October 8 – Bulembu B & B, a Bit of Paradise to Replace the Old Mine
Today we drove past Pigg’s Peak (a good-size village but may be considered the 4th largest Swaziland city) to the old Bulembu asbestos mine that was finally shut down about the mid-1990s. The turnoff from Pigg’s Peak became a dirt road within a few meters. We actually thought we might have missed Bulembu because we came within a couple of kilometers from the South African border post of Barberton. Until it stopped operations due to no world demand for asbestos, Bulembu was a thriving company town, which delivered its product via a clever cable car method directly over the adjacent mountain into South Africa. Now it is a ghost town, except for the recently revitalized Bed & Breakfast and a few surrounding buildings. With most of the miners’ houses lined up on a hillside as we pulled into the town, it reminded me of the ticky-tacky houses along the Daly City hills near San Francisco.
A missionary group is trying to create a new sustainable economy that will attract tourists and support a small local population. As it happens, a son of the owners of Emafini (where we live) is an active missionary and a Bulembu Board Member. We stopped in front of the Bulembu B & B then walked through the newly planted gardens to the Reception area. We were greeted by a white man also entering the building. It turned out that he was part of a small church group from Arizona to help the local Swazis here. Of the 2 other friends who joined him a few minutes later, one had worked for Intel Corp. for 20 years including in Santa Clara, CA for 6 months. Rick and I sat down for a very late lunch and they returned to their volunteer jobs. Such a small, small world…
We visited a few of the abandoned mine buildings, drove back down the long dirt road, passed again through the thriving metropolis of Pigg’s Peak, and returned to the civilized world of Mbabane.
October 6 – Nairobi Back to Matsapha but with a Different Perspective
Our flight from Nairobi took off at 7:20 am so we left the hotel at 5:00am. Arriving home 8 hours later, I decided to stay at home while Rick went to the office for a few hours. With only minimal energy left and as is typical of many nights, Rick and I surfed the satellite TV channels and watched old sitcom re-runs and parts of old movies. We starting with a bit of “Police Academy” then on my own, I watched “The Interpreter” again. This story is about a U.N. language interpreter played by Nicole Kidman, whose character emigrated from an imaginary country in southern Africa then somehow became embroiled in the assassination of several African leaders from her old country. Seeing it for the second time but being in Swaziland now was truly eerie. The tale of power corrupting the maybe-well-intentioned revolutionaries is all too familiar in Africa.
In contrast, it was so inspiring to spend 3 days with JA colleagues from all over Africa who shared their passion and energy for their countries’ youth, especially in the face of the political instability, HIV/AIDS, and global neglect. It is very humbling to know what these JA people have survived, and now seeing them change their countries and give hope to the youth. Ironically, I next watched part of a Hallmark channel movie about the Holocaust. The story was told from the perspective of a young girl who fainted at a modern-day Seder, then experienced a concentration camp through a dream, like a very distorted version of Dorothy in the Land of Oz. Tonight’s movies confirmed what I had learned throughout this week that determined survival of the human spirit is absolutely amazing.
October 5 - Day 3 at the JA Africa Conference
JA people were definitely the highlight of the Africa Conference. It was a privilege and delight to spend time with the 20 various JA country managers and staff. The challenges these energetic Africans must overcome daily to make an impact on their countries make the stresses of JA U.S. and Europe seem quite small. Particularly memorable are Phil and Robert from Zimbabwe whose humor kept us laughing for 3 days, and who have made JA successful despite their political environment. Jules—a great dancer—from the Democratic Republic of the Congo still must start up JA despite the uncertainty of the upcoming 1st-time DRC democratic elections. Luciano from Angola will need all his pastoral skills and spiritual perspective while starting up JA there after so many years of instability. Quiet and shy Teddy from Zambia has persisted over the last few years to serve a few hundred JA students annually. At our JA Africa “Graduation” the 2 women from Nigeria, Franca and Kunbi, were dressed in traditional costumes including the wrapped headgear. They were gorgeous and put everyone in a festive mood. Each person alphabetically announced the recognition for the next—I was introduced by John Wali from Kenya—no relation to us. 2 of the 3 special awards went to the Swaziland team: Atiba was the person who asked the most questions and Thulani was the quietest. It was wonderful how Mrs. Gamedze was respected by Lamech (who called her Senator) and the other JA Africa leaders, and clearly Atiba and Thulani bonded with their peers. This bodes well for our Swaziland youth program. This event was typical of all JA events I’ve attended--very long, intense, and satisfying despite 8am to 9 or 10 pm daily schedule. We all learned a lot from each other. There really is hope for the future of Africa with people like these.
October 3 - Day 3 at the JA Africa Conference in Nairobi, Kenya
After a very long day on Monday, October 2nd flying from Matsapha, Swaziland, through Johannesburg, South Africa, to Nairobi, Kenya (yes, not a very direct route), Mrs. Gamedze and Thulani from LULOTE and Atiba and I could only muster enough energy for a quick dinner in our hotel.
October 3rd was the 1st day of JA conference, and we heard country reports for all 9 member nations and a couple of pilot countries as well as a panel discussion by 3 of the JA Kenya Board of Directors. Dinner was sponsored by JA Kenya Board Chairman, Bill Lay, who is CEO of GM East Africa. A bus drove us to Carnivore restaurant at Safari Park Lodge about 25 minutes (45 in traffic) away from the Intercontinental Hotel. Crocodile was tasty. Camel and goat were dry though I’d try goat again. My salads for lunch were not enough to offset that huge serving of protein, which was enough to last for a week,. The nightclub show with about 8 female and 8 male dancers was part Broadway, part cultural village. Every male had incredible 6-pack bodies and were probably not gay, unlike 98% of male dancers in the US. The part Broadway could have been skipped but I think the Chinese and other tourists liked that part. The tribal cultural village dancing was excellent and fun.
Sept. 30 – Dinner with the Frogs
Since I insisted we go home after the workshop day at City Inn so that I could use our bathroom (see blog entry below), we missed going food shopping (closes 6pm), so Rick came up with a few suggestions for going out to dinner. We chose Finesse, located in the Emphalwini Mall and owned by the same people as the Portofino restaurant, also in the mall and where we often grabbed lunch. Rick and I had been to Finesse for lunch and noted the updated and interesting menu. As we sat out on the veranda next to the river, waiting for our wine and dinner, we were serenaded by the local frogs. I’m talking large and small size FROGS with a huge vocal range and volume. More like very loud versions of kids’ party, cranking noise-makers. Dinner was quite good and amusing with the major frog symphony next to us. Though most of people in upscale restaurants are white (part of the 1% in Swaziland), there are usually at least a few Swazi “yuppies”. Tonight was no exception, with a group of 2 young women and 3 or 4 young men, smoking, drinking beer and enjoying themselves. The good news that struck me was that they seemed financially pretty well off. The bad news is based the projected 42% or higher HIV/AIDS rate, maybe 2 of them would not reach their late 30s.
We drove home, parked the car, and walked to our cottage. A little frog, cousin of the river gang, hopped across our path but was very quiet for the moment. So Rick and I went inside, to watch on our satellite TV the last half of about three old movies including 1st Wives Club and Dirty Harry.
Sept. 30 – Supporting the TechnoServe Saturday Workshop
As promised to Nelo, TechnoServe’s Manager for the Believe Begin Become (BBB) business plan competition, we went downtown to the City Inn to help her with the BBB workshop. Although all the workshops were supposed to be at the Mountain Inn, a last minute, paid wedding for 300 supplanted our donated space, but the manager arranged for us to get free meeting rooms at their sister hotel. However, these facilities are much down-scale from Mountain Inn as well as being in Mbabane’s downtown. I went with Nelo upstairs to the Business Strategy workshop, taught by her sister-in-law, and Rick was downstairs at the Finance workshop. I had thankfully brought my own bottle of water because the upstairs room was quite warm without air conditioning and only tired fans barely moving the air. Early in the workshop, Nelo introduced me after I had commented on a couple of topics, and I immediately become “the expert” who was assigned to teach the “competitive matrix” section of the morning. This was fine and actually fun, though like teaching JA in East San Jose I was not sure I was completely understood and participants may have been too shy to ask all their questions,
The audience’s levels of business ability and knowledge varied as greatly as their business plan ideas that had qualified them to the semi-finals. I was concerned when one young man seemed to question the need for ethics when trying to assess market competitors, saying “you just gotta do what you have to do to win.” With Nelo’s blessing, I approached him at the break and mentioned that everyone in the room was a potential customer or supplier or even competitor, and that he needed to be aware of building his reputation. He seemed to take it in the spirit that I intended—for his benefit. At the end of the workshop, a couple of people came up to thank me and see if I could review their business plan, which I declined due to conflict of interest.
Sept. 27 - Rabbis in Rhythm Rock the Swaziland Business Woman of the Year Event
To show our support for the country, business community and women entrepreneurs, TechnoServe purchased a table for the Swaziland Business Woman of the Year event. 300 people attended this Gala held at the Convention Center of the Royal Swazi Hotel & Spa. We arrived a bit after 7pm to find Lisa, our office Manager in the lobby. She introduced us to a few people, including Sylvia, a finalist for the award who was dressed in a bright yellow and white dress with an absolutely fabulous, African-tied turban in silver and white.
After sipping what looked like it should have been champagne but tasted like sweet sparkling grape juice, the 3 of us went upstairs and met up with Leslie, Mkhululi, Mpendulo, Sonnyboy, Nelo, Nolwazi, and Debbie. The ceremonies started about 7:30 or 7:45, with a Lindulile (?) Dlamini as Director of Ceremonies. On the table were a bottle of red wine that our group had already started and little “amuse bouche” of chopped liver in a puff pastry with a chili couli. It’s a good thing--because the first round of speakers went on for over an hour before the salad was served. Protocol is critically important here so EVERYONE of stature must be formally acknowledged by EVERY speaker, which adds at least 5 to 10 minutes to every speech. The Director of Ceremonies tried hard to keep the agenda on time, but it started slipping from the beginning. After salad, the next round of speakers began. The Prime Minister was in Singapore “at the last minute” to represent Nedbank, so the Acting Prime Minister was his event substitute. After the litany of acknowledgements, this nice older Swazi gentleman admitted that he could not give his planned longer speech because his glasses had broken. We restrained our excitement when he finished in less than 15 minutes!
The 2006 Business Woman of the Year from South Africa, Angela Dick, was definitely the most impressive speaker and person there. Although she is white, she called herself a Woman of Africa, because of her businesses’ struggles and her being so poor that she was not sure she could feed her 5 kids when they were young. We thought she built her credibility well with a 98% black audience, and focused her final message on raising our girl-children to be independent, capable, strong, and believing that they could do whatever they chose. With a tough-in-business yet kind-to-people style, she was a great example running a major temp worker agency in South Africa.
After the Minister of Enterprise’s remarks and after the five finalists’ videos were played, the entrée was served about 10:15 pm. The Director of Ceremonies kept trying to lighten up the tone with these “stories” which were really more like cute long-ish jokes. “Supposedly behind every successful woman there’s a man…but behind every successful man there are several women.” “Success is relative…when you are successful, relatives come from everywhere to find you.”
During all breaks and sometimes between speeches, the Rabbis in Rhythm, a band of 3 men and a female singer, played. Odd name for this group since they were all black, though the singer was pretty light-colored. Apparently the band had been started by a Jewish man, but funny, no one there remotely resembled a Jew unless they were originally from Ethiopia. They were a good rock band with African and maybe Brazilian music woven in.
2 of he 5 finalists were to be recognized: 1 “corporate” and 1 entrepreneur (from a large, not SME-sized business). With only 1 “corporate” nominee, the winner was obvious. But the 2006 Woman Business Entrepreneur was Sylvia, the hat lady, who even with the required litany of acknowledgements gave a short, sweet, to-the-point speech. She thanked God, her decent and supportive husband, and the other women, colleagues, friends and family who had supported her. Period. 11:15 the event ended.
During dinner, TechnoServe’s table was definitely the rowdiest (except we weren’t rude during speeches), and we all enjoyed the music of the Rabbis in Rhythm. Funny, they didn’t look Jewish. Despite the Director of Ceremonies defining Rabbi as “the Jewish Priest,” they were one of the best parts of the evening, along with the fun company of our colleagues.
