Mbabane
SWAZILAND
My Long Lost Son
By LYNDI
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Banele Dlamini was born in July 1999 – the youngest of six brothers and sisters – in the hot and arid inland valleys of Swaziland in southern Africa. Both parents were subsistence farmers and another mouth to feed meant more food to grow and more cotton to pick. The World Vision organization arrived in Swaziland and set about the difficult task of choosing children most in need for their sponsorships program. Both Banele and his older sister Sisele were selected because their family was unable to afford school fees, food, and clothes for all their children. Having two of their seven children selected for sponsorship meant that they could feed and educate their entire family – any parent’s dream.
I started sponsoring Banele back in 2006 – flipping through the photos on World Vision’s website is an impossible task. How can you pick just one child to help when they are all equally as desperate? But when I saw Banele’s picture I knew he was the one. Granted, I thought he was a little girl (hey – his favorite toy was dolls and the name didn’t give me any clues either) but it was something about his sad little face that nearly broke my heart. And so I’d written a check to World Vision every month since then. When Aaron and I decided we were coming to Africa I knew visiting Banele would be at the top of my list of things to do. Not only had I developed a quasi-relationship through letters and pictures with this young boy – but I was also very interested to see where all the money that sponsors provide was going. So this trip was not just an opportunity to meet Banele – it was also a test for World Vision.
I had organized a visit through World Vision several months beforehand so they could run background checks on the two of us and arrange a representative to take us around (and so they would all have time to hide their satellite TVs according to Aaron…). Our rep named Aga*et#j@ Dlamini – I never caught his name no matter how many times I asked, although his last name is the same as Banele’s. And the king’s. And the Prime Minister’s. There’s really only the one last name in all of Swaziland. Anyway, our World Vision rep, I’ll call him “Joe”, came to pick us up from our hostel in the Ezulwini Valley and gave us a folder with information on Banele’s village and World Vision’s projects in the area. Our first stop was the local Pick N’ Pay grocery store so we could stock up on essential food items for Banele’s family. Seventy dollars later, we were loaded up with sugar, maize flour, potatoes and onions and headed out to Banele’s village.
For such a small country of only 17,000 km², Swaziland has an amazing amount of geographical diversity. In the Ezulwini Valley where our hostel was located, mountains and green hillsides complete the landscape. And in a drive of less than an hour we were in the Lubombo region (bordering Mozambique) where rain is scarce and heat is overbearing.
We first went to the elementary school to pick up Banele – yes, we were taking him out of class, but we had to get him to like us somehow – and were quite impressed with the rural school buildings. By developing country standards, this place was impressive! It was a complex of about four or five school buildings with window-covered walls to allow a breeze to blow through, desks and chalkboards neatly arranged and even a small grassy courtyard. The headmaster came out to meet us first – not an overly friendly lady – but then we met Banele’s teacher who was so happy to meet us and thanked us profusely for coming to visit. And finally – Banele poked his head out of the classroom. I recognized him immediately from all the photos that World Vision has sent over the years. Much smaller than I expected for an 11 year old – he couldn’t have been more than 4’8” – he walked around the corner with his head down and hands in his pockets. Aaron and I certainly did not expect much more – I can’t think of any 11 year olds who would meet total strangers with open arms – but he gave us a small handshake and a brief smile and we talked just a little bit about his recent test and what he would be missing in class that day.
In Swaziland, English is one of their official languages though SiSwati is the language they learn first. As Banele is only in the fifth grade his English is very much a work in progress, so Joe had to translate for us. We then fetched his older sister out of class and then went to the secondary school to pick up two more sisters and then headed to his home. His oldest sister had pretty good English and was happy to chat with us, but the three younger siblings looked a bit terrified of these funny looking whities and remained pretty silent.
When we got to his house we met his mother – probably my age, just with seven kids under her belt – and about six aunts or neighbors or something. We never quite understood who they all were, though I’m sure one was a grandmother. His father (like many Swazi men) works in South Africa in the mines where the work is difficult and more dangerous but far more profitable, so he was away during our visit. To ease the awkwardness of having two strangers come by the place, Aaron and I unloaded the food and grabbed a few of the tennis balls we had purchased at the supermarket and got all the kids going in a rousing game of baseball. They took to it pretty quickly – enough so that all the tennis balls were squashed by the end of the day – and it wasn’t long before the kids were screeching with delight and the women were laughing in the shade.
We must have played games for about an hour – between baseball and a few games they taught us – we worked up quite a sweat and actually had a pretty good time. Banele seemed to be the most shy, though with three older sisters constantly teasing him and picking on him (like any good older sister should, might I add), he still came quite a ways out of his shell during our time with the family.
While we were catching our breath and resting, Banele’s mother brought out some pumpkin porridge that she had prepared for us – with three teaspoons of sugar it was actually really nice – but the portions she gave us were huge so we had enough to share with the other kids. Plus we felt pretty bad as everyone stared at us while we ate, so it was nice to divert some of the attention. Banele’s mother gave us a nice thank-you speech and then Banele was forced to do the same (through our translator) and then I told them how glad we were to be there – you know, the necessary protocol of a home visit.
We also got to “talk” (through our translator) and they asked us a bunch of questions about what we do at home, how we like Swaziland and why we don’t have any babies yet – and then we got to the good stuff. Though Banele was far too shy to dance, his older sisters took over and danced their little hearts out. The women and kids were singing in the typical African style and the girls were out there shaking sticks and kicking – even one of the older ladies joined in. I loved it because I didn’t feel like it was a forced act for foreign visitors – it honestly seemed like we’d grown comfortable enough with each other and they wanted to show off a bit. I’ve heard stories about how my parent’s used to have me “read” my favorite storybook to their friends when I was three – when in fact I’d just memorized it and read it upside down anyways – so this was more like a friendly gesture than the obligatory and strained African display that you get on the tourist village visits.
After spending a few hours with the family and thoroughly enjoying our time with them, Joe took us on a brief tour of the community so we could visit projects that World Vision is involved with. One of their biggest roles in the community – after the sponsorship project – is getting the local people to become self-sufficient. World Vision enters each community for 15 years – the first half of that term is spent teaching the locals how to write proposals for government and NGO grants and how to come up with long-term money-making projects – and then the next half of the term is spent making sure they can do it on their own. We visited a home nearby who had successfully received a small grant to buy a couple of rabbits and were raising about 8 of them and could sell them in town for about 120 rand (US$30 or so). They would then use those profits to begin a mushroom farm. We were also shown their long-term water project to get pipes laid down to the most distant communities so drinking water would be within a couple hundred meters walk for everyone.
Finally we stopped by the World Vision field office where we greeted by the staff and got to see how everything works. Everyone was very polite and friendly, but there was a lot of work going on so we left pretty quickly. Well, that and it was just an office, not much to see. And eventually we were dropped back off in the Ezulwini Valley. Altogether, I was impressed. Writing a check to a company every month and hoping that it is actually going where you want it to go is a huge leap of trust, and our visit confirmed to me that my money is actually making a difference. Not just for the Dlamini’s – but for the entire community. And not just for today but improving their lives long-term through child and adult education – school, professional, and important issues like HIV/AIDS. And most importantly, Banele and his family seem really happy, which is exactly what anyone trying to sponsor a child would want. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and I honestly look forward to continuing my sponsorship.
Our World Vision visit was the main reason we came to Swaziland – we didn’t have much time to enjoy the rest of the country’s offerings, which is unfortunate. But what we saw impressed us. It’s a very modern country that still manages to maintain the traditions of the past.
Swaziland is the only true monarchy left in Africa and the king ensures that each child is taught the local customs, language and dances of their forefathers. It’s also a country where the local tribes not only intermingle but inter-marry, which in Africa is saying a lot. Tribal tensions throughout Africa are ripping it apart, but in Swaziland they live peacefully side by side. We were running out of time in the continent of Africa, so after a three day stay in Swaziland we regretfully headed out to our final African port of Johnannesburg.
