Some things don't change, some do

Greetings,

This post is about another couple things that are similar and another few that are different in Swaziland. It shouldn't be long, just a couple thoughts in my head (that's more a commitment for me to stay on track than information for you).

Anyway, a Jehovah's Witness just visited the office while Tinashe was in the other room and Bonisille had already left. Apparently they are just as polite as they are in the US. I also didn't want to offend him (still treading carefully in Swazi culture), so I was equally polite and we had an interesting discussion about fish and Alaska. He said he'll come back some Wednesday and we can talk more, but we'll see. Last time Jehovah's Witnesses told me that, I never saw them again (although I had spent an hour troubling them over Paul's letters).

The internet is also on the fritz. Tinashe and I can only connect to certain websites (luckily google is among them and my blog is on google. This seems to point to a problem with the router (already tried different browsers), but Bonisille has no problem. My bet is that it's tied to an outage we had earlier this week when Bonisille talked to the company on the phone and, I'm guessing, changed a setting somewhere. But I haven't figured it out yet, so for now my internet access is limited. It makes me feel a bit like a bad computer technician.

As for different things, they're cows. Now I'm from Wisconsin, so cows are not in any way new for me. I'm used to them and their smell (reminds me of driving through Wisconsin). But cows aren't really used the same way here. They're not milked or butchered or bred. Basically, they wander around all day and come home at night (this is what I've been told; I haven't witnessed cows going home at night, and it seems a bit like snipe hunting). They're a symbol of wealth, and it seems they're highly valued. But it seems like with the amount of cows they have, the cows would contribute to a better life. But it doesn't seem like that's what happens.

I'm not sure how simple that is to change, or if it's even appropriate to try to change it (how sacrosanct are cultural practices?). It just seems like there's a fair amount of wealth present while the people have unmet needs (education and adequate nutrition at least). So that's something I'm trying to figure out at this point, but I'm not sure that I've got enough information or that there's a good answer.

Yesterday three members of the AfricaWorks team from Mozambique came and we showed them around. It was good to talk to them and show off our stuff. Their operation is probably a hundred times the size of ours, but we have some cool stuff.

-Ben