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)!