Nov. 17 – TechnoServe Women’s Night Out

This fun evening kicked off Rick’s and my round of “last dinners” with the friends we’ve made in Swaziland—through the office or Emafini.  All 10 of TechnoServe Swaziland’s intrepid women went out for drinks and dinner at a nearby new restaurant, The Old Barn Venue (yes, WW organized this as is often her role in life).  We all sat at 2 picnic tables on the “back porch” where we were serenaded by frogs and ducks in the nearby pond.  Gin & Tonic was definitely the drink of choice (16 were purchased) with a few glasses of wine thrown in for good measure.  After 3+ hours of juicy stories/gossip and giggling, talk of clothes and make up, boyfriends/husbands and children, we had all bonded.

Nov. 15 – Wendy’s Wild Wanderings in Johannesburg

My week’s highlight was a one-day trip and back to Johannesburg, South Africa to meet with two potential donors.  It started out innocently enough with Rick dropping me at the Matsapha Airport at 7:30 a.m. and then a relatively smooth flight in the 30-person South African Airlink plane. 

It was all downhill after I landed.  You know how you think you get into the wrong line at the supermarket? I truly got into THE longest line in customs with the slowest customs officer.  I was one of the last people from two flights to reach the open area of the terminal. 

Then I started to look for my ride.  Our office manager had arranged for our TechnoServe Jo’burg office to send a driver to pick me up at the airport at 9:30 a.m. then take me to our office before my appointments.  Unfortunately, there were several locations where the driver could have been, all of which I searched for more than 20 minutes.  Without a cell phone that worked in S. Africa, I never did find the driver and couldn’t call either office to see where he might be.  So one of the many persistent taxi drivers suggested I ride with him.  I should have gotten a hint of the trouble when we headed for a parking space in the garage rather than a car at the curb.  But I showed him the address of the Jo’burg TNS office, and felt that his verbal and reading English skills were good enough, so away we headed.  After 11:00 a.m. we arrived at the address of the old TechnoServe location in Illovo from which we had moved to the Rosebank section of Jo’burg awhile ago.  The driver supposedly was calling our office for directions but never seemed to hear them.  I made the driver stop the car to let me get my computer bag out of the back, so I could get the address of where I needed to be at 12:00 noon in downtown Jo’burg. After going the longest way possible downtown, we started circling the same 10 blocks despite the driver calling this office to get directions.  At 12:00 noon I literally threatened to not pay him if he didn’t get me to the right address in 5 minutes.  Finally I got to the right building 15 minutes late but had a successful prospective donor meeting.  A new taxi was called so I could get to my 2:00 p.m. appointment (near where I had been lost with the last driver). As I was waiting at the street level, I noticed the sign on the building across the way.  I was on the street right behind where Leslie, Atiba, and I had been in early August.  No wonder everything looked so familiar!  And not just from getting lost in the cab!

Despite the new taxi driver’s not getting lost, I arrived at my 2^nd appointment almost 20 minutes late.  But the meeting was still productive and we are hopeful they will partner with us on the youth program.  As he had promised the 2^nd taxi driver returned to take me to the airport.  Since I had not had time for lunch, I ate a chocolate Luna Bar as we headed to the airport.  Though I started to panic with the rush hour traffic, I had about an hour to spare.  I asked an airline person in the lobby if I needed to get a different boarding pass.  Since I didn’t, I went through customs and near the gate; I decided to use the restroom.  As I washed up after…I looked in the mirror and saw a large chocolate smudge on my nose.  Just a perfect end to this day.  No one had said anything because I guess they thought it was normal for a well-dressed white woman to have a large brown spot on her nose.  Oh, well.  The small SAA flight took off on time, hit some bumps while approaching Matsapha airport, but I arrived safely on the ground.  Rick met me in the small airport lobby after another routinely delaying immigration check-in.  I had definitely experienced a truly Diana type of day.

 Ramblings about the Nov. 6^th Week

This was a busy week for the SAYE (School Age Youth Entrepreneurship) Program which is JA while it is under TechnoServe’s guidance.  I initiated and participated in several donor pitches to local multi-national companies and arranged several for Leslie, our Country Manager, during the 13 Nov. week when she is in Johannesburg.  We also conducted the final training then held the final session of JA Economics for Success.  We organized Carolyn’s trip to Kruger National Park, South Africa then all 3 of us going to Victoria Falls, Zambia, Cape Town, and the nearby Winelands.  I instigated a TechnoServe Women’s Night Out for Fri., 17 Nov. and the office folks began planning Rick’s and my Going Away Party.

            I am definitely looking forward to going back to the U.S. to see family and friends.  As you can guess, I have mixed feelings about departing Swaziland.  I am very proud of what’s been accomplished in setting up the youth program.  Rick knows he’s made a difference with his young colleagues though he feels he doesn’t have as much tangible to show as I.  But we will certainly miss the people in the office, their spouses, and the other local and ex-pat friends we have made.  It’s always the people that I miss. 

            Since the whole TechnoServe office space is less than 150 square meters, everyone (10 to 12 staff and volunteers at any given time) is jammed into 2 of the 3 offices.  We spill over into Leslie’s office or the conference room and at least 3 people are visiting clients throughout most days, but pretty much we are a just few feet away from at least 3 or 4 colleagues all the time. The few partitions are for show not effect, and even the so-called office walls are just partitions from floor to ceiling—definitely not sound-proof.  This makes it difficult/impossible for privacy, so everyone can and often does interrupt any nearby conversation.  But it also helps build good relationships and affords frequent laughter.

            The daily thunderstorms continued the whole week.  They generally seemed to be right overhead, so the noise and lightening are spectacular.  However, what’s different from what we expected is that they are spectacular sometimes 2 or more times a day.  So it’s not like the Sierra where something blows over then it’s sunny again.  Serious rain pours down between the claps and crackles, stops for a while, then starts again most days.

The poop really hit the fan when lightening struck a key Swaziland Cellular tower on Thursday.  So all of Swaziland’s mobile phones went down.  For a few hours Friday morning MTN must have found a temporary solution, but then service went down until Saturday morning about 9:00 a.m.  Yes, MTN from South Africa has the monopoly for cell service, so a small perfunctory apology ad appeared in Saturday’s newspapers toward the back of the tabloid.  But the headlines were totally classic for here:  “Swaziland in the Grips of Cell Outage” in huge type across most of the front page.  However, more than cell service was affected because Friday late afternoon my call with TechnoServe in D.C. was dropped 3 times and then Diana had to call me back 3 times that evening.  And yes, there is a landline phone monopoly, Swaziland Post & Telecom which is basically the government (like our U.S.P.S.).  So they didn’t even acknowledge any glitches.  Supposedly in 2008, MTN loses its exclusivity on cells, but according to the manager of the local MTN store downstairs from our office, Swaziland will probably be too small for any other mobile company to want to compete.  He said that Swaziland may be cell saturated since penetration is already at 13+%, much higher than the 10% anticipated.  Especially in light of Swaziland’s death rate exceeding its births, why enter an already small market with a shrinking population just to compete on price?  

            Our 3^rd and final JA Economics for Success class was especially interesting for Rick and me because we had 3 guest speakers.  The first was Mrs. Gamedze, who is Executive Director of LULOTE, the organization TechnoServe is training to take over the SAYE program.  As I spend more time with her, I only am more impressed by her abilities, especially to articulate her passion about the youth program.  She is a Swazi Senator, Chairman of the SwaziBank Board of Directors and on the Board of multiple other institutions.  She spoke from her heart to the 30+ young people about growing up poor but aiming to get a diploma to teach business classes in secondary school. She went on to graduate university, eventually received a masters degree in Scotland, took courses in the U.S. and now runs an NGO among her other duties.

            The 2^nd speaker runs a local store, Gone Rural, who has been nominated for recognition globally by BBC.  Her staff works with about 700 rural women who gather weaving grass, sell it for dying to Gone Rural, who sell it back to the women to weave into home-ware products that will sell well because of their design, color, and quality.  She is a white Swazi by birth and commitment, who talked frankly to the students about her business’s global competition.  She emphasized that whatever business they start, these young people will need to keep ahead of the Chinese and Indians who copy her designs then manufacture and sell them at lower prices.

            The 3^rd and final speaker was a former employee of Mrs. Gamedze at LULOTE who now owns and operates a supermarket in Malkerns and café in Manzini.  He talked partly in Siswati so we didn’t understand everything, but he grew up in poverty and at one point raised his many siblings for a few years on his own while his mother was very ill.  He really connected with the kids, talking about his education being interrupted and life, chaotic, but he persisted toward achieving his goals.  One young woman asked what kept him going, and he said his Catholic faith.  In a country that is 90+% Christian, I’m sure that resonated. 

            I’m sure than these 3 speakers had much greater impact than anything Rick or I could have said, yet totally reinforced all the concepts in the JA program.  What a powerful way to end the 3 sessions.