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.
A South African businessman on his way home from Singapore wandered into the line of my giddy smile as we were filing off the plane:
Him: “I’ve never seen anyone so excited to reach Jo’burg international. Are you coming home?”
Me (maddeningly chirpy after 11 hour overnight flight): “No, it’s my first time in Africa!”
Him: “Welcome! It won’t be your last, this place has a way of getting under your skin. How long are you in Jo’burg?”
Me: “Oh, I’m just passing through. I’m on my way to Swaziland, I’m volunteering there for a few months. I’m a bit nervous to be honest, I’ve no idea what to expect.”
Him: “Ya right. Swaziland’s a nice little place. It’s a bit backward though, it won’t be like South Africa.”
Me: “I’ve no idea what South Africa’s like either! I’m from Australia – Sydney.”
Him: “I imagine both countries are pretty similar. Jozi – Sydney – both modern, cosmopolitan cities.”
Me: “Really? I’ve heard horror stories about Jo’burg back home – I’m glad to hear they’re exaggerated.”
Him: “Completely exaggerated! Jozi’s like any other city. Some places are no-go zones, day or night. But most places are fine by day. And of course you don’t walk around alone or at night.”
Me: “Actually, in Sydney I can’t think of anywhere that I couldn’t go to during the day, and I often walked home by myself after midnight.”
Him: “Really?! You mustn’t do that here!”
I realised we had very different standards of ‘normal’.
*
When I arrived in South Africa, I had no idea what my life was going to be like for the next two months in Swaziland beyond how I was going to get there from Jo’burg. My only lifeline was a contact number for Jackson, an Australian lawyer at Save The Children with whom I’d organised my coming over. I had no idea what kind of a man this Jackson would turn out to be (was he young or old? friendly or standoffish? a zealot or a pragmatist? energetic or a couch potato?), what kinds of facilities were available at the office in Mbabane, what sort of food would be available in Swaziland, or whereabouts I would be staying, what the apartment they’d found for me would be like (including whether there would be any furniture, or even a bed! I was very glad to be travelling with my nice new sleeping bag just in case), would I have electricity? running water?… the list goes on.
*
Whatever would be would be, and all I could do was find out when I got there. So I killed a few hours at Jozi airport checking out the bookstores and chatting to a nice Brazilian boy who was also in transit, ironically enough, for Sydney.
Eventually, the time came to hop onto the daily combi* to Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland.
*(A “combi” is a minibus used for commuting. In Swaziland, the public combis seat about 15 people legally and maybe 20 people squishedly, and they are the public transport around the place. To date, every combi driver I’ve encountered has been an insane speed fiend. This combi was a private combi so nicer, reliable and much more expensive. The driver was still an insane speed fiend.)
There were only two other passengers that day – Clinton, a half South African half Swazi boy returning home for a month long visit during the English university holidays, and Mary-Lou, a German IB candidate studying at Waterford, a famous international school located just outside Mbabane.
Chatting to them was enlightening and comforting – I had no idea that Mbabane boasted one of the best international schools in the world! How glorious to know that the country notes I was given weren’t true – you can get standard feminine products in Swaziland after all! Yes, in Mbabane there was (mostly reliable) running water and electricity, would you think it? It even transpired that Clinton’s mother knew of Jackson, the Australian lawyer at Save The Children with whom I’d organised my placement. She’d described Jackson to her son as “a very good man”. Such relief to know that when I arrived in Mbabane I’d be in the hands of someone good, and also a relief to know that I’d be working with someone known to and respected by people in the community!
The landscape passed was beautiful too, even from a highway. Wide open spaces, an immense sky, and as we climbed up toward Swaziland, beautiful hills and valleys.
There were scattered homesteads built along the highway on the ridges, and occasional strings of people along the road, remote, far from anywhere.
“Who lives out here?” I asked Clinton.
“Very poor people, who can’t afford to live closer” was the reply.
Me: “But they’re so far from everything – how do the adults get to work, how do the children go to school?”
Clinton: “There aren’t many jobs out here, and there’s no public transport. So they walk. The children living here will walk about 30km to school each day. And then back again.”
Me: “Wait, 30km all up or 30km each way?”
Clinton: “Each way.”
Me: “You are telling me that small children walk 60km to get to and from school? How is that possible? I’ve walked 60km in a day before, and it took more than 12 hours!”
Clinton: “They start very early in the morning, and they get home very late.”
Me: “How could they concentrate in class? How could they eat enough to replace the energy?”
Clinton: “They probably don’t. But at least they are going to school. And this is still South Africa. Things are worse in Swaziland, the people are much poorer.”
*
We passed through the border post and customs relatively quickly, and then we were in Swaziland. Clinton and Mary-Lou were immediately on the phone to their mother and boyfriend respectively, arranging getting picked up from the combi drop off point in Mbabane.
“Who’s picking you up?” Clinton asked me, with some concern.
“Jackson’s meeting me at the Engen.”
“That’s good. It isn’t safe to be out alone at night time, especially for a white woman. And you can’t always trust the taxi drivers.”
“But we’ll be there before night, won’t we? It’s only 5.30.”
“Aiiie, sisi.” Clinton gave me a very serious look. “Your organisation had better brief you about safety. This is Swaziland. Night time isn’t like UK, it doesn’t mean late night, it means darkness. In winter, night time begins at 5.30 – no, let’s say at 5. It’s not safe to be on the streets by yourself at dusk. When it gets dark, get inside.”
I assented, and thanked him for the advice, but mulishly thought to myself that it must be over the top – it made Mbabane sound like the setting for a post-apocalyptic zombie movie! If you go out in darkness They’ll get you…
*
And suddenly we had arrived. My virgin steps onto Swazi soil were at Engen petrol station, on the edge of Mbabane CBD, at about 6pm on Saturday 7 May.
Clinton waited with me for Jackson to arrive. He explained to his readily concurring mother that it wouldn’t be safe for me to wait alone.
There were no streetlights, the darkness was large and palpable. There were small fires lit along the road near the station, and itinerant, indigent-looking men gathered around them.
There was a surprising amount of street traffic, invariably men, walking past in pairs or groups. Quite a large proportion walked in a way that suggested they had been drinking heavily. Whenever they happened to look my way and notice me they would stare, and talk among themselves while looking at me.
I was very glad that Clinton was with me. And watching the groups of men shambling through unlit and otherwise empty streets, I began to wonder if the description of Mbabane as post-apocalyptic zombie movie was so far off the mark.
*
Before long, Jackson-the-Australian-lawyer pulled up in a large and creaking Save The Children ute. Jackson turned out to be 30ish, wiry, and boyish-looking despite an attempt at facial hair. His manners were warm but in a way that felt natural and without artifice, and he was clearly keeping about 50 different thoughts and plans in his mind at once.
There are some people in the world that you like and trust immediately. Jackson was one of them. He also managed to be both personable and efficient, which is a winning combination. Within about 30 seconds of his pulling up, we’d covered introductions, pleasantries about the trip, icebreaking jokes and (since the shops were long closed) him guiding me around the Engen for the next day’s breakfast items (“You’ll need milk – here are oats, baked beans – juice? Will you want juice? Biscuits? Ah, not a biscuits person”), and getting me to pick up an MTN* starter pack.
*(MTN is the only mobile phone provider in Swaziland. International roaming on other networks doesn’t work here. This is because MTN was granted an exclusive license to provide cell phone services in Swaziland, and the company still enjoys a monopoly. His Majesty partly owns MTN. This may be related to why they have a monopoly. They are egregiously expensive compared to other providers in Southern Africa and they can’t get you online on your mobile. Oh, and for some bizarre reason the only Australian network that will receive texts from an MTN phone is Telstra. Mary Ellen (Jackson’s wife) mentioned this to me just a few days ago, adding “Which is useless; after all, who’s on Telstra??” What are the odds, the only two people I’d texted from Swaziland are also the only Australians I know who use Telstra.)
30 seconds later, we were back in the car, Jackson hit the central locking button, and we were on our way to my apartment via a quick stop at Save The Children headquarters. (“Sorry, my wife is teaching at Sunday school tomorrow and she needs me to do some emergency photocopying for the colouring-in pictures.”)
Simultaneously Jackson began the safety briefing while I, feeling strangely startled, tried to take in and adjust to my new environment. “Listen, this is a pretty safe country. I think you’ll like it here and have a good time, you just have to follow the rules. The most important rule is, you don’t walk around at night.” The other cars were driving in the centre of the road, ignoring the lanes. The only lights came from the headlights of cars. The shapes of the many men walking along the sides of the streets would emerge and appear in relief under the beam of the headlights. When we slowed at traffic lights, sometimes they would peer in, noticing two banlungu inside. Whenever we stopped at a light I thought of South Africa, and anti-hijacking rules there (never stop at intersections, They’ll get you). Jackson seemed alert but not alarmed, so I breathed easy too, though I did notice him check that central locking was on.
“During the day, you’ll be pretty much fine. Most muggings happen at dusk and at night. But, remember that you’re a target. People already think you’re rich because you’re white. Don’t make yourself more of a target than you have to be. Don’t carry around nice handbags or wave a flashy camera or phone around. Avoid talking on your phone in public – someone might decide to snatch the phone, or your bag while you’re distracted. There are a few areas round town you need to be more alert in – I’ll show you on a map when we get to Save. If you need to go out at night, go in a car. If I can’t give you a lift, get a taxi. I’ll give you the numbers of a couple of cab drivers we trust. If you want to get somewhere at night and you can’t go in a car, don’t go out. Don’t get into a taxi you don’t know unless you really can’t avoid it. I’m pretty sure one of our robberies was from a taxi driver we hailed impromptu who took us home one night, and made a note of where the banlungu lived.”
“One of your robberies? How many times have you been robbed?”
“Oh, lots. At least half a dozen. At one stage we had a repeat burglar, this guy who found a way to get in once and then kept coming back every few weeks. It got to a stage where we’d wake up and hear him in the kitchen, and say ‘Oh, he’s back again.’”
“Your friendly neighbourhood burglar?” I said, filing ‘cavalier attitudes to repeat housebreakers = normal’ in my mental folder of Stuff I am Learning about Swaziland. “Okay, I understand. So what time does night begin?”
“As soon as it gets dark. And you should be off the streets well before that. Dusk starts in winter at 5pm.”
A pause. “I don’t want to scare you. But I am also under strict instructions from the office and from my wife – they have said, ‘scare her!’ You come from a different world. If you’re careful, there’s no reason why you should have a problem. But you have to be careful. Don’t think that because you’re close to home or it’s only just gotten dark that you’re safe. My wife was robbed at knifepoint less than 100 metres from our house, at dusk.”
Jackson was doing his job well, I was scared. What would I do if someone broke into my room when I was sleeping and pulled a knife?
*
Views from the apartment.
When we got to the apartment, I had a moment of private embarrassment about my uncertainty as to whether it would have running water. (It didn’t at that moment have electricity, but that was because electricity here is PAYG and there was nothing on the meter – instantly fixed with a voucher from the gas station.) This is Mbabane after all – the administrative capital of Swaziland, not a remote homestead out in Lobombo. I’m staying in a nice little place, a one bedroom apartment on the ground floor of a secured apartment complex, separate kitchen and living area, and a small bathroom. (Lucky that it is a nice place though, as I have to spend almost every evening inside it.)
*
The whirlwind continued, Jackson having dealt with collection of one (1) displaced Australian, breakfast foods, mobile phone, electricity, Sunday School photocopying, safety briefing and Mbabane maps; and having also introduced said Australian to Ellie the landlady, acquired keys, imparted useful contact numbers (cabs, police, his and his wife’s, Mbabane Clinic), advised changing into sufficiently warm night clothes, and by good fortune, mid-conversation, proposing the one nickname I actually like: “Do you get called Becs?” (Not since high school! But I feel like I am a “Becs” whereas I wear “Bec” as a necessary abbreviation in order to avoid the cold formality of insisting on my name, “Rebecca”.)
Now that all that was settled, Jackson proffered item #15. “Listen, I don’t know how tired you are, but if you’re not too jet lagged, there’s an event on tonight. We don’t get many events on in Mbabane, so you don’t want to miss it. There’s a Swazi Poetry Night happening at the Theatre Club. The last one was more than four months ago, who knows when the next one will be.”
I was so there.
*
It’s one of the different things about being here, where there is little in the way of public social life after hours, the immediacy with which one is brought into that most private of spheres, the family home.
Tiptoeing in to avoid waking an infant son, enroute to the Theatre Club that evening I met Jackson’s wife Mary Ellen and her parents, who were there for a fortnight visiting. Devoutly Christian, Mary Ellen’s parents had volunteered in Tanzania for almost 20 years, and raised three children there. Now one adult child was in Swaziland, another in Arusha and a third in Beirut. Thriving in uncertain but invigorating environments was clearly a family tradition.
They were good people, and they asked a few curious questions of me. Why volunteer and why Swaziland?
I explained the impetus and the logic behind my choice – wanting to serve after having spent 24 years in a safe Sydney existence. Wanting to be useful, so seeking a developing Commonwealth country where the legal language was English, so I could contribute with my specialty. How I had asked around amongst some of my university mentors, and happened to be put in touch with Jackson. Swaziland was almost by chance.
I held back on the rest of the reason because it was both too personal and too appallingly egocentric. That I am here experimenting with a kind of spiritual mortification. That I want to expose myself to deprivation and suffering and refuse to look away, and let myself be blasted by what I see. To find out if I have built my ethical system on foundations strong and true enough to withstand the blast. To test my tentative life choices with trial by fire.
The first lesson I have learned is that my premises were flawed.
The first lesson I learned in Swaziland was this: Life always goes on, no matter what the hardships faced or the loved ones lost. Life always goes on and life can always be happy. "I get knocked down, and I get up again" is as universal a statement of the human condition as "everybody hurts sometimes". I came looking for the awful but find I am more often in awe. (on to Poetry Night at the Theatre Club)
No comments:
Post a Comment