Some photos

These are a few of the promised Male Health Event pictures, as well as some community photos taken when Claire came to visit back in June. Enjoy!



We hired a local builder to assist in the construction of the Health Education boards and also recruited a few young guys to join the party. All were astonished that I could do this kind of work.


Swazi team work. :-) I like this picture.


Claire is standing in the structure at my Umphakatsi called the KaGogo Center. Instead of sitting in the 3-5 hour siSwati meetings about small land disputes and dogs eating peoples' chickens every Wednesday, I sit in a little office in this building and do paper work. I'm still accessible to the community members, but can get the 5 minute summary of the meeting from the KaGogo Center manager and my friend, Vusi.


This is Sitilo. The "river" that runs somewhat near my homestead. My bus stop is thus called "Stilo". I have had the pleasure of washing clothes and fetching water from this stream.


Claire and I walked off the main road to see the community garden. It threatened rain but since it was our dry season we didn't think much about it. About an hours walk away from my home it started to rain. It has been the only true winter rain to date. I told her she brought the rain from Mbabane, but not to tell anyone in my community lest she be held against her will. :-P

Male Health Events

Monday Aug 9th 4:37pm

This last week was an enormous portion of crazy busy with hectic and chaos on the side! Putting on a major community event in Swaziland is not my favorite thing in the world to do, but it turned out rather rewarding. I ended up getting the grant money into my account just before I needing to go shopping for supplies, PHEW. Friday, being the last weekend of the month (pay day), was a populated mess in Nhlangano. The bank was definitely the worst part, and that wasn’t aided by the fact that I forgot my passport and my signature had rubbed off the back of my ATM card. Getting the money was a fiasco and a half, but was finally achieved. I ordered all my supplies at Build-It and told the appropriate staff that someone would be their Sunday to pick it up. This someone was the Deputy Head Teacher at one of the primary schools I work with. The gentleman who had previously agreed to pick up our supplies had vehicle troubles at the last minute. Babe Khumalo saved the day… after I begged. Only a handful of people in my community have vehicles, thus fewer have trucks (here called “iVan” or “bucky”).

Sunday, as agreed, he delivered the supplies for the two health education bulletin boards that were constructed the following day. The board material was a bit disappointing. I had tried to explain the materials I needed had to be strong since they were going to have to resist the damaging whims of the natural elements, but board delivered was a very soft insulation board. We, being myself, my counterpart Vusi, a community builder, and 3 young men from the community, worked all day Monday constructing the boards and the roofs to cover them. As for the soft board, I insisted we strengthen it by reinforcing the back with scrap 2x4s. The men were pretty surprised when I had design ideas that were better than their own, and even more so when I didn’t hesitate to pound out holes in the earth or pound in nails to the wood. Wake up boys; women can do this too!!!

Although exhausted, sleep came and went that night, but the anxious butterflies and worried recitation of mental lists stayed throughout. Tuesday morning I got on a bus at 6:45am with everything from condom models to Styrofoam cups and juice concentrate, only to drop 6 minutes later and start the 45 minute walk to the Makhava Dip Tank along the Ingwavuma River. Vusi was already there with his tractor and plastic chairs we were borrowing from the community Umphakatsi center. He was nervous that people were not staying after dipping their animals and kept yelling, “Dipa ungahambi” (Dip and don’t go). Not having people to educate was a new addition to my stress list… sh%t. That ended up not being a problem!! Over 50 community members were there and ready to listen a good ½ hour before we expected the dipping to be over! The local pastor was there and ready to get it started, but LATICC, the NGO second up on the roster, was a bit lost on our rural community dirt paths and not present yet. PSI took over a bit early and programming wise, everything appeared to go smoothly… until it was over.

The food was suppose to arrive at 12 and did not get there until 12:40pm still needing to be served into the take-away containers! I’m thinking these were not very experienced caterers, and certainly unprofessional, because every attempt to reach them on their cell was ignored or purposely diverted! Once they arrived, people were already a bit upset at having to wait and I was more than a bit upset at their performance. I gave Vusi the task of speaking to them for fear I would react too strongly and go about it in a culturally inappropriate way. Food was not a problem on Thursday.

I got a ride back to my site with LATICC just in time to quickly tidy up my house and greet a group 8 volunteer, Jessica, at my bus stop. During training for PC Swaziland you get to visit your new permanent homestead and community for a few days after those exciting site announcements (which I got to participate in this year being a part of PSN). The final day of that visit is spent in the community of the closest volunteer from the previous group; it’s called “mentoring day”. Poor Jessica had to put up with me that Tuesday and Wednesday, as I decompressed from one event and prepared for the next one on Thursday. I really did enjoy her stay, and even learned a few more cooking tips. Don’t judge me, my guests are usually more skilled in the culinary arts than I am… I’m an awful hostess. Although, to my credit I offered my coveted American cuisine straight from a care package: KRAFT MACARONI AND CHEESE. You may not understand the magnitude of this offering, but trust me it’s big. :-) The meal was rain checked though, because group 8 volunteers have not yet learned to miss these nostalgic, awe inspiring, “just add water” conveniences that the American population unknowingly embraces as a part of their culinary culture. Brandon and Laura graciously escorted my mentoree and their own back up to the training site, located literally on the opposite corner of the country so I could attend my second male health event.

There is really nothing note worthy to explain about Thursday. We got about the same attendance as Tuesday, but 10 of the participants were younger children who had assisted their families’ with the animals. In total 85 adults and 10 youth were in attendance at the two events. 28 were tested at site for HIV and 20 men signed up to circumcise this coming week. Topics including, the importance of HIV testing, how to best communicate with your partner, possible obstacles and solutions to reaching your dreams, male circumcision, male and female condom application, and living positively with or without HIV were discussed and hopefully retained by all present. Thanks to a few community volunteers who will keep the condom dispensers stocked with supplies from the clinic, the entire community will have access to free condoms at the education boards. Everyone at the events, sans a few for religious reasons, practiced putting a condom on a model. Side story: When I asked the PSI educator why a couple older men were not participating in the condom practical, I thought he said they were “important”. I then explained that the most important men in a community could make the most difference by being role models, etc, etc. He let me go for a good couple minutes before stopping me and saying, “No, not important. IMPOTENT”. Oops. :-)

All in all, I deem the events successful. I’m ridiculously glad they are over, but really glad we did them. Another benefit to this stressful process, was getting to work side by side with Vusi and teaching him the process and skills needed to write a professional grant proposal and itemized budget, organize and plan an educational event with international NGOs (non-government organizations), problem solve when things don’t go according to plan, and this following week we get to cover the topic of writing closing reports including the much needed monitoring and evaluation information.

My weekend was spent praising God for surviving the previous week, visiting with the Broodryks, and then fighting a bit of a stomach bug. I welcome this non-EVENTful week (knocking on wood). :-)


PS Pictures to come when I have better internet connection!

No Neighbors :(

Hello Everyone! Just getting a little bit of time in our wonderful Mbabane office and thought it would be a good chance to write a quick blog. I'm actually waiting for a very important phone call. Next week, Thursday the 5th, will be the first day of my two day Male Health events. For this to go smoothly, I need to verify with the NGOs that they are going to participate in predetermined presentations. Contacting these individuals has been quite a bit more than stressful. LATICC (acronym that I don't remember exactly) will be doing a discussion on the importance of HIV testing and how to best communicate with one's partner(s). PSI (Population Services International - who I'm waiting on right now) will hopefully be doing condom demonstrations/practicals and male circumcision discussions with a sign-up for the procedure the following week. A community pastor will give an opening prayer and then answer questions regarding the Christian views on protecting oneself and family from HIV. The 5th and the 10th are going to be crazy, but hopefully all goes well... keep it in your prayers!! :-)

Yesterday I was up at the new volunteers' training venue for site announcements. Sadly, the group of us in the southeastern corner of the country will not be getting any new neighbors. :-( There are quite a few people in and around my shopping town, Nhlangano, so I will get to see them. The day before my first event next week I will be mentoring a new volunteer most likely from this cluster. They will get to help me stress out and put final planning touches on for the following day. Lucky bums! :-P

Well, I'm off to continue planning and gathering materials. Already have a bag of penis models for the condom demonstrations! There are some times in your life you wish your bags would be searched by police. HA!

More painting!

This last week I got to work a lot more on the bus stop murals and indirectly work on my tan. ;-) My amazing friends, Laura, Brandon, Justine, and my Colombian friend Andreas (visiting for a short few days) helped immensely!




This means "KEEP YOUR COUNTRY BEAUTIFUL" and the small words mean "Don't throw trash". Littering is one of my BIGGEST pet peeves here!


I made a blunder when shaking the red paint for this mural and the paint ended up in a massive puddle on the seat and the ground. With the creative genius of our amazing painting crew we decided to turn it into a massive heart. :-)




Andreas and I at the end of the day before washing the crazy amount of paint that got on us! In the words of Andreas, "Go mental!". Both of the murals he helped with were splatter painted. Fun fun, and more fun!

Swazi Pick-Up Lines

July 6, 2010
6:55pm

Daily, hourly when outside of my community, I get hit on by men, as does the rest of the female population. Someone at home acted jealous by this news, but I can assure you “minor sexual harassment” or more accurately put “plain annoying” are better ways to describe the encounters. According to some trusted Swazi friends, there is a traditional saying that goes something like, “Don’t ever let a woman pass without being appreciated”. Throughout the years that idea has boiled down to men, young and old, feeling compelled to call out to total strangers with an array of pick-up lines. There is little hope that anything will develop out of these propositions, but they try nonetheless. The ones most commonly used, in order of frequency, are:


1st Place: “I want to marry you” / “Do you have a husband?” (FYI – Having a husband rarely stops the conversation that inevitably follows.

2nd Place: “I love you”

3rd Place: “Give me your number”

Being here for a year, I have tried out MANY different responses to discourage this very blunt affection. My favorites in the past have been, “I can’t cook, so you will have to cook for me”, “It will cost too much to send cows to my father in America”, “I’m worth too many cows”, “Angifuni (I don’t want)”, or “I don’t love someone who doesn’t ask my name first”. These answers would usually get laughs and/or “HOW” (an exclamation not a question – learned that the hard way) or “EESH”.
The cooking answer would be a blow to the most common sex roles in Swaziland, and the cow response utilizes the traditional process called Labola. To “buy” a wife, a man must give cows (Labola) to the woman’s family. Depending on negotiations and the woman’s surname the amount of cows (or in value cash) could range from 10-25. Since I am a Dlamini, my Labola would be at least 20 cows. Our friend Brandon once was advised not to give up “his white women” for less than 25 cows. (PS I’m priceless… not enough cows for me in the entire country of Swaziland!!). And yes, this process of “buying a bride” bothers me to no end. And digressing further into this topical tangent, this traditional process is another factor to why there are even more unmarried mothers. Men can “claim” a woman by having a child by her, but then they are almost never made to pay Labola and marry the woman in either the traditional or Western societal sense. My sisi has an ADORABLE baby boy by a man who has other children with other women, and he is not married to any of them.

Back on topic, my responses were usually not the end of the conversation. I am amazed by the counter positions so fiercely held by the men. Sometimes the unwanted banter would continue to a frustrating point where the childish “Why? .... But why? .... Why?” would surface. Grr. This is not the way you want to spend a 3-5 hour bus ride. I am happy to say that I have finally created the most perfect comeback for an HIV/AIDS educator in Swaziland to use! It goes like this:
“Well, I can’t marry or love a man that does not protect himself and his family. To do this he must do four things. He must get circumcised, get tested for HIV, be faithful to only me, and use a condom every time he has sex”.

These four are, of course, the most statistically significant male health behavior change prevention methods against the transmission of HIV. Everyone has been taken aback by this response. Some are too uncomfortable to bother me more with stupid, fruitless proposals, but some guys actually push forward. This gives me the perfect opportunity to educate. The conversation takes a different avenue, in which I’m in control, and beneficial information can be relayed. Yay! That is now my one and only response to obnoxious, unoriginal, Swazi pick-up lines. Being so conditioned to them, though, I might swoon at “Hi. What’s your name?” in the future. Ha ha!

Ho Ho Ho! Merry 1 Year Anniversary!

July 6, 2010
8:22pm

The amazing Swaziland Group 7, that I am a part of, decided to celebrate our 1 year mark in country by having a potluck party! At a backpackers in Mbabane, we all met on June 25th, exactly 1 year since we stepped foot into this African country, to appropriately observe the special day (Dubbed – X-mas in June) with food, drink, and white elephant Christmas gifts. It was an absolute blast! I ended the night in possession of a homemade cardinal, flowers made out of recycled tin, a few Moroccan spices, and KAgillion cookies in my stomach! Since its winter here now, the weather was perfectly cool, and the fire was perfectly amazing.

This past week I was given the opportunity, as a Peer Support Network member, to meet the new Group 8 volunteers who arrived Monday June 28th. Many people already knew me from the welcome video clips on YouTube (still haven’t seen them myself), which they said were really helpful! I’m famous! Ha! Spending a few days with them made me realize how much I really have gained in a year. Getting bombarded with questions, hearing first attempts at siSwati, and witnessing the emotional bonding from this amazing group, really put my last year in perspective. Before Sus and I arrived at the training site (a trip that took over 6 ½ hours), we discussed how there was no way we felt like the seasoned “expert” volunteers. Come to find out, we kind of are.

Nothing would make me want to re-live the stressful, jam-packed, Swazi camp experience of pre-service training, but I certainly look forward to visiting with the new volunteers again in a couple of weeks. PSN members come to help with all of the medical sessions. Last week we got to experience the lectures and activities on diarrhea, sexuality, immunizations, medical kits, water filters, group diversity, and first night with a host family de-brief. Some were obviously more exciting than others. You know you are a PCV when you can discuss diarrhea with a room full of strangers. :-P WELCOME TO GROUP 8!!!

Updates on my work: My friend Andreas, the artist/doctor Claire and I met in Cape Town, is coming to Ekuphumleni to help me paint the remaining few bus stop health murals. He is good at graffiti art, so I’m excited at what he will come up with! For the new group, Sus and I updated and improved the Swaziland PCV cook book. Trust me, I was merely technical support. The title for our publication is, “Where there is no Chef: A Foodie’s Guide to Village Cooking” (spoofing – Where There is No Doctor). It will on sale at all Borders, CVAs, Barnes and Nobles (just kidding), or you can get an electronic copy from yours truly. :-) I just turned in a grant proposal to hold a male’s health and HIV prevention event at my community’s cow and goat dipping tanks in August. More on that if the grant is approved within the next few weeks. Still trying to work with the schools’ health clubs, but will have to take a bit of a break for the next couple months due to my frequent travels to the PC training site and the upcoming Baylor Teen Camp. There is also a possibility that our post will participate in a major book/library project for rural schools toward the end of the year. If this is the case, my primary schools will certainly apply.

FYI – Some of the projects our volunteers in Swaziland make happen are not a part of the HIV/AIDS education initiative (like the upcoming book project). Thus, these rural development programs can not be funded by PC PEPFAR grants. To make these much needed projects a reality, volunteers write Peace Corps Partnership Project applications and their ideas are put online to raise funds from the US. If you are ever interested in helping out these projects you can go to the Peace Corps website, www.peacecorps.gov, and find Partnership Projects then search for Swaziland. Currently, I am not involved in a partnership project, but my good friends Brandon, Laura, Tristan, and Rachel are. Consider supporting their efforts, or peruse the website for a project you are interested in giving $10 to. Thanks!

One year down, about one year to go. It’s going so fast!! Swazi/Africa time is usually ridiculously slow, so how are the months speeding by!?! I look forward to the next leg in this adventure as group 8 starts theirs.

Warm Fuzzy & Cold Prickly

Copied from the June Edition of the SoJo (Our post’s monthly news journal)

A little while ago I made a comment about warm fuzzies, and my fellow PCV (not to be named) had no idea what I was talking about. I quickly realized that this story from my childhood may not have been told in every second grade classroom, as I had imagined. Thus, I have copied a version of it here (citation: some googled website) for all of those deprived PCVs. This story may be good to introduce to younger children (or anyone really), especially in regards to stigma.
As well, I strongly seek your help in spreading warm fuzzies amongst our post by performing the following process:

Step 1: Read this story and gain a full understanding of the highly technical term “warm fuzzy”

Once upon a time there was a village. All of the people in the village got along very well. There was kindness, love, compassion, and justice. Every person in the village owned a special bag. It was given to them by their parents at the age of 3. Inside this bag were hundreds of warm fuzzies. Warm fuzzies were soft, cuddly, cottony little puffs. When you gave someone a warm fuzzy, they felt warm and fuzzy inside. People in the village gave each other warm fuzzies anytime they wanted to let someone know they were loved. When someone received a warm fuzzy, they put it in their bag.

One day, an evil sorceress came to town. She saw that everyone was giving out these warm fuzzies from their bags and she didn’t like it. She went up to one villager and said, “Why do you keep giving away your warm fuzzies? Aren’t you afraid you’re going to run out? Here, take this bag of cold pricklies and give these to the people in your village instead, and keep all your warm fuzzies for yourself.” The villager took the bag because he believed the sorceress’ tale. The next time he ran into a friend, he handed him one of the cold pricklies from his new bag. A cold prickly made someone feel cold and prickly inside, like they were swallowing a pin cushion. Soon all the villagers went to the sorceress and asked for their own bag of cold pricklies since they didn’t want to be the only people handing out warm fuzzies if everyone else was going to hand out cold pricklies. Once you had a cold prickly, you wanted to give it away to someone else as fast as possible.

The sorceress was pleased. Her plan was working perfectly. Now the village was in a state of fear and panic. Everyone started avoiding everyone else so they wouldn’t be given a cold prickly. People hoarded their small supply of warm fuzzies and didn’t give them out to anyone anymore. But no one was happy anymore either.
One day a prince arrived in town and almost immediately someone handed him a cold prickly from their bag. The prince, recognizing the cold prickly, refused to take it. The villager was surprised and tried again. The prince handed the person a warm fuzzy from his bag. The villager was surprised, and a little ashamed that he had tried to give this warm prince a cold prickly and instead received a warm fuzzy.
The prince addressed the crowd and said, “Why do you give each other cold pricklies?” One villager said, “Why should we give away all of our warm fuzzies? Shouldn’t we keep them for ourselves?” Other villagers agreed. But the prince said, “Every time you give away a warm fuzzy a new one is created in your own bag. Don’t you see? The more you give away, the more you will have.”

To demonstrate, the prince had everyone put down their bag of cold pricklies and retrieve their bag of warm fuzzies from their homes. He asked everyone to take out a warm fuzzy from their bag and hand it to a neighbor. This they did, but warily. Then the prince told them to notice that they all still had the same amount of warm fuzzies in their bags as before. People started giving away more warm fuzzies and noticed their bag was never empty. There were indeed enough warm fuzzies for everyone.

The sorceress was very upset and tried to interrupt the prince and get everyone to give out cold pricklies again. But the villagers didn’t want to listen anymore. They threw all their bags of cold pricklies into a wagon, set the sorceress inside it, and sent her out of town.
The villagers realized they’d learned a valuable lesson.
When you give someone a warm fuzzy, they in turn will give it to someone else. Eventually, it will come back around to you.
What do you carry in your bag?

Step 2: Choose one or more persons (PCVs, office staff, community members)

Step 3: Give that individual a sincere warm fuzzy (via SMS, email, call, office box letter, etc)

Step 4: Smile with the knowledge that you have just made someone’s day better, which will make you feel like you just gained your very own warm fuzzy!
All joking and tomfoolery aside, I truly hope you will take this opportunity, right this minute and throughout your service, to pass along acts of kindness. Thank you.