Arthur's Update

I was sitting on a bus yesterday, going from Mozambique to Swaziland, when I realized that I had six different currencies in my bag, four of which I had used in the last week. I also realized that I smell horrible, but thankfully nobody on the bus cared, especially not the guy drinking beer next to me.

I’ve been on my own ever since Courtney left for NYC three weeks ago. I’ve been mostly in Swaziland, but have still been traveling around a good amount.

Traveling in Africa is different from sightseeing in Europe or Asia. It’s not looking at art or learning about old buildings, and definitely not about eating delicious food. Instead, it’s more about trying to understand how life works in a place where it is so different from what I’m used to.

It’s really easy to leave the tourism bubble – just walk down the streets or get on a bus – but it’s hard to understand the people and the culture. But I’ve been trying. For that reason, when Courtney left, I tried to find one place to live for a few weeks rather than simply traveling around from country to country. I decided to live in Swaziland with a guy named Myxo, a Swazi who runs overnight cultural tours to Swazi villages (eat Swazi food, live in Swazi huts, meet locals, etc, http://www.myxosswaziland.com/). Myxo hosts the Dartmouth African foreign study program for a week or so every year, and Courtney had enjoyed it so much back in 2003 that she recommended I try it. So Myxo and I agreed that I could live with him for 3 weeks in exchange for me writing up some promotional and fundraising materials for his tourism company and a preschool that he started. I split my time between the village, where I lived alone, and his backpacker’s hostel in the city of Manzini.

Here is a description of what I’ve been doing for the past 3 weeks. For those of you with short attention spans, scroll down for some snippets of stories and plenty of pictures, all in chronological order:

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Swaziland – It was a full day’s bus-ride from Johannesburg to Swaziland. I was dropped off, tired and sweaty, at a hotel where I immediately went to the bar to wait for Myxo. The bartender was talking to a local in SiSwati, a language that I had definitely never heard before. It had clicks in it and I couldn’t understand a word.

After my first beer, Myxo showed up in his old truck. We had never met, so I was wondering if the arrangement would actually work. Would I wish that I had gone somewhere else? Could I actually offer anything valuable to help the preschool? As soon as I saw his truck I knew things would be ok. His truck has a Vermont bumper sticker.

Myxo with his truck and Vermont bumper sticker, in front of hostel
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I stayed at Myxo’s place in Manzini for a couple of days, buying supplies and eating grapefruits off the tree in the back yard. Manzini, a large city by Swaziland standards, is mostly filled with discount clothing stores, and is the kind of place that makes you walk quickly to get your shopping done and then go home as soon as you’re finished. Nice market though.

So after a couple of days in Manzini, Myxo drove me out to kaPhunga village and dropped me off by myself, just me and a few books, two kilos of rice and beans, and a five liter box of wine. I was there for eight days.

A Traditional Swazi Beehive Hut

I spent my mornings in the Matjana Village Preschool (www.matjanapreschool.org-a.googlepages.com/home) with teachers Ncobile and Fortunate. The kids were cute of course, but also remarkably well behaved and impressive (they already speak a good amount of English). I’ll try to post some videos of them once I get back to the US. The preschool is in a mud hut and is a tight squeeze for the 22 kids and two teachers. Myxo is currently trying to raise money to build a new, bigger preschool, and to cover current costs. That’s what I’m helping him with. Inside the Hut

While in the village I lived in a traditional Swazi beehive hut, an impressively intricate structure made entirely from wood and grass. Most locals now make their houses from bricks and have sheet metal roofs. But every year the strong wind blows the metal roofs off those houses, while the beehive huts withstand the wind perfectly.

Me Cooking

All cooking in the village is done over an open fire. It takes hours to cook, and normally I would start a fire in the morning and only boil water for tea and oatmeal, then keep the fire going all day. After preschool I put on my pots of rice and beans, enough for both lunch and dinner. Afternoons were spent cooking and reading. Evenings, after dinner, I mostly sat around the fire with Sifiso, a young guy who looks after the place I was staying, and his grandfather, who had normally come from the bar and who loved to laugh. He said that he used to work in the mines in South Africa, and the idea that a white person would actually want to come live in his village was changing his impression of white people. The sun was down at 5, and I was in bed with my book at 6:30.

There was a full moon the first night

I was in the village for a week before I got pretty bored and lonely and decided that I wanted to start writing the fundraising materials for Myxo. So I returned to Manzini to do that.

I also just went to Mozambique for four days. I was in Maputo (the capital city) and Tofo, a touristy beach town.

So I’m in Manzini for another few days, and then back to Johannesburg for one day before I fly back to the US on June 8th.

Here are a few snippets of some poignant moments from the last few weeks:

The outhouse