What is it you do?

When I say that I am a Peace Corps volunteer, I commonly get asked what it is I do in my community. Well, my assigned title is “Community Health HIV/AIDS Educator”, but that really doesn’t explain what I actually do. In fact, I’m not even entirely sure I could accurately explain what it is I do. I guess I do a lot of ‘small’ things and not really many ‘big’ things. 

(Helpful, I know)

I really wouldn’t even say that I do much community health work – at least in the traditional sense. You see, the thing about Peace Corps is that no experience is exactly alike. In fact, it can be radically different even among PCV’s serving in the same country.

For example, there’s a fellow PCV in Swaziland who works for the World Food Program. She lives in an apartment in Mbabane (the capital of Swaziland). She has a maid that cleans her place up and does her laundry, and she has more of a traditional ‘desk’ job.

I have none of that.

I guess I could say that my community is my workplace, I am my own boss and I do whatever I want. ….a vast oversimplification, but that’s my general understanding of it.

Sure, that may sound awesome on the surface, but it’s actually pretty daunting and frustrating at times. The American educational system teaches you to follow directions and it does it well. That same model is replicated in most blue and white collar jobs. So, what happens when that’s all smashed to hell?

Well, chaos, basically – at least for a time.

I spent the first 5-6 months in my community just building the structure needed to succeed. I made connections with school principals, chiefdom leaders, NGO’s, church groups, youth groups and the like. I tried to get involved in anything and everything that I could. I had this idea in my head that a successful PCV was someone who was involved in everything, everywhere.

I started teaching life skills lessons at the local primary school. Basically, we focused on good decision-making skills, male and female anatomy and the onset of puberty. Now, no offense to all the wonderful K-12 teachers in the world, but I HATED it. I hated classroom teaching, I wasn’t comfortable working with kids, and I don’t think I was very good at it either. But I pressed on because that’s what I thought a successful PCV would do….

………

I’m now roughly 16 months into my Peace Corps service, and my views on service have changed rather radically. I have long since ditched the life skills lessons along with some of the other projects that neither I nor my community had any passion to complete. I now work primarily with a savings & loans group in my community. I conduct regular workshops on basic accounting, household budgeting, investments and financial literacy techniques.

I absolutely love it.

I love planning the lessons, I love answering their questions and, most of all, I love the comments that I get afterwards from members who were inspired to start their own sewing business or saved enough money to afford the fees to send their children to school next term. Unlike the life skills lessons, I feel that that these women are actually listening and getting something out of what I tell them. Also, I’m much more comfortable with the topic at hand, I have an easy time communicating with the women and I feel like I’m actually making an impact of sorts.

I stopped chasing this ideal vision of the perfect PCV that I had in my mind, and instead I did what worked for me and my community. It turns out when you’re not constrained by a superior telling you what exactly to do and how to do it, you can tailor a project that responds to your community’s needs, utilize your own skills and meet your true potential.

Peace Corps has taught me many lessons over the past year. I think the lesson I learned here was to stop idealizing my life and perhaps be a bit more introspective. We’re all blessed with certain skills and abilities, as well as limitations. It’s what makes us human. I had this certain ideal of what Peace Corps service was going to be like. Once I trashed that, I – along with my community – was better off.

My experiences over the past 15-16 months have made me reevaluate some aspects of my life. I was holding onto a lot of idealizations and wasn’t being entirely true to myself. I’m working on grad school applications right now, and the essays that, in sum, ask ‘what you want to do with your life’ have really helped me focus on that question. (I’ll expand on this in a later post.) 

In the meantime, just keep on keepin’ on.

Sipho  

Some Revelations

Hello, everyone! This is going to be a short post. I’ve been pretty busy with stuff lately (mainly my quarterly Peace Corps reporting form, building the foundation for a grant proposal I’m writing and studying for the GRE), so I haven’t had much time to do the necessary reflection to compose a decent blog post on a particular subject. ….plus, in typical ‘josh’ fashion, I sliced open my finger today while trying to cut the stalk off some sugar cane, so typing is kind of a bitch. 

It’s been over nine months since my Peace Corps group arrived in Swaziland. Nine months – especially nine months in a developing foreign country - is certainly enough time to discover some new things about oneself. So, I’ve decided to compile a short list of a couple revelations (mostly comical; nothing ‘deep) that I’ve uncovered about myself since arriving in the Kingdom. (Presented in no particular order) 

1: I won’t get PETA’s endorsement if I ever run for public office. Since I’ve arrived in Swaziland, I’ve killed my share of insects, scorpions and other unidentifiables. I’ve also slaughtered three chickens. During Pre-Service Training, we had to prepare a traditional Swazi meal. A portion of my group’s meal involved chicken. So, we procured a live chicken and it was left to me to kill it. I was supposed to saw the head off. I didn’t have any qualms with this until I was handed a rather dull kitchen knife to complete the deed. Still, I accomplished this with little hesitation. My only concern was trying to make sure the chicken died as quickly as possible and that I didn’t get blood on my shirt. One other group killed a chicken for their meal and, as I recall, they had a particularly hard time with it. Tears were even shed. At first, I was slightly concerned with my non-existent emotional reaction compared to the other group, but I just figured that I’ve already hunted animals for food and sport before, so this experience wasn’t new to me in the slightest. (Hence the lack of an emotional response) Since then, I’ve slaughtered two additional chickens, both for food.  

2: You can take me out of politics, but you can’t take politics out of me. I may be removed from the workings of Lansing & Washington D.C., but that hasn’t dampened my political appetite one bit. Shameless confession: One night, I intentionally woke up in the middle of the night to observe the 2014 Illinois Primary election results in real-time. I did the same thing with the Texas Primary. Yeah, it’s an addiction.

3: I finally sleep like a normal person. I never had a sleep routine back in the United States. I slept when I was tired and when I was able. Sometimes this was during the middle of the day. Sometimes I’d sleep for only 2 hours. Sometimes I’d sleep for 12 hours. Now, I rarely stay up past 11:00 PM and I rarely sleep in past 7:00 AM. I almost always get a full 8 hours of sleep no matter what. 

4: I’m no top chef. Yeah, I gave cooking my best shot. Often times, the only beneficiaries of my attempts to cook have been the dogs on my homestead. I’ve reverted back to my tried and true motto: “Whatever’s easiest”. 

5: I’ll always be one of those “involved” people. I was interested to see if my habit of being involved in organizations and ‘outside work’ would continue after graduation from college. Indeed, it did. In November, I was elected by my peers to the role of the Vice-President of PSIN (Peer Support and Identity Network). In that role, I’ll assist with the training of the new group of volunteers arriving in June and I also provide emotional and psychosocial support for my fellow G11 volunteers.  

  

6: I’m fiscally conservative. Not politically speaking, of course. There are some volunteers who really struggle living off of the allowance that Peace Corps allocates us. I haven’t had that problem at all. Honestly, I’d say I only spend about 60% - 70% of my allowance each month. Other volunteers ask me what my ‘secret’ is. Honestly, I really don’t think there is one. I don’t indulge my food cravings that often. My shopping town is a lot closer to my community, so I don’t spend as much on transport, and I don’t leave my site as often as most other volunteers. It just works out…

7: I absolutely loathe public transportation. No joke. Some of my worst experiences (albeit my best stories) have occurred on a khumbi or bus. The disgusting smells, absolute disregard for any personal space, over-crowdedness and over-abundance of rude and/or drunk people combine to form a pretty horrible situation, sometimes. Usually it’s not that bad, but the experiences are enough to make me dread the next time I have to get on a khumbi or bus.  

On an unrelated note, I will be leaving for Europe (I am visiting France, Spain and Italy with my mom and cousin) on Wednesday, so I probably won’t post another update until late April.

Stay well!

My Musings Regarding Religious Practices in Swaziland

After a long hiatus, I’ve decided to breathe figurative life back into this blog. Frankly, as a person of habit, I failed to incorporate regularly updating this blog into my life and, as such, it obviously floundered. I’ve been sick for the past couple of days with a head cold and a sore throat, so I’ve had time to examine my  schedule and institute a periodic update of this blog (approximately every two weeks or so) into my life. Of course, the internet access options in Swaziland are limited and bandwidth capacity is a sad joke at most internet cafes, so please forgive me in advance when this plan inevitably falls through

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Now, I’ve tried hashing and rehashing a summary of the past eight months in an attempt to give you all a peek at what has transpired in my life, but my efforts have largely been in vain. Simply put, it’s just too tedious and I came to the realization that it would be difficult for me to verbally explain all that’s happened since my arrival in Swaziland, much less sequentially detail it in my less than enjoyable style of writing (conversational writing has always been a challenge for me; I’m much more ‘at home’ authoring a policy analysis paper or something of that sort. I’ll try not to bore you with my analytic style). 

Instead, I’m going to attempt to focus each blog post on a particular issue that I think is relevant in Swaziland and interweave it with my own personal experiences since my arrival. There will, of course, be certain departures from this format when I inevitably go on a tangent about something or another. Anyways, this first post is about my experiences with religion in Swaziland. Enjoy! 

It’s easy to generalize things. I do it all the time in my daily life. In fact, we all do it to some degree. It would be much too wearisome to discuss issues otherwise. Before arriving in Swaziland, I easily fell into the trap of generalizing this country’s religious practices. I explained to friends and family that Swaziland was an overwhelmingly Christian country with a relatively high number of devout believers. While demonstrably true, with most generalizations, there was so much more under the surface that the explanation failed to uncover. During Pre-Service Training (the first two months in the country with Peace Corps) a volunteer is placed with a host family in an effort to truly integrate the volunteer with Swazi cultural practices and norms. 

Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was placed with a host family that contained practicing members of the Jericho Church. My host mother informed me of their affiliation upon my arrival at their homestead. I had never heard of the Jericho Church at the time and mistakenly chalked it up to being just another Protestant Christian religion. 

My first Sunday on the homestead was the proverbial wake-up call that ‘I wasn’t in Kansas anymore’. Around midnight, I woke up to unintelligible chants and the screams of a woman on my homestead. Being a newcomer with no language training in siSwati (the native and first language of most Swazi’s) I had no idea what they were chanting. I didn’t have the nerve to investigate further at the time. I listened to the sporadic cries and chants for a while longer until they tapered off and I back off into sleep. 

The next morning, I awoke at 6:00 am to a knock on the door of my hut. I stumbled out of bed to answer it. It was my host father who I had met the previous day (as with many Swazi’s, my host father worked in the mines in South Africa and came home only on weekends). He asked me if I wanted to attend mass in a couple of hours. Not wanting to seem disrespectful, I accepted his offer. Around 10:00 am, he came back and told me to come with him. To my amazement, he took me to another hut on the homestead that had been converted into an impromptu church. The hut was filled mostly with other host family members, although there were a few unrecognizable faces among them. More striking at the time was their apparel. The men were dressed in navy blue and white robes with chain link draped around their necks. The mass already seemed to be in service, so I was told to have a seat in the back of the hut. I obliged. The next three hours were a blur of chanting, dancing and clapping. The men would sporadically leave the hut and rhythmically dance around the homestead whist chanting something or another in siSwati repeatedly. The only references to Christianity that I recognized at the time were the intermittent readings of passages from the bible (also in siSwati). The mass concluded around 1:00 pm and, after bidding my farewells, I retired to my hut to process what I had just experienced. 

Being raised Roman Catholic; I came to be accustomed to a very ritualistic and structured mass. This, however, was unlike anything I ever experienced. My curiosity led me to seek out more information about the Jericho Church. Rather than risk offending my new host family, I inquired with Peace Corps staff members. I learned that the Jericho Church blends elements of Christianity with traditional African ritual practices. Bluntly put, the Jericho Church is a neo-Zionist church with a specific focus on faith-based healing.

Marginalized and ostracized in mainstream Swazi society, most people are afraid to interact with Jericho’s because they believe that they’re radicalized and practice neo-paganism. Most of this fear is borne out of ignorance. However, I was struck by one particular revelation: many Swazi’s covertly approach the Jericho Church for faith-based healing and to also exorcize demons that they believe have inhabited themselves or their loved ones. Because of the stigma that association with the Jericho Church carries, these exorcisms and faith-based healings are done under the cover of darkness. I came to learn that the chants and screams that I heard on my first Saturday night on the homestead were the result of an exorcism that had been performed on Swazi who was not a member of the Church but wanted to enlist their services in order to evict a suspected demon from her body.

Interestingly enough, I was actually relieved by these revelations. I now had an explanation for what I had previously experienced. During the remainder of my time on the homestead during PST, I had varying conversations with my host family about religion in Swaziland, United States and Roman Catholicism. In Swaziland, religious identifiers carry an enormous amount of weight. Whenever I meet new people in my community, I am often asked questions about my religious identity. I usually tell people that I was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. If I am comfortable enough with the inquiring individual, I will tell him or her that while I still culturally identify myself with many aspects of Roman Catholicism, I have fundamental disagreements with certain doctrinal aspects of Catholic doctrine. 

The host family whom I’ve lived with for the past seven months at my permanent site are members of the Swazi Methodist Church and their practices are much more orthodox and mainstream than the Jericho Church. Still, my previous experience allowed me to reach out to members of my community who are members of the Jericho Church when I might of not of otherwise. 

Swaziland is a small and ethnically homogenous country. As such, it’s really tempting to generalize Swazi beliefs and cultural traits. Through my experiences, I’ve learned to not paint with such broad strokes when speaking about Swazi culture, beliefs and practices. 

Until next time, sale kahle (stay well)!    

Hey, friends and family! Here is my (surely much awaited) blog update.  I apologize for the long delay. As I quickly came to find out, internet connectivity in Africa is anything but assured.  But anyways, here is a brief synopsis of what I’ve been up to the last couple of weeks:

Staging (Peace Corps orientation) in Philadelphia was June 25^th-26^th. I completed some last-minute volunteer registration forms and met my fellow PCT’s (Peace Corps Trainees) for the first time. We departed JFK international airport for Jo’burg on the morning of the 26^th.  The flight was largely uneventful and only mentionable because of the fact that the JFK-Jo’burg direct flight is one of the longest current commercial flights in operation today (approx. 15 hours).  Once in Jo’burg, we caught our connecting flight to Manzini, Swaziland. 

After we landed, we traveled to a local institute that Peace Corps Swaziland rented out to host some segments of our training exercises. We spend the next couple of days in the hostels adjacent to the institute.

 On July 2^nd, I met traveled to my temporary site for the rest of PST (Pre-Service Training) with my host family. I live on a large homestead in a small village not too far from Manzini with a little more than a dozen other PCT’s (the nearest is a 3 minute walk). My host family is comprised of over a dozen members and they treat me like one of their own. I don’t have electricity and I boil/filter my drinking water, but I think I have adjusted quite well to those facets of existence. The challenges thus far have come in cross-cultural differences and my struggle to learn the local language of siSwati.

My days (and nights) have largely been dictated by a regimented schedule developed by Peace Corps. I typically wake up at 5:30 am to prepare for the day by boiling water, taking a bucket bath and brushing my teeth. After which, I either head to the main road to catch the chartered bus to the training facility for the day or head to a pre-determined location in my village to do an activity with my fellow trainees. I’m usually back on my homestead no later than 4:00 pm and in bed by 8:30 pm. 

So, yeah… now you’re caught up. I left a lot of detail out and I realize that my abbreviated post leaves a lot to be desired but it’s too difficult to describe in words my experience thus far. However, I’m more than willing to address any questions you may have. Just post them in the comments section below the post. I, of course, cannot guarantee a timely response, but I will respond eventually.