Aug. 28 – Adrian’s Visit in Just 2 Days!
Adrian will fly today to Amsterdam and arrive in Jo’burg, South Africa tomorrow night. Adrian’s first adventures will be just driving from the airport to a nearby hotel. The next morning August 30th he’ll drive 4.5 hours to Swaziland—all on the wrong side of the road with a manual transmission car. He’ll cross the border through both South African and Swazi customs where he must pay a car fee since his rental car is South African. This trip will be his first to a developing country, so his reaction will be interesting. He’ll come to the TechnoServe office in Mbabane, then we’ll guide him to our house since directions to Emafini are hard to describe without knowing the area. On Friday, Sept. 1st we will drive together to Kruger National Park in South Africa (we have reservations at 2 different locations from our first trip), then back to Mbabane on Sept. 3rd. On Sept. 4th is the National Celebration of the Reed Dance where the King views literally thousands of virgins who parade by him in hopes he’ll choose one as his 14th or 15th wife. Let’s be honest, mostly Rick and Adrian want to attend to watch bare-breasted women and I’m going along for “the cultural experience” including dressing in Swazi costume! We hope to go to Capetown with Adrian to see the beautiful coastline and South Africa’s wine country. We’ll enjoy 10 days off with our son. He’ll have amazing tales to tell.
Aug. 26 – A Swazi Wedding
Sonnyboy Shongwe, who works at TechnoServe with us (whose project Rick is assisting along with several others) got married today to Xolile. The wedding took place about 1.5 hours from Mbabane, past the rural city of Piggs Peak, in the multi-purpose hall of a high school. This was a Christian ceremony that could have been held in an Afro-American church anywhere in the U.S. Deep South. But there were many totally delightful and uniquely Swazi elements as well as both a Methodist minister AND Sonnyboy’s evangelical pastor. . About 10:30 a.m. we entered the very full hall lined with plastic garden chairs. The gospel choir was already singing and clapping along with the audience of at least 300 hundred, many of whom were on their feet swaying and singing along. Soon the actual ceremony started. First 2 little girls dressed in white party-dresses, guided by a very pretty woman, paraded down the aisle tossing candies into the audience. Then through the doorway came the first usher in a black tux and bridesmaid dressed in a lavender satin gown and sparkly shawl, dancing down the aisle to African music. First they were moving together, then the girl ahead, and then back together. The next matching pair came in about 10 feet behind them, and so on until the 6th pair completed the same rhythmic cycle. Sonnyboy next danced alone part-way down the aisle, looking like a handsome actor at the Oscars and a bit nervous in his white tux. A young man rolled a red carpet down the whole aisle. In came the flower girl in a miniature bride costume, including veil and gloves. Sonnyboy danced with her for a bit. Finally the radiant but serious bride walked in on the arm of who we think was her brother. Sonnyboy approached them, put the bride’s arm on his, and together they strolled rhythmically to the front where the whole wedding party was seated at a large table.
The remainder of the 3.5 hour service was comprised of gospel singing, evangelical-type prayers, a rousing sermon, ceremonies and laudatory speeches by friends, relatives and multiple ministers. A highlight was 3 beautiful songs by a group of 20 from the professional Manzini choir in Swazi costume. Everything was spoken in Siswati with an infrequent word or two of English. Most of the time, we were clueless. We got occasional help from the Swazis in our group when we were supposed to do something important. One of these explanations came near the end of the service. Music started playing and we were told that we were expected to give a donation for the newly married couple. But rather than passing offering plates, everyone was expected to get up and place the money at the front of the hall. The music that began to play had a good beat. So Rick joined the congregation dancing to the front of the room to drop off the donation then danced back to his seat. It was joyful, somewhat controlled chaos.
The ceremony ended as it started with music and the wedding party dancing back up the aisle. We exited the auditorium toward a couple of high school classrooms a couple of buildings away for a late lunch. Since we had received a formal wedding invitation, we joined the sit-down potluck lunch with the wedding party and family. The other 300 guests had to form a cafeteria-type line to receive their lunch in a “takeaway” ` container. Of course this isn’t bad if you haven’t actually been invited. We learned that when you have a wedding in the Swazi culture, you should assume that the whole village or congregation (or both) will attend, and you must prepare to feed everyone. This can make planning very difficult, but they seemed to have plenty of food for the over three hundred people. The meal after the ceremony was very short and there were no other activities. According to our friends, the “traditional” Swazi wedding ceremony in full costumes and rituals will take place mostly in private tomorrow on Sunday. Wish we could be a fly on the wall. But today was totally enjoyable!
Aug. 25 – What is keeping Wendy so busy that she doesn’t update the Walleigh Blog and Website more often?
I’m working with Atiba Amelile on TechnoServe’s Emerging Entrepreneurs project which hopefully will catalyze the start of many small businesses. We plan to train and provide resources to budding entrepreneurs from age 16 to 35 who don’t yet have the skills or knowledge to run a successful company. Due to over 42% estimated HIV/AIDS rate, the median age in Swaziland is 19, the population is shrinking, and life expectancy is declining from 33 to 27 over the next few years. Today there are approximately 70,000 orphans of HIV/AIDS—expected to grow to 120,000 by 2010 which is almost 15% of the country’s population. Since no government efforts to date have made any difference, someone needs to motivate and teach people how to start businesses to prevent the economy from collapsing. Hence TechnoServe’s Emerging Entrepreneurs project.
My main focus has been to launch a School-Age Youth Entrepreneurship (SAYE) program (which is becoming a pilot of Junior Achievement in Swaziland). This includes my fundraising to support the program for at least the first 1.5 years, manage the pilot, and build the capacity of LULOTE, a local Swazi organization, to eventually assume the JA responsibility.
Mostly-funded for 2006, TechnoServe First Business Plan Competition for adults 18 to age 70 received 220 applications and lots of visibility (Ghana’s first competition received 300 for a exponentially larger country). So I’m trying to leverage ongoing awareness about these activities to create both a unified entrepreneurship fundraising strategy and marketing plan. Also I’m helping Atiba develop TechnoServe Business Place for Emerging Entrepreneurs, intended to be a one-stop “gateway” to help people start small businesses. Resources will include reference library, internet access with several computers, skills and knowledge assessment tools, in-person advisors for initial guidance, and senior consultants for more technical advice.
Today Atiba and I drove again to Manzini, the largest and most central Swazi city (over 100,000 people) to scout possible business gateway locations. Since it is not the government capital and most major companies are nearer the Matsapha airport, Manzini is not as well-kept as Mbabane. Its downtown is pretty old and dilapidated, congested with traffic, and polluted from all the buses, cars and kombis. It is not safe at night and there’s crime even during the day. Unfortunately Manzini is a typical city in a developing country, but it is the easiest to reach from all parts of Swaziland. We might partner with the University of Swaziland to create this small to medium enterprise (SME) center so we actually trekked across their campus looking at potential co-location sites. Atiba and I also visited Mavuso Trading Center outside Manzini, a large convention-type complex built by the government/King that is meant to host business fairs. In first 3 years of its existence (to date), it has been fully-booked for 2 weeks per year. The rest of the time, occasionally a couple of buildings are used for social, sports, and business events. The rest of the sites we have viewed are privately owned and so far, no one has offered anything but retail rental pricing, some even above market rates. So much for their giving back to the community. Since USAID is only willing to pay for a percentage of the business gateway, we will need to do much more fundraising if a facility is not donated or heavily subsidized. I will definitely stay busy through mid-December!
Aug. 20 – Potluck with TechnoServe Colleagues Amongst the Warthogs and Impala
Today was Diana’s birthday, one of very few we have not spent with her. Instead we met some office colleagues and their wives at nearby Mlilwane Game Park (where we had previously met the hippos and warthogs a few feet away). Its rest-camp has a picnic area, playground for kids, horseback and bike riding. We were fare-welling one young TechnoServe staffer from the U.S. who’s starting Sept. at Kennedy School (Intl Policy) in Boston and hopes to get an MBA as well. Anyway, a store-bought cake was our pot-luck contribution to the Mlilwane picnic. We sat in a thatched-roof version of a gazebo drinking beer, eating ribs and chatting, while impala wandered by, warthogs attempted to steal our food, and hippos grunted loudly. Otherwise it could have been a Playgroup get together at Pine Lake.
Aug. 17 – Daily Life in Mbabane
Right across the street from the TechnoServe office is another world that I’ve been afraid to enter: the combination flea-market, kombi (described below), taxi, and bus station. It is a large parking lot with a wide variety of people selling something--from shacks, tables, stools, and even modified railroad cars. I don’t want to be the only white woman or person wandering around, but I would love to take pictures of the sights and absorb the sounds and smells (to describe them). The area is like a flat, but very colorful anthill, with people shouting and scurrying about in all directions all the time. Some people just sell fruits and veggies on the edge of the lot. Everyone carries many bundles.
A Kombi is a van-size taxi which generally travels a set route but make stops all along the way to pick up and drop off passengers. People are jammed inside like sardines. They range in dress from business attire to children in school uniforms to laborers in greasy or ragged coveralls. It seems like there are hundreds of these kombi in the lot at all times. It is a mystery how they are organized. And while they are mostly individually owned, I’ve heard that there are some entrepreneurs who own several. What seems consistent are the tales of crazy drivers who don’t signal when turning (which they do a lot), over-crowded, poorly maintained vehicles, and sometimes streaming nasty black smoke from the tailpipe. Most public busses emit that sort of breath-stopping smelly smoke. Apparently the kombis, taxis, and busses are all privately owned and are probably not regulated nor even require special drivers’ licenses.
For all these reasons, we as professional and white have been warned away from catching a ride in either a Kombi or a bus. It doesn’t make sense that we take either since we do have our own rented car now. But they are intriguing and part of the local color. Diana talked about “micros” in South America, which I image are the same, and she did use them along with the public bus systems. It is less than 4km up the Malagwane Grade on the MR3 highway from Emafini to TechnoServe’s offices in the Emphalwini Mall. I feel a bit snooty not trying a Kombi with Rick at least once.
Aug. 16 – Observing Women Using Their Heads?
As my father’s World War 2 photos showed, since before the 1940s many women continue to balance huge bundles on their heads, from piles of wood to containers with pounds of fruits, veggies or water. Without even using their hands to steady the package women walk up and down the steep hills and even jaywalk across city streets. It’s truly astounding. I cannot remember seeing or hearing about another continent that even uses this method, but so far black women in Kenya, Tanzania, Swaziland, and South Africa consistently carry huge loads on their heads. The main difference from my father’s pictures is that today the women are fully clothed. Though certainly there is a middle class that has evolved now, the majority of women certainly don’t seem much better off from over 60 years ago. And what’s much worse, so many are dying of AIDS. 
