Choosing my religion - or Don't Ask, Don't Tell

Religion is a big deal here. With the exception of a handful of Chinese and Indian migrants, pretty much the entire population is devoutly Christian, of some denomination or another. The particulars of your faith don’t seem to matter too much, so long as you have faith. Christianity in Swaziland is a very broad church, and many good churchgoing Swazis will simultaneously believe in the Resurrection and in muthi (pronounce: moo-tee), which is voodoo or black magic. (It reminds me of a passage in North and South, in which a peasant woman in 1850s England spends Sunday morning in church and Sunday afternoon catching a small animal and skinning it alive as part of a protective spell.)

And there are none of our Western taboos about discussing religion openly – in public, in the workplace, with strangers. On my first Sunday morning in Swaziland, by the time I’d walked from my house to the combi station, I’d been approached by a Zionist, a Rastafarian and a Mormon, all of whom wanted to explain their religion to me and how it was the right way. (The Rastafarians are my favourite; along with having a lovely universalist approach to religion, the communion in Swaziland is exceptionally good.)

I’ve been asked numerous times now by colleagues at work, cashiers in shops, random people in the markets and streets… where do I go to church? do I go to church? am I Christian?

Things I miss from home (a moment of self-indulgence)

1. Bourke St Bakery fig sourdough, proper milk, sushi, really good coffee, Ocello cheeses and Thai food.

2. I miss the sea and the harbour. I miss the smell of the ocean all through Sydney.

3. Efficient and functioning office equipment – computers, printers, internal networks, internet connections. Access to LexisNexis and HeinOnline for research. You don’t realise how smoothly everything just works in a place like Mallesons till you go somewhere where it really doesn’t.

4. Walking down the street and being completely anonymous and unspectacular. Being able to be private in public.

5. Walking down the street and not having to scan other people constantly for unusual and potentially threatening behaviour.

6. Walking about at night time altogether.

7. I miss picking up a phone and calling one of my friends or my Mum or my Dad or one of my siblings if I want to, just to hear what’s happening. I miss my sisters, I miss my brothers, I miss big family dinners with the whole family and I missed my little brother’s 18^th birthday party.

Random excellent things about Swaziland # 732

Stopping by the Mbabane Pick'n'Pay for some routine grocery shopping, discover they're selling fresh honey direct from the hive, deliciously oozing out of the honeycomb. Yum.... that's going on top of my porridge tomorrow morning.

The best weekend ever had in Swaziland

Any negative impression of Swaziland created by the description of my first full weekend needs to be (and was) countered quickly. Let me describe to you my second full weekend (May 21/22), which was – till lately! – the best weekend ever had in Swaziland. (This weekend just past seriously rivals it; I really need to get up to date with my blog entries!)

And let me show you a picture or two of a second Eden.

This is Malandela’s, which is where the famous music and theatre venue House on Fire is located. I first visited the week before Bushfire, an annual African music festival. It is impossible to convey the beauty and the peace of this place. It is sacred soil, holy, there is no other way to describe it.

When you come to Swaziland (you must come, really you must), stay at the bed and breakfast here in the Malkerns. If I weren’t working all the way in Mbabane – and if I weren’t on a volunteer’s non-existent income – I’d be living here.

Friday

The best weekend Swaziland has ever produced began inauspiciously.

Would the Real Africa please stand up

The other day, I was in a combi with six young McKinsey employees all currently based in Jo’burg. They were in Swaziland on a weekend trip, and we were all on our way to the Great River Usutu for some white water rafting.

One was South African, another was Zimbabwean, a third was Danish Canadian, a fourth was Kenyan, a fifth was American and the sixth was from Holland. (I was pleased to add one Australian to the multicultural mix.)

Brian was the Kenyan. Among his (no doubt numerous) claims to fame is that he was a childhood advertising star in Kenya, most famous for singing a jingle about sunflower seed oil.

In which Rebecca is taught a few (economic) home truths

This post is about some unpleasant lessons I learned during my first full weekend in Swaziland (almost four weeks ago now) - in summary, that the poverty line is a barrier more brutal than the Berlin Wall, and that I really shouldn't go walking about by myself at dusk...

And now for something completely frivolous (a hairy interlude)

I’ve noticed that very few Swazi men have facial hair, but hordes of expat white men do. It is very odd.

I have a few working theories on this.

Self-selection for Africa

My first theory is that most white men who feel the call of Africa have a secret longing to be bearded.

One for the lawyers…

Help. Seriously, help.

Constitutional law nuts, human rights specialists, property law experts, and especially you devil’s advocates, I need you.

I have till Monday morning to identify, research, prepare and turn into an Amicus brief the legal argument that will save 80 families from eviction and establish a broad constitutional limitation on the power of governments and private landowners to evict residents. The Swaziland Constitution was passed in 2005, and most of its provisions have never been litigated. It contains a Bill of Rights which is mostly comparative to South Africa’s but also includes some completely different language – which, once again, has never been litigated. In constitutional law terms, we are in green fields.

Driving in Swaziland

Last Saturday, I drove out to Manzini with the brilliant and ebullient Lwazi, a friend from Save The Children. We meandered through Malandela’s and the Malkerns until quite late, and after I dropped Lwazi home I ended up driving back to Mbabane in the dark.

Driving in daytime is a bit like an arcade game. Or the RTA’s Hazard Perception Test on steroids.

Language blues

I’m living in Swaziland, so naturally I’m trying to pick up some siSwati. Some parts are relatively easy, and so things like the greetings (Sawubona bhuti – Yebo sisi – Unjani? - Ngiyaphila, wena unjan?) I’ve got down (for an umlungu, anyway).

Some phrases are just beautiful to say, rolling off the tongue like “lilana lihle” (which means “The sun is beautiful”). Others are fun as partial puns, like “Ulala la?” (which means “are you going to sleep here?” and is applied by kindly programs directors to stray Australian girls still in the office more than 30 mins after close of day at 4.30pm). (I also love that the conjugated and present tense form for “sleep” is “lala”. Oh, and the word for “death” is “mukulala” – which kind of means “ongoing sleep”.)

Where do things get complicated? Well.

For a long time, I could say “yes” (yebo, eg “yebo siyacona” means “Yes We Can” in siSwati) but I could not say “no”.

This was something of an issue, as “no” is quite an important word in any language.

Being of a positive disposition has its limits; sometimes you really do want and need to say “no”.

Swaziland eats

Contrary to my apprehensions, yes, you can get every kind of food here. Most of it is imported from South Africa. Certain types of food that only Westerners really eat tend to be markedly more expensive - most especially, dairy products such as milk, yoghurt and butter. Lactose intolerance is common, and even then Swazis are far more likely to eat emasi than yoghurt.

Everything else, like fresh food and vegetables, meat and cereals are common and not too pricey. I'm also enjoying the South African influence - biltong and koeksisters are favourites!

There's not much of a culture of eating out in Mbabane, so that, coupled with being housebound from 5pm, has meant that I've been developing my primitive cooking abilities in leaps and bounds.

Rising an hour before bathing to turn on the geyser for hot water has also meant that I've taken to the occasional bout of morning baking, with the great advantage of having an officeful of people who will eat my fluffy banana bread offerings. I've been keeping my bread-and-butter puddings to myself though - too good not to keep for breakfasts.

My dinner staple is still stew, which has the advantage of heavy duty boiling of everything fresh which might contain nasty bugs. I've also made venison chops, roasted pumpkins, and quite a nice carrot soup, with about a kilo of carrots and spices I boiled down into a thick, smooth and delicious dish. I haven't been sick yet, but I've been warned to watch out for broccoli.

Swazi Poetry Night at the Theatre Club

Paradigmatically, the most dangerous thing about coming into Africa as a Western volunteer is that structurally, you are positioned as someone who is coming in to help. You are positioned as the active person, and those you have come to work with are positioned as passive. It is a way of thinking that must be avoided at all costs, because, through the best of intentions, you deny the autonomy and thus the dignity of the people around you. It’s colonialism in a 21st century suit.

I knew before I came that to think in those terms was poison, to my own self as well as to my ability to do anything while I was here. Everything depends on respect, shared learning, and good relationships with co-workers, so that projects developed are owned and pushed by locals, not by transient volunteers, and do not fall quietly away when the latest umlungu has come and gone.

*

On my first night, I was glad to receive a powerful inoculation against that poison.

To Africa! the virgin steps

My plane touched down at Jo’burg international airport early morning Saturday 7 May.

The excitement was bubbling up immediately, and an internal voice happily chanting “Eeee! We’re in Africa! Eeee! Africa!” Even the rising sun looked different – bigger and somehow more liquid, spilling across the horizon like thick honey.

Prologue

So, here I am in Swaziland. I’m living in Mbabane for two months, until the start of July. I‘m here volunteering at Save The Children Swaziland, working on legal and policy issues to do with education governance and access to information.

It’s my first time in Swaziland and my first time in Africa. Before I came, I knew nothing of what to expect.