work work work

I've not blogged for days now, which can only mean that I have been working!

Last week there was a three day meeting/ conference in Piggs Peak, a town about an hour and a half away from Manzini. The meeting was hosted by the National Children's Co-ordination Unit (NCCU). The aim of the meeting was to begin preparations for submission of the state party report to the Commission on the Rights of the Child, in Geneva. Civil society, government departments were available to collect information about the steps that the Swazi government has taken to implement the commissions recommendations to Swaziland in 2006. The are some challenges in presenting the information to the commission, caused by the over enthusiasm of the last report in which the Swazi Government may have overstated the protection of children's rights in the country.

Tomorrow is another meeting regarding the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals in Swaziland. All these international reports are due around the same time. It makes for an interesting over view of the situation in Swaziland, and also for a whole heap of quick reading to bring me up to speed.

Property Rights

A big property rights case was before the High Court of Swaziland just a few months before I got here. In the case her lady ship, Justice Qinsile Dlamini finally allowed women to own property in their own names, invalidating a act of parliament that had not been updated to give effect to equality rights. Previously women were only allowed to buy property in their husbands name, which of course creates problems in cases involving abuse or divorce proceedings. It was a landmark case.

However just two days before I arrived here, this decision was over turned at the Appeal Court. Justice Moore cited reasons of separation of powers- simply put, he found that the court could not direct parliament on how to update its law. This is despite the fact that it had taken parliament 5 years (and counting) to address their laws in order to bring them in line with the constitutional act containing the bills of rights (passed in 2005).

Of course I was, and still am, flabbergasted by this situation.

So I got in touch with a journalist with IRIN news. Here is the article: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=89510

Enjoy.

Thanksgiving

Yesterday I went to a thanksgiving celebration. Thanksgiving was for my host mothers uncle, who brought my host mother and her 5 siblings up. The idea was to have a celebration of life a chance for the whole family to get together. We drove for an hour and a half to Piggs Peak at the top of Swaziland, to get to my host family's homestead. Every Swazi family living in the cities have their family homestead in the rural areas, usually it is a peice of land given to them by the king a generation or so ago, that the whole family will them build their individual houses on. The result is a jumble of cement houses built on the land, animals walking free, chickens, cows and goats. There was a group of chicks walking in and around the outside cooking pit.

The event itself was in Swati. A lot of speeches, an MC and some dodgy music to welcome each speaker on the stage. The Zion church was in attendance as well, I am told in the rural areas that the Zion church is most prevalent. In the Zion church all men carry sticks as if they were staffs, and do they like to sing and dance! From where I was sitting, it seemed like any lull in proceedings meant a chance for the entire church to start dancing, a constant side two step move.

Any event in ones homestead is an open invitation for the entire neighbourhood to come along to share in food. There is no such thing as an invitation in Swazi culture. I noticed during the proceedings there was a host of people waiting outside the tent, and a lot of children occupying the seats in the centre of the tent. As soon as the presents were given to the Mtethwa family Uncle & Aunty, food started getting served and an instant line formed. Everyone ate their fill and got containers of food to go home with. A entire cow was slaughtered for the event, the entire animal went into those pots. It was delicious.

Khombi Experiences

Getting the Khombi home from work is perhaps the most Swazi experience that I have here. Not getting the Khombi to work, which merely involves waiting beside the road, the aforementioned designated tree station, and waiting for a Khombi to come up the road; a relatively sedate experience compared to the afternoon. The Khombi itself is a 14 seater van, 4 rows deep, the back row seats 4 people squeezed shoulder to shoulder. The hot seat is up besides the driver. It gets to a certain point in the road, a part of highway just going into or leaving town, and the conductor starts collecting 4 E from all the people on the bus. He doesn’t ask for the money, everyone just starts passing money to the front, hand to hand if you’re squeezed in the back row.

In the afternoon, the bus rank is chaotic. Roughly 60 Khombis are parked at all angles throughout a dirt parking lot, which itself is spread over three different sections, on a hill. Along two sides of the bus rank are long markets, selling mostly fresh fruit and veg, some sell a selection of clothes. Throughout the bus rank there are stalls selling lollipops and chips, with MTN workers selling airtime to top up mobiles. And at the far side of the bus rank there is a flea market. The first afternoon going to the bus ranks involved walking around in circles, asking various conductors where the bus for Fairview north was, only to be sent left to right, right to left and back again. Walking around in circles resulted in a few marriage proposals being sent my way, one person asking for money and in my mind at least, a lot of people looking.

A co-worker got me on the right bus that afternoon. Since then I have had the help of a gentleman who stands next to the small food stand and MTN guy closest to the Fairview north buses. The first time I was there alone, and there was a rather abrupt, ‘where?’ coming from behind me. I don’t hear at first, as intent as I am on not having to decline any marriage proposals for that day. ‘Where?’ he repeats. Fairview north. ‘Here, stand here.’ The man points to a very specific part of the ground. He wears a red fleece and a red beanie (toque).

It has been the same every afternoon that I have seen him. If there are two Khombis waiting, he points me towards the right one. If there are people milling around, he tells me exactly where to stand to start a line for the next Khombi that comes. Always he sounds a little angry with me, like I am disappointing him by letting people creep in front of me. Last week there was no one there, I guess that a Khombi had just left. So I waited, not sure exactly where would be the best place to stand, so as to secure the coveted front row seat. Slowly 6 people came, all ended up in front of me until the man pointed me towards the space in the loose line. With his help, I held my ground so people ended up behind me instead of in front. I thanked him as I passed him to get on the Khombi, he says ‘don’t worry about me, just get on the bus!’

Just Governance Group

So part of being a 'Crossroader' is raising money to support Crossroad initiatives. I've almost got all the money that I needed to get, see the link at the side if you want to check it out.

Part of the way I will be raising money is to write monthly for a organisation in Canada, The Just Governance Group. I have been working with them part-time for a year and a half now, carrying out research into governance, political, social and cultural rights in different contexts.

Check out their website with the link to my writings. http://www.justgovernancegroup.org/en/home_eng.htm Thanks