Swazi culture for women and children to be together, generally separated from the men.

To illustrate this point, as a family we went to a traditional Swazi festival to celebrate the new year, just to see what it was all about.  This festival is called Ingcwala.  [This word is virtually unpronouncable to the standard English speaker, because the "c" is a click sound.  If you take out the "c" and just pronounce it how it looks, that's close enough.]  At Ingcwala, basically everyone wears traditional Swazi dress and dances in celebration of the coming harvest season.  In fact, Allison was required to buy a piece of cloth to wrap around her as a skirt over her pants, because inside the Royal Kraal (i.e. traditional homestead) women are not allowed to wear pants.  Inside, the men dance on one side, and the women and children dance on the other side.  When we arrived, I was carrying William in his backpack as usual, and I was strictly warned that we wanted to partcipate in the dance, I could not take him with me.  We decided not to join in the dancing, so this wasn't any big deal.  We enjoyed mingling in with the crowd and observing what was happening.  But again, the point of all of this is to demonstrate how ingrained this is in Swazi culture, this gap between father and children.

But lest you get the idea that all families in Swaziland are like this, let me assure you that they aren't.  I have seen families at our church where the men primarily take care of the kids during the service.  One of the teachers at ZBC is a married Swazi man who has one son of his own and, along with his wife, has adopted four others either orphaned or vulnerable.  Our parish priest lives with his wife and five children.  Another of our Swazi friends has a family, including caring for a child he fathered before getting married, and he and his wife have been married 14 years.  And all of these men have two common denominators -- maybe others as well, but at least two -- they are Christians, and they are employed in well-paying jobs.

Allison was reading an article this past week which explained a saying that they have in Nigeria: "Being a man is more than a full-time job."  It means that there are too many cultural and social obligations than what a man can fulfill by working one full-time job.  It seems as though this applies to Swaziland as well.  More than anything, I feel saddened by these cold realities.  Sometimes I feel guilty to have such a good relationship with my son when so many other sons around me don't have a good (or any!) relationship with their father.  Yet, I suppose that the very best thing I can do both for Africans and Americans, is to be the best father to my children that I can be.

And to pray...

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who sets the solitary in families: We commend to your continual care the homes in which your people dwell. ... Turn the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the parents; and so enkindle fervent charity among us all, that we may evermore be kindly affectioned one to another; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.
 -Collect for Families, Book of Common Prayer, p.828-9

Queue On Cue

I feel like everyone who has lived in a developing country has a story about queueing.  I mean, it's old news.  But I have to tell my story, mainly because it illustrates an aspect of the experience of being a cultural outsider.  I could have saved myself a lot of time and trouble had I known a small yet important bit of information ... something that one can only learn through the experience of living here.  This post brought to you with extreme gratitude to Matthew and Natasha Dukes!

I had to renew our vehicle registration in March, so about the middle of the month I started asking around to see what I needed to do in order to do that.  I learned that I needed to go to the Revenue Office with my vehicle registration document (what they call here in Swaziland a "blue book") and E120, or about 15 US dollars.  No problem.  Some things came up that week and I wasn't able to get to there to complete it, so I had to go the following week, which was right before Easter.  I went to the Revenue Office on Thursday of that week, which was when our house-helper came so that I didn't have to take William with me on this errand.  I had heard that the queue was always long at the Revenue Office, so along with my money and documentation, I also took William of St. Thierry's "On the Nature and Dignity of Love."  I'm a geek ... yes, I know.

I wasn't sure exactly when the office opened, but I figured it was either 8am or 8:30.  I arrived at 8:10, and already the queue was all the way across the parking lot.  The office didn't open until 8:30.  Thankful that I had brought a book along, I got in line and started reading.  From the appearance of things, I think that almost everyone was there for the same reason I was.  Almost immediately I noticed other people in line talking and laughing in small groups, usually two or three people, genuinely looking like they were having a wonderful time waiting in line.  I thought to myself, "Wow, Americans really have something to learn."  You never would have known if these people were angry or frustrated or miserable.  The time came for the doors to open, and the line started moving slowly -- very slowly in fact -- but moving none-the-less.

Now I started to notice something else, too.  I began to notice others (not many) come around from the street, usually well-dressed folks also carrying money and a blue-book, but they did not get in line.  They would mill around for a bit, talking with others either in line or just hanging around, then walk off in the direction of the building.  Ten minutes later I would see them again, seeming to walk away as if they were done with their business.  You can guess what was going on -- just like I guessed what was going on -- and you are probably right.  Swaziland, like most developing countries as well as the under-belly of many developed countries, works on relationship instead of rules.  This didn't really bother me too much in this case, although it did a little, and I definitely took notice of it. [In the course of my working career, I myself have done my share of rule-bending for the sake of professional relationships.  Plus, being a white person in Swaziland, I get far more benefit from this relationship-not-rules paradigm than cost, and I certainly get far more benefit than most Swazis, I'm sure.  So I really can't complain about it.]  The general point here is that this experience of queueing was vastly different than anything I would have experienced in the US.  But the line was moving a few feet every few minutes or so, and I was reading a book that I vastly enjoy.  I thought about trying to engage in conversation with others, but no one around me looked like they wanted to chat.  I'm not proficient enough in siSwati to converse in it, and I didn't want to embarrass someone by talking to them in English if they didn't know enough English to be comfortable.  So I kept on reading.

Things progressed just like this for an hour, by which time I was now halfway across the parking lot and wishing that I had not worn sandals.  My legs, knees and feet were all starting to get very sore from standing and keeping my balance on uneven concrete.  I had been in line 90 minutes, and it was starting to look like I might be there all morning, if not all day.  I also noticed at this time that the line stopped moving entirely.  I have no idea what was happening inside, but at 9:30am the line did not move for another 30 minutes.  At 10:00am, I gave up and went home.  I had texted Allison about the situation, and one of her research assistants told her that the office was busy because many workplaces were closed for holiday (Maundy Thursday -- and everything is closed here on Good Friday) so many were getting personal business done.  Next week would be better, so I left.

The following Tuesday I was prepared, again armed with William of St. Thierry and hiking boots, hoping to arrive before 8:00am.  I left home at about 7:40, but there was a lot of traffic on the road going into town.  Again, I didn't arrive until ten after 8, only to find that the queue was just as long as the week before.  I promptly got back in my car and drove home, unwilling to have the same experience again.  I returned again on Thursday morning, arriving at 7:30am (with great pride and anticipation!) and was relieved to see the end of the queue only halfway across the parking lot.  I got in line, but this time the gentleman ahead of me began talking to me (in English) almost immediately.  Stanley and I had a remarkably pleasant conversation.  I learned that he had grown up around Mbabane, graduated from high school, had aspirations of becoming an electrician and was taking classes toward that end.  In fact, he was in the queue not to pay his vehicle registration, but to pay the fees for his next term.  Like many Swazis, he was currently looking for a full-time job and asked me if I had a job for him.  Of course I apologized and said, "No, I'm afraid I don't," but I did write down his phone number and told him I would call him if I came across anything.  On more of a downer note, he also told me that he had been there in line the day before and had waited until noon before they came out saying that the computer system was down.  They had sent everyone away, telling them to come back tomorrow.  So Stanley was back, and he assured me, "I have a feeling that everything is going to be OK today."  This wasn't exactly confidence-inspiring, especially since the office doors hadn't opened yet.  But I agreed with him cheerfully, thankful to have someone to talk to.  We talked for an hour, and the time really did go by quickly.

The office opened at 8:30am, right on schedule, and by 8:40 a very pleasant and official-looking gentleman was walking down the rows of people, saying, "Bonkhosi [i.e. friends], our computer system is down.  The technicians are coming, but we do not know whether it will be repaired today."  There were no arguments, frustrations, or even angry words spoken by anyone, that I could hear anyway.  You could tell from the looks on faces that people were not pleased, but I was amazed at the reception of this news.  [I still don't know if this is really a good thing or a bad thing, but I noticed it.]  Everyone just turned and walked away, many of them still talking with each other, although not quite as jovially as ten minutes earlier.  I clapped Stanley on the shoulder as I said farewell, reaffirming that I would call him if I came across any work that he could do.

It turns out that the reason why the computer systems were down is because the organization or company that provides the IT services for all the government computers was striking in demand of better pay.  But rather than just not showing up for work, they were actually shutting down all the government computers across the country for several hours every day.  I have no idea how all this got resolved, I only heard about the situation from a well-connected friend of mine.  But I was in quite a fix, since I was already a week late getting the vehicle registered and not knowing how long it might take me to get it done.  Enter, from stage right, my friend Matthew Dukes.

Matthew called me that Saturday to come over to his house and help him install the wiring for the lights on his house-gate.  Allison was tired and napping that day, so I took William with me and went over to his house after lunch.  His wife Natasha played with William while Matthew and I worked out in the sun, installing circuit breakers and grounding cables.  After we were done working and I was getting ready to go home, I mentioned my queueing woes of the previous week.  Matthew says to me, "You know, there's another revenue office in downtown Mbabane.  They only have a few cashiers there, but no one knows about it so the queue is always short."  Then his wife piped up, "Yes, of course, you must go there!  I went there to register my car and was in and out in 7 minutes.  I got there right at 2pm, when they re-open after lunch."  At this, I was effusive in my praise of them, saying something to the effect that they had saved my life ... or something like that.

Well, it took me thirty minutes instead of seven, but by Monday afternoon, the deed was done.

This is the way things are in a new culture, and there's nothing else to do but just accept it and learn as much as you can along the way.  Things that would take two hours in the US will take two weeks here, for no other reason than we're cultural new-comers who haven't learned in the system yet.  At times this is incredibly frustrating, but there are unexpected advantages as well.  It occurs to me now, while writing this, that the frustrating situation caused me to talk about it with someone else, which then helped provide the solution I needed to the problem I faced.  Relationship, not rules.  It's not the American way so much, but it's the African way. 

Cultural Reflections [6 months]

Actually, this is the second time I have sat down to write this post.  I started once and found myself writing paragraph after paragraph of cultural "stuff" that was all convoluted and wandering, and frankly, not very important.  I realized that, already, I could write pages upon pages of things that I have observed here -- things similar to the US, things different from the US, things that I don't understand yet, and so on. 

It also dawned on me that I could write entire blog posts from individual stories of things: like our mysterious car problem that took two months to solve; the process of getting our vehicle registration renewed which lasted two weeks rather than the estimated two hours; our experiences in church small groups and the people in them.  There are just so many things about Swazi life in which the particular details of the thing both compare and contrast to its US equivalent that illustrate so well the experience of living in a foreign culture.  And these stories are probably more interesting and important than trying to simply write down things that I have observed.

So that is what I'm going to try to do -- tell these stories that I have found important to my own experience of living here.  I won't do it all in this post, but I'll relate them one at a time in subsequent posts.  After I've been in Swaziland for six more months, perhaps I'll figure out a better way to process the cultural adjustments that we are making and everything that comes with that.  But for now, I'll do it this way, and I hope you find these stories interesting.

I feel somewhat compelled to offer a disclaimer before I start, however.  Cultures are different.  [Well duh, Joel.]  I'm saying so explicitly now, and here's why.  I'm going to do my best to write about my experiences in ways that do not make value judgments about the cultural phenomena that I observe.  However, to write my stories requires that I write about my subjective emotions and reactions, which necessarily reflect cultural value judgments even when I don't intend or even want to judge anything.  [The fact that I'm writing this paragraph at all says much about the reality of cross-cultural living, in that it has forced me to be aware, on an almost daily basis, of my own culture and how different it is from the culture in which I am now living.]  Assuming that most people who will read these words are Americans, I'm asking you as the reader to be conscious of your own culture as well.  Please suspend judgments about Swazi culture or African cultures as you read my stories, mainly for the reason that you are hearing these stories from a foreigner's perspective in relation to an African person.  Therefore, as the author, even my own cultural perceptions at this point are (almost certainly) wildly inaccurate.

 So I'll start with a short story now, with more to come later.


Learning siSwati

During our stint here, I am trying to learn siSwati as much as is practical.  I have enough experience as a linguist that I am doing OK teaching myself, but I'm not able to practice very much simply because I spend a lot of time at home with William.  One time-tested method for learning languages is to develop relationships with certain individuals who you see regularly and repeatedly, tell them that you are trying to learn their language, and then practice whenever you see them.  Most all the time, people are willing to help you (as a foreigner) learn their language in this very casual and informal way.  This approach is especially helpful here in Swaziland, where most everyone in social and economic contexts speaks both English and siSwati, so you ask for clarification about things.  Thus far, I have developed this kind of relationship with two different people whom I see about once per week.  Both are women, probably in their twenties or thirties, and at this point all I know about them are their respective names.

Hlengiwe (the "hl" on the front is pronounced roughly like it looks -- if you try saying an "H" and an "L" together you'll be close to it, probably as close as you can get without someone coaching you on the proper pronounciation) is one of the parking attendants at the Swazi Plaza, one of the main shopping places in downtown Mbabane.  I met her the first time I went there way back in October or November, right after we arrived in country.  I had learned that the standard farewell greeting was "Sala kahle!" (which means, "stay well"), but I didn't know how to pronounce it.  So after I paid her for parking, I asked her how to say "stay well" in siSwati.  She pronounced it for me, and I mimicked it as best I could, which wasn't very well.  I laughed and said, in English, "I'm trying to learn siSwati!"  She smiled, graciously, and said something as I drove off, although I don't remember what.  Anyhow, I have gotten to the point now where I can carry on the entire professional conversation of paying for parking in siSwati, and now I'm trying to practice some other basic conversational skills.  Like I said, so far I've only gotten to, "What is your name?"

Ndomba (don't pronounce the "N" at the beginning, and you basically have it) works at a convenience store next to the bus rank in Manzini. The 'bus rank' is the place in the center of town where all the taxis and buses pick up and drop off.  On the days that I teach at ZBC, I take the kombi (i.e. mini-bus) to Manzini and meet up with the other staff there before we all head out to the location where we are teaching for the day.  I only teach one day per week, but I always go to the same convenience store to buy some biscuits and juice to have for the drive.  Ndomba works there as a cleaner, and when I come through she is usually mopping the floor before the day's foot traffic picks up.  I would always greet her, sometimes in English and sometimes in siSwati, and after a few times she began to recognize me.  Around Easter, ZBC had a two-week break, so I didn't go to that store at all during that time.  Our first week back to teach was this past week, and I went in to the store as usual.  When she saw me, her face immediately brightened and she said, "Oh, it's my friend!  I haven't seen you!"  It gave us an opportunity to chat for a few minutes, in English, and I learned that her name is Ndomba.

So there you have it, six months of self-taught language learning.  It's very slow, I know.  However, I have discovered that the little conversational knowledge that I have is more than many ex-pats who have been here for years and years (and not just Americans now).  This is one of my first cultural observations.  Swaziland has been rather progressive in having required everyone in school to study English.  This has been the case for decades.  One result of this, however, has been that some foreigners who come to Swaziland have simply spoken English and not learned much siSwati, if any.  On the other hand, I have met some foreigners, usually business-owners, who speak siSwati fluently.