Are you friends with Beyonce?

Sanibonani Everyone!

I am finishing up my third month here in Swaziland, and my first month as an official Peace Corps volunteer. I like to think of this process as more of a day-by-day one, though. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been away from home for much longer than a few months, but then at other times it is hard to believe that there are only 23 months left in this whole experience! I have a feeling the time will go by fast, especially after integration is over and my weeks at site are broken up by weekend trips into the city with friends and other travels around Africa.

Summer is just around the corner down here in the Southern hemisphere, and Swaziland is heating up. Last week I spent my afternoons sprawled out in my hut drinking ice water and spraying poison on all the bugs that have decided to come out because of the weather. Temperatures reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and I ran out of my monthly living allowance before I was able to purchase a fan! That is an item at the top of my list for October.  Fortunately, though, Swazis have developed some excellent methods for dealing with the heat. My family makes ice pops, which are little sandwich bags filled with juice that they freeze and then sell at the end of our driveway to the kids walking home from school in the afternoons. I may or may not have bought three in one day…

Also, as I’ve mentioned before, my hut has a thatch roof which has been a lifesaver! When I come home from visiting the school in the afternoons it is a solid 10 degrees cooler inside that outside. The same can’t be said for my family’s main house, which has a tin roof. They all slept outside on the porch this week because the heat stays trapped inside their house, making it unbearable!

Additional news from the homestead includes that two green mamba snakes we spotted near my hut this week. Those are deadly. Luckily, someone saw them, so they were killed with rocks and then their bodies were burned in the fire…But now I am on the look out! I did have a much friendlier little lizard pay me a visit-by scaring the crap out of me when I saw him from the corner of my eye running up my wall-but I haven’t seen him since. Inspired by these events, I had some of the boys around the homestead help me hang my mosquito net over my bed this week. I have yet to see any mosquitoes in my area, but that thing will protect me from all uninvited guests (just ask my friend who woke up in the middle of the night to a bat hanging on hers during training!).

This is Londiwe spreading cow manure (mixed with water) around the yard of our homestead “to keep it clean”. I laughed out loud at her explanation, but in all seriousness, it really does keep the dust down and make everything looks smooth and nice…Once it dries and stops smelling like cow manure.

I am mostly settled in to my hut now, but I still have some finishing touches to complete before giving you all a virtual tour. I have been able to develop a little more of a routine though. I wake up around 7 and spend the early morning making coffee and breakfast, checking the world news on my phone, and watching some TV shows from my hard drive. I sweep my hut every morning, and catch up on dishes or anything else that needs to be done. When I go outside I usually spend some time playing with baby Wakhile and talking with my host family. The pace of life is slow in Swaziland, so throw in some reading and working on sewing curtains for my hut and that takes us to lunch time.

After lunch I have been going to the high school to give surveys to the students during their study period. I’m giving them a simple 10-question survey that tells me a little bit about their interests and attitudes towards school, but I am mostly using the opportunity to let them get familiar with me and ask me all the questions they want the answers to. And let me tell you, these kids have questions! Some of my favorites are:

How many cows would I have to pay to marry you?

Is your hair real?

Are you friends with Beyonce?

I try to meet with a few of the teachers every day, too, and discuss potential project ideas. On my way home, there are usually people I know waiting for their turn to get water at the tap so I stop and talk for a while before getting back to the homestead and buying an ice pop to enjoy in the shade. I hang out with the kids that are around and make dinner. My 12 year old bhuti, Sibonelo, will usually knock on my hut door at around 6 asking for help with his homework. I was feeling entirely capable of helping him with his sixth grade math and English, but the night he brought me his home economics homework, we both struggled. I usually go to bed early, around 9, simply because there isn’t much else to do.

Pictured above is one of the kids shaking down a papaya for me!

This past Friday, my volunteer friend Hannah and I made the trek to the east side of the country to visit another volunteer who is staying in a sugarbelt community. The sugarbelt is a region in Swaziland that is essentially owned by the Royal Swaziland Sugar Company (RSSC)…which is owned by the king. There are these large “estates”, or towns, that are company property; they consist of massive sugar cane fields, sugar processing plants, company housing for all employees, and company-owned facilities like schools and clinics. There is a lot of money in these areas, but it doesn’t’ belong to the workers. They just come for the work week, stay in the company housing, send their kids to company school, and then leave back to their rural homesteads on the weekends. Anyway, because the higher-up RSSC managers and executives have money, there are some really fancy country clubs in the area. We spent our visit sitting in the sun, sipping wine next to pool at one of those clubs. It was really nice to get away for a while! We vowed to make a visit to the pool and monthly tradition.

Next weekend several friends and I are planning on visiting House on Fire, which is a live music venue/art gallery/restaurant and bar in central Swaziland. We’re going to stay at a backpackers and make a little trip out of it. It will be nice to catch up with them after being spread out all around the country for the past month. I’m really excited!

Other than that, there isn’t much to report. On the slow days I am certainly feeling the homesickness that I don’t expect to get any easier. Not being able to watch Seahawks games or to sing “Happy Birthday” to Olive isn’t easy. Hearing about friends getting engaged, moving, starting new jobs and relationships, etc makes me wish I was around to be a part of it all. I am, however, incredibly fortunate to be as connected as I am to home. Serving in Peace Corps 20…or even 5 years ago would have been a really different experience as far as communicating with friends and family is concerned. On a sidenote: letters and care packages are the best gifts a girl could ask for! My mailing address is in an earlier post, and will remain the same for my entire time here, but for anyone who does not yet have it:

Talor Hopkins, PCV

U.S. Peace Corps
P.O. Box 2797
Mbabane H100
Swaziland AFRICA

I’ll leave you with a selfie from a few weeks back. I think Wakhile’s face says it all!

 

Becoming a PCV

On August 24^th, it was time to say goodbye to the Dlamini family and my training village, and temporarily move to the Peace Corps training facility for a few days before the official swearing in ceremony. While I was really excited to be done with training and moving on to my permanent site, I had grown so close to my host family in the two short months I was there, and leaving was really sad.

The night before my last day, I was able (through somewhat of a logistics miracle) give Thabiso and Makosonkhe jerseys for their favorite South African soccer teams. They lit up. I was hoping they would be excited, even though boys generally don’t like getting clothes for gifts back at home, and I was relieved to see them walking down the street showing off their new jerseys to all the older boys. They were so excited. It was truly one of the coolest things I’ve gotten to do since I’ve been here.

 The morning of move-out day my Make burst into tears. She told me that I had been filling a void in the family since both of her daughters live in South Africa, and that the boys have loved having me around. She said she didn’t feel so bad leaving for work and to take care of people while I was around, because she knew the boys were being watched after by me. So of course, I lost it and started crying too. I expected this day to be hard, but this was too much. After I got it together, the truck arrived and we loaded my stuff on top of another volunteer’s. When it was time to go, I gave Make and Babe a letter I wrote, thanking them for everything, and said my goodbyes. I called for Thabiso, he had been hiding from me all morning. After a few minutes Make pointed him out to me. He was behind my house, hunched over near the truck-canopy-turned-chicken-coop, and he was sobbing. My heart broke. I went to give him a hug, told him goodbye, and promised him that I will visit as often as I can. I was crying again as I left the homestead, on my way to wait for a ride to the training facility. Goodbyes suck.

After unloading at the training facility, I spent a few days in final sessions with all the other soon-to-be volunteers. Then Thursday arrived! It was a day many of us had been waiting for for at least a year. We got all dressed up, many in traditional Swazi emahiya, and travelled to the Royal Swazi Spa and Hotel for our official Peace Corps Volunteer Swearing In Ceremony. Aside from Peace Corps staff and current volunteers, the US Ambassador to Swaziland and Swaziland’s Prime Minister were in attendance. They both gave speeches before we took our official oath. It was a surreal afternoon! The celebration concluded with the best meal we’ve been served so far in country, complete with a dessert bar.

That’s me in my emahiya at the ceremony!

That night, many of us new volunteers and some of those from the group before us went out dancing, and the next morning we loaded up trucks to move to our permanent sites! I anticipated having a minor freak-out as the Peace Corps van drove away, leaving me and everything I own on a homestead in the middle of nowhere, with a family I barely know. To my surprise that moment never happened!

I have spent the past week unpacking and getting settled into my new home. I now live in a traditional rondavel (round hut) with a thatch roof, which is actually excellent at helping to regulate the temperature inside. I’ve got two big windows that let in a lot of light, and a fellow volunteer came over and helped me paint the inside a cheery light green. I went to town on my second day here and purchased a bed and mini fridge. The fridge will be essential for food preservation in the summertime, as well as for cool drinks and being able to eat foods like cheese :) I’m holding off on posting interior pictures of my hut until I can give you all a before-and-after! My latrine here was built by Peace Corps just for me. They don’t do this at every site, so I consider myself lucky! It is brand new, wayyyy too small (like wtf-were-they-thinking-when-they-made-it-this-small, small)l, but completely private-even padlocked on the outside. I’ll have to post a photo tour of my homestead sometime soon!

I’ll go into detail about my permanent host family in a future post, but for now I’ll just share that they are absolutely wonderful! I have a Make and Babe who are actually a Gogo (grandmother) and Mkhulu (grandfather) to more children that it would be possible to count. My Babe has two wives. The other wife lives on the neighboring homestead, and I don’t see her much. But because of this polygamous tradition, there are children and grandchildren everywhere, and it is pretty much impossible to keep track of how everyone is related. Also living full-time on the homestead are my adult Bhuti and his wife, Londiwe. They have a 9 month old baby named Wakhile who is like, the love of my life. Most of you probably know that I’m not a fan of children…but this baby is inhuman!! I’ve been living here for over a week now and I have heard him fuss/cry only once! Ever! He spends his days tied on his mother’s back or being passed around between family members as he giggles and laughs and tries to talk. He is absolutely precious!

My site is located in the Northwest of Swaziland, in the Hhohho region. My nearest large town that you might be able to see on a map is Piggs Peak, and I’m north from there. The nice thing about Swaziland is that it really is tiny, so even being this far out near the border is not really too far from the centrally located cities. So far, life here is good!

On my homestead the following can be found growing: papaya, mango, peaches, avocados, bananas, chili peppers, and marula fruit. Then, in addition, my family owns a HUGE community garden on “that side” where they grow carrots, tomatoes, onions, cabbage, spinach, green peppers, pumpkin, squash, and I’m probably forgetting some things. I’m in fruit and veggie heaven! Pictures to come soon.

While I haven’t really been here long enough to have established a routine yet, I can give you an idea of a typical day so far. Keep in mind that I am currently in the phase Peace Corps calls “integration”, meaning that I am not really supposed to be doing any PC-related work. From now until Thanksgiving, my job is to be getting really familiar with my community, meeting people of influence and potential work partners, and surveying community wants and needs. So anyway, last Sunday I woke up and went to the water tap with my two 25 liter jerry cans in a wheelbarrow. We use a public tap here that is about half a kilometer from home. I filled my cans and hauled them back to the homestead so I could do my laundry. Then Make sent me and a visiting Sisi (sister/young girl) to the garden to bring back spinach. Later, I spent time carrying Wakhile around on my back and just hanging out with the family. I also discovered that we have two pigs on the homestead, and I helped feed them! This place is full of surprises! I am currently working on sewing new curtains for my hut, so I finished one panel for those, too. I went to help haul water again and I witnessed my first chicken slaughter/preparation from start to finish. It was a full and exciting day, to say the least! Homestead life!

The most eventful thing that has happened thus far at my permanent site is definitely the traditional wedding ceremony I attended last weekend. Traditional Swazi weddings consist of several stages, each with its own unique ceremony/celebration. It can take a couple several years, or even a lifetime, to complete them all. I attended the final stage of the wedding between one of my Babe’s brothers and his wife of 45+ years. Family from all over Swaziland and South Africa started arriving midweek. On the day of the wedding, the men all started drinking early in the morning and the ceremony didn’t end up starting until 4pm. There had to be at least 200 people gathered around the homestead to watch or participate. All of those who were in the wedding party were dressed in traditional wear, and the ceremony consisted of a lot of singing and dancing. The was so much energy and excitement, and it was really cool to see so many people coming out to celebrate the marriage of this couple who began their life together so long ago. The ceremony actually started so late that it had to be continued on Sunday, because it got too dark. There were drums and food and the giving of gifts to the couple on Sunday. It was such an interesting event to witness, and I’m hoping to be able to attend some other stages of the Swazi wedding during my time here.

Baby Wakhile in his baby emajobo (traditional animal skin that men wear)

 

The wedding party all lined up before the ceremony

The groom (in orange) and his bride!

A little update on communication: I have pretty limited access to wifi, and I will for the duration of my time in Swaziland, but I am available through WhatsApp and I can use the MagicJack app to make calls that are fairly cheap for me and free for the recipient. I check my email regularly (talorhopkins@gmail.com) and Facebook is always a good option! The address I provided in an earlier post will be my mailing address for the entire time I’m here!

I made a status on Facebook, but I’ll plug it again here, Peace Corps has a program called World Wise Schools where they match educators with PCVs in order to spread cultural understands and the spirit of service with students in the US. I am already registered in the program, and would love to be matched with a few classrooms back home! If you or someone you know is an interested teacher, visit www.peacecorps.gov/wws and fill out the information required after clicking the “Write to a Volunteer” link on the right side. You just need to know my name, my country of service, and my project (Talor Hopkins, Swaziland, Youth in Development). I’m super excited about this opportunity!

 

I'm here!!!

Part One: Training

Wow! It has been far too long since I’ve posted anything, and I’m really sorry! To say I was busy doesn’t even begin to describe it. In addition to pretty limited access to wifi, my first nine weeks in country were spent in intensive training on everything Peace Corps Swaziland. The other new volunteers and I (there are about 40 of us) had full schedules Monday-Saturday. We had classes on policy, health, team-building, potential projects, Swazi culture, and of course, siSwati language. During training I lived in a village called Sihhohhweni with a truly amazing host family. All the other Youth Development volunteers lived in the same village, and we got to spend a lot of time getting to know each other.

A typical training day started out waking up in my hut at 6 and walking down the road for language class (just me and two other volunteers and our lovely Tishela!) from 7:30-10. Then we would either board the bus to our training hub, where we had sessions with all the new Swaziland volunteers (both Community Health and Youth Development) or walking to our village hub and having Youth Development-specific sessions. These were usually about project ideas, like starting community libraries, or relevant cultural information, like what Swazi school politics are like. I’d usually be back on my homestead by 4pm. I spent time with my host family (and later on, our brand new puppy!) and then go to my hut to cook dinner, study siSwati, and go to bed. Sundays were for sleeping in, going on walks, and washing clothes by hand.

 

Above is my first “load” of laundry hanging to dry.

Backtracking to the day I met my host family: My Babe (ba-bay, meaning father) came to pick me up. I was incredibly relieved to find out that he spoke excellent English-I had only had 3 days of siSwati lessons at this point! Within seconds of meeting me, he told me that he already had my Swazi name picked out. I am now Khanyisile, meaning “the light of the family”, although judging by the laughs I often get when introducing myself,  I’m pretty sure it is also a joking reference to the color of my skin.

My first few days staying with the Dlamini family were a little strange. My Make (ma-gay, meaning mother) wasn’t home. She was in South Africa for work, which is really common for Swazis. Because of this, I was not eating dinner with my family like many of the other volunteers were. Cooking is pretty strictly the woman’s job, so it would have been pretty strange for Babe to make me a meal. Instead I cooked for myself in my hut on my Peace Corps-issued two burner gas stove. I think that my bhuti (meaning brother) cooks for Babe while Make is away.

Speaking of my bhuti, there were actually two (bobhuti!) at my training host family. Thabiso is 13 and Makosonkhe is 14. Thabiso goes to school and is very good at English, but Makosonkhe only knows a few words. We still managed to communicate, but I naturally ended up being much closer to Thabiso.  These kids are wild! But they also completely made my host family experience during my time in Sihhohhweni, and treated me so well. Even trying to write about them now is hard, because it has been two weeks since I left them and I miss them like crazy.

Makosonkhe helping Thabiso to swing from the avocado tree…

Thabiso showing off a traditional Swazi necklace

When Make came home, I was so lucky to discover that she is just the sweetest, most welcoming, generous, incredible woman. She works hard taking care of the homestead (which includes corn fields, a giant avocado tree, and a mini banana tree orchard, in addition to 10+ chickens) and of all the people in her life. She goes to church three or more times a week, and during my short stay with the family she was gone a lot, caring for two very sick people.

My host family was so incredibly welcoming, and did all they could to make me feel comfortable during my transition from American to Swazi life. When I told Make I had a mouse problem, she was in my room with her black-market poison almost instantly. When I had a bug that I needed removed, Thabiso always saved the day. I was constantly gifted with avocados bigger than softballs, and on shopping days I was always met at the bus stop by my bobhuti, who helped me carry my groceries home. I didn’t think I could possibly be happier with my host family until about four weeks in, when I came home to a tiny little black puppy that they told me was ours! Thabiso let me name her, and he let her sleep in his bed because I told him that is where Olive sleeps at my house in America. That is pretty much unheard of here, and it absolutely filled my heart with joy. I worked hard during the time I had left with the family to make sure Inkhosatana (Princess) was the most spoiled dog in Swaziland, and that it will stay that way. The boys were really good about taking care of her, and I can’t wait to go and visit them all!

 

Part Two: Life in Sihhohhweni

My homestead in Sihhohhweni was relatively small but pretty nice. We had electricity, and a private water tap right outside the “smoke hut”, which is a detached structure where a Swazi family will usually build a fire to cook over. In case you’re curious, Peace Corps gave us all water filters with carbon-filled ceramic candles. I filter my water through that and then add a couple of drops of bleach per liter in order to make it safe to drink…it is super easy and I haven’t gotten sick yet! In order to bathe, I fill a 10 liter bucket with clean water and add some boiled water to make it warm. Then I have a large basin to stand in a little pitcher to pour with. Everyone develops their own system and it is surprising how fast you get used to things…but I am still looking forward to hanging my solar shower at my permanent site for the illusion of running water soon. Our pit latrine was on the outskirts of the homestead, and it was built out of firewood, which means there were several gaps in the walls, leaving some privacy to be desired. It had a built up plastic toilet seat instead of just a hole to hover over, like I was expecting, so that was really nice. As I mentioned, Sunday is typically laundry day. Laundry is a process, and might be my least favorite chore. There is the initial wash, two rinses, and then a final rinse in water treated with “stay-soft”, which makes it so your clothes aren’t stiff after air drying, and also makes them smell really good. Then you hang the clothes on the line and hope that it doesn’t rain, and that a cow doesn’t try to eat them. Every morning (and honestly every hour for the first few nights) I woke up to rooster crows-there’s no escaping them. Every night I fell asleep to the sound of the Sangoma’s drums.

My ”hut” during training was actually two-thirds of this house.

Speaking of the Sangoma, one of the highlights of training for me was getting to visit him! A Sangoma is a Swazi traditional healer. One of our cultural sessions involved going to watch Sihhohhweni’s Sangoma dance to loud drums and “pray” to the ancestral spirits. It was a really powerful experience. Not all Swazis believe in or would choose to visit a Sangoma to help them with problems, but I personally love that they still exist and continue to pass on the tradition, because it is such a beautiful cultural practice.

Another highlight of training was the 4^th of July party at our Country Director’s house. Having been in Swaziland for a little more than a week, being able to celebrate one of my favorite American holidays semi-traditionally took the edge off the homesickness. All the volunteers were invited to Steve’s (incredibly beautiful) house in Mbabane for a BBQ. I got to meet people who have been here for a year already, and some who were almost finished with their two years of service. It was nice to get out of the village, have a burger, and pretend we were still at home for a few hours.

Training was intense, exhausting, and frustrating at times. After a few weeks, some of the sessions began to feel really boring and repetitive, and spending so much time with the same group of people is bound to wear on everyone, but now that I’m on the other side, I really do feel like I can appreciate how essential it was to prepare us for life in a rural Swazi village. I feel like I already know more about the culture and Swazi way of life than many foreigners/aid workers who have been here for years ever will. Part of that is thanks to the Peace Corps training program, but I attribute more of it to the Peace Corps model of cultural immersion. No one else working in development is living on homesteads cooking, washing, dancing, laughing, and living out real life with families in the communities they are trying to serve. I think that the deeper understanding this experience brings can only enrich and help to make the projects that Peace Corps volunteers work on during service more culturally appropriate and sustainable. So while I can say I am incredibly happy that the monotony of training is over, I can also say that I’m even happier that my time spent living in a Swazi village has only begun!

Part Three: Swaziland Basics

For future reference, I’ll probably mention Mbabane and Manzini pretty often in my blog. They are the two biggest cities in Swaziland, and are both centrally located, about a 15 minute khumbi ride away from each other. Oh! Khumbis! Okay, so pretty much anytime I go anywhere, I take a khumbi. Khumbis are (usually) 16 passenger vans with different town names written across the front of them that explain their route, and they are Swaziland’s main source of public transportation. You stand on the side of the road at a stesh (stop) and if there is space for you (or proabably even if there isn’t) the khumbi will pull over and let you in. Or, if you’re in a city, there will be a bus rank where all the khumbis gather, and you find the one you’re looking for, get on, and ‘wait for it to fill up with passengers and pull away. You stay on until you get where you want to be, yell “Stesh!”,  pay the conductor, and you’re off! They are pretty affordable and fast, but the driving can be…concerning at times, and there really is no limit on how many people they might try to shove into those things. But back to the cities:

Mbabane is Swaziland’s capital. This is where our Peace Corps office is and where a lot of NGOs and rich people can be found. Most of the government activity takes place here, and for that reason, there are several nice restaurants and expensive stores and places with wifi. Going to Mbabane is great for food and a drink, and a day spent online, but it really isn’t my favorite place. Manzini is the “big” city. This is where the good shopping is, and it always seems to be crowded. This is where Swazis go. There is a weekly market with fruits, vegetables, crafts, and lots of random things you wouldn’t expect to see at the market. There is also an always-open craft market which is a really dangerous place for me to go. Several of the vendors already know me by name, and their eyes light up at the site of this volunteer girl with very little self-control when it comes to shopping for beautiful, handmade African art. It really is the coolest place though! I have so many things scoped out, including a 4 foot tall giraffe carved out of wood that I just need to figure out how I’ll get back to the US… 

On that note, here are some harsh realities of Swaziland I discovered during training:

If you have to pee after dark, you’re going to do it into a bucket in your room and empty it into the latrine in the morning.

If you heard squeaking at night-good news, its just bats! And there’s only like a 10% chance they’ll make it into your hut…but if you hear rustling sounds at night, its mice! And they are for sure going to eat through the plastic bread bag and munch a perfectly round circle through a slice of bread.

If you want to know where something is (be it where a relative lives or where in the kitchen you will find a spoon) the answer is going to be “that side”. If something is not within immediate sight, it is on “that side”, and that’s the most specific answer you’re going to get from a Swazi.

If you want to buy wine but it is Sunday…You’re not going to get to buy wine.

And, no matter how good you think your siSwati is, you will always be laughed at the first time you try to speak it to someone.