Sawubona: To New Beginnings

"Sawubona" means "hello" in Siswati. Welcome to my blog. I've had rotten luck corresponding by regular mail (average delivery time for a letter seems to be about 3-4 weeks) and email is slow and spotty service at best. Scott has had such good luck with his blog (www.scottinswaziland.blogsport.com), that I thought I'd try this method of keeping you all up to date on what and how we're doing from my point of view. If you read both of our blogs you'll end up knowing more about our lives than you did when we lived in New York.

It's hard to believe we've been here for nearly two months now. So much has happened and we've experienced so many new things and met so many new people that I'm not going to try to cover all that we've been through so far. I'm just going to start from where we are, and I hope that over time you'll get a good idea of what life is like for us here.

Today, like most of you, I presume, we are basking in the good feelings from Obama's inauguration yesterday. A group of about 25-30 of us, mostly other volunteers and employees of the hospital, gathered at the Siteki Hotel to watch the festivities from Washington D.C. on CNN. It was a great experience to watch the inauguration with such a diverse crowd. Besides Scott and I and our American volunteer friends Susan, Andrew, and Kristin, also in attendance were Dr. Kalungaro and his wife Valerie, who are from the Congo; our parish priest Father Emmanuel, who is from Uganda; a TB nurse, Wiseman, who is from Zimbabwe; and about 20 Swazis. Everyone applauded loudly throughout Obama's speech, especially when he mentioned his father's village in Africa.

As you might imagine, the Africans are uniformly proud and gratified that the U.S. has chosen an African-American president. Ever since we've arrived here we've been peppered with questions about Obama and how he came to be elected. Because African politics are so based on tribalism and watching out for one's own, most Africans can't quite believe that a majority white nation would elect a racial minority candidate. One man asked me "What will happen to the southern states now? Will Obama punish them for not voting for him?" I explained that it doesn't work quite that way in the U.S., but I don't think he bought it. Some of the locals also play devil's advocate a bit -- as if not wanting to seem too biased for an African-American candidate. So I've heard a surprising amount of support for both Bush and McCain as "strong men." One man told me he supported Obama, but he is worried about Obama's policy toward Asia. I don't really know much about Obama's Asia policy, but I told him not to worry too much, that Obama will deal with Asia fairly.

All in all, I'd say it's a good time to be an American abroad, especially in Africa. Scott and I brought a lot of Obama memorabilia with us -- caps, calendars, political buttons -- and they've been a big hit. They've helped smooth our way out of more than one tricky spot. When Swazi customs didn't want to let us in the country without more documentation than we had for the medical supplies we brought with us, we distributed a few Obama caps and the customs officials grew much more friendly and amenable. Likewise when we went to establish electric service for our house at the deaf school: an Obama calendar greased the wheels of what could have been a bureaucratic nightmare, and it is now front and center in the waiting room of the electric company headquarters.

Everyone seems aware that Obama won't change things overnight and that slow steps are required. That attitude pretty much mirrors what Scott and I are experiencing on a personal level here. We know we're not going to change much in this thoroughly -- to us -- dysfunctional system. Nonetheless, it feels good to be part of the broad movement of volunteerism Obama has spoken of, and to be contributing our own small part toward creating change and helping some truly needy people here.