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.
The Theatre Club is a newish social club of Swazis in Mbabane, and they put on theatre productions, performance nights and also ran a restaurant and bar. They rival the more white-dominated Mbabane Club as the main social game in Mbabane.
Jackson, Mary Ellen and I wandered into the Poetry Night partway through. The theatre was already packed, and by the time of the first intermission it was standing room only.
The poetry was performance poetry – sometimes in siSwati, sometimes in English, some socio-political (I remember snatches and refrains: “The girl gave her body to the road … / The pastors say “Be patient, be patient” – How long must we be patient?”), some highly personal, some delivered with snatches of song (“I fell in love today/ in love with life today”), some tragicomic (“Who let the chickens out of the yard, and made Mama cry?”)
It’s impossible to convey it in words. But this was the real thing. The delivery was invariably extraordinary – resonant voices, perfect rhythms of language, wonderful characterisation and performance of character. The artists were everyone – people would be called out of the audience by the MC and deliver a piece, then the MC might call for an unbilled volunteer, and someone would always emerge to deliver a poem or a song.
The MC herself was extraordinary, she made me imagine a 1960s Harlem prima donna, laughing and bantering with the audience, delivering her own verses in between acts, larger than life, outraged and outrageous, powerful, joyful, dignified.
*
Thoroughly swallowed by the show, when the time came to go I was sorry to leave.
We passed out of the warmth and laughter and back into the night. I had begun to think of the night as a place of menace.
Jackson and Mary Ellen dropped me home, and left Mary Ellen’s mobile with me since my iPhone was refusing to recognise the MTN starter pack or find reception. (“We can’t leave you without a phone.”)
The final safety tips were passed on. “Lock all the doors and windows before you sleep and whenever you go out. Lock the interior doors too – bathroom, bedroom and partition to the living area. Make sure you keep the gate to the complex closed. If you hear someone break in, call the police and then call us. There’s a bar round the corner from you so there might be a fair bit of street traffic tonight.”
In retrospect, the briefing was intended to cover actions for all possibilities, however remote. At the time, it entered my bewildered ears as a briefing covering probabilities. (Never mind that in addition to the walls around the complex, there are bars over all the windows.)
As Jackson and Mary Ellen left me alone for the night, I presented bravado and adult confidence, but inwardly felt sudden pangs of fear, like a four year old realising her parents really have deposited her at school and she’s on her own.
Every noise, shout, crash outside made me flinch and run to the windows to see if They were about. One of the apartments was having a houseparty, so they were keeping the exterior gate open, and lots of people were wandering in and out from the street. Frequently guard dogs close to my window would start barking, and my heart would fly to my mouth again.
I slept uneasily that night with a metal walking pole by my bed, a vague prophylactic against fear. Wondering to what kind of place I had brought myself.
*
Sunday morning was bright and sunny. Exhausted, I’d slept well. I woke mid-morning, prepared breakfast, and ventured out for a look around.
The difference between day and night was extraordinary. Night terrors fled under the bright sunlight, and for the first time I actually saw my new landscape. Bright blue sky, lush green surrounds, quiet, peaceful and filled with friendly people. I couldn’t help but laugh at myself. What I had I been so afraid of last night? Jumping at shadows and monsters under the bed.
Walking into town along the bumpy roads, I passed hens with strings of chickens pecking seeds on the side of the road, and overloaded combis taking commuters to the plaza. Small children (bantfwana) would see me and wave frantically, huge smiles when I waved back, amazed laughter when I greeted them in siSwati. Everyone I passed smiled and greeted me, I got to practice my siSwati greetings at least 20 times before I reached town.
An old man dressed in a bright blue robe and carrying a shepherd’s crook greeted me at an intersection close to the plaza, and then “Uyaphi? Where are you going?”
He led me to the plaza, explaining that he was a Zionist, and he had just come from church. (Zionists are African Christians who blend certain traditional beliefs and practices with Christian doctrines – much in the same way that certain European pagan beliefs and practices have blended with Western Christianity, such as Easter and Christmas celebrations, or the Catholic employment of numerous saints.)
My mission from Jackson was to go to Mbabane plaza and get a combi to The Gables. I didn’t know what The Gables was, or where it was, but I figured I’d manage to work it out.
Along the way I met a friendly Rastafarian and a lovely Mormon make (religion is a big deal here), accidentally acquired a stalker, and discovered the joys and terrors of public combis. (The Gables itself was the least interesting part.)
That Sunday was a good day, wiping out the fear but not the caution. By the end of my first day and night in Mbabane I’d accepted caution, but refused to be spooked.
I wish this was a teleological story though, of progress towards a proper balance between being open to experiences and being mindful of safety. It’s not – I’m still trying to find the appropriate balance. Over the course of my first week I became more and more comfortable, but the very next Saturday I had a close encounter with a group of township boys. There are too many currents and layers to life here for me to have read them yet. And no matter how carefully I observe, as soon as I step into the theatre, simply by virtue of being an outsider, everything changes again.
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