Chishimba Chishimba
11 December 2008
THE screeching sound of a minibus making its way through a meandering hilly settlement attracts a horde of dwellers from their homesteads and surrounding areas.
This is in Mpolonjeni of Lubombo region, south-east of the mountainous monarchy country of Swaziland. Within a short period of time, several curious settlers surge towards the minibus, popularly referred to as 'Kombi'.
Around this place, the sight is one of sub-standard village houses, tattered clothes and desperate faces. To a first-time visitor, all these features give an indication of the kind of misery that the dwellers have been going through.
A translator assures the families that the people disembarking from the 'Kombi' are journalists from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on a well-intended mission. So they should pour out their feelings about their lifestyle.
In no time, the enthusiastic settlers are willing to share their experiences with the pen-pushers attending a course in Development Journalism under the sponsorship of Open Society Initiative in Southern Africa (OSISA).
This settlement, well beyond Siteki area and about 140 kilometres from the capital, Mbabane, has inhabitants who are undergoing intense hardships in all spheres of human life.
The desperate situation immediately gives one an indication of a sharp contrast in lifestyles with those obtaining in the cosmopolitan capital city as well as in the commercial capital, Manzini, whose modern infrastructure and well-structured roads are not only a marvel, but also fine pieces of architectural technology.
Stuart Dlamini, 65, who has been in the area since 1977, shares his family's sad tale.
He retired from a citrus processing firm and settled in Mpolonjeni where he attempted to start a new life through sustainable farming - growing maize and cotton and rearing livestock.
This was not to be. For many years he and his family had to endure severe hunger and lack of social amenities in the area.
According to Dlamini, the nearest health centre and school are about 10 kilometres away while there is no transport between the settlements and the social service centres.
He has been looking after four grandchildren, whose mother is not employed. Her boyfriend died and was equally not employed when he was alive. Five other grandchildren have lost both their parents.
Grants
In the past, Dlamini said the government was paying 500 rands (about K250,000) as elders' grants every three months. "But it is no longer doing so," he laments.
His wife, Zondwa, told the delegation that there were only two boreholes, which are far away from their homesteads. The area has been affected by drought for many years and only experienced some rainfall recently.
World Vision International drilled the boreholes some 10 years ago but the organisation has ceased to operate in the area. At the time of the interview, the family had gone without food for two days and such a situation was no strange to them.
The Dlaminis appealed to the Swazi government to create job opportunities for the dwellers and put up more schools and health centres to reduce the high levels of illiteracy, poverty and disease. They implored the government to reintroduce agricultural input grants and drill more boreholes to enable them engage in farming.
However, area member of parliament, Ace Mashawama, has been holding meetings with them at least once in two months, but life has still remained a nightmare. At another homestead owned by Petros Mvupu and his wife Monica, there were nine children who were wandering about and looked frail.
Mvupu, 67, narrated that the nine children did not belong to his family. Of those, only four were his grandchildren. The other five had gone to this homestead in the hope of getting food as their own parents were unable to provide for them at that particular time.
A translator, Sandile Mnisi, a high school teacher in the north, explained that children whose parents did not have food at any particular time went to nearby homesteads to beg for food for them to survive.
"I have moved in many places because of my background in agriculture. Some of the children in the homesteads get there to beg for food and those who have give them because it is not always that one would have food," he said.
Mnisi said people in different homesteads shared the little they had among themselves because of the strong family unit system.
Monica at the homestead said women in the area had formed clubs where they were required to pay two rand as contribution per month, but none of them was able to meet the payment.
Once per year, they were engaged in selling seed from Marura plant, but the venture was not dependable because it took time to pound the nuts, which they sold at 25 rand per kilogramme.
Monica says her family and many others have been failing to send their children to primary school because they are required to pay 50 rand registration fee, which they could not afford.
Regularly
Dolly Maseko, a businesswoman based in Mbabane, said she regularly visited Mpolonjeni to get some of the children whose mothers had died, mostly from HIV/AIDS, and enrolled them in school in Zombodze where her family has a homestead.
Zombodze is a rural area about 25 kilometres from Mbabane.
Ms Maseko explained, however, that she could only afford to get a few of them into school because education in Swaziland is expensive. Fees in government schools at primary level are in the range of 600 rand.
"It is difficult even for me to get some more children in school because fees are too high. Apart from fees, I have to buy uniforms, which are equally expensive. I do it out of passion and love for God. If I had enough money I was going to get more children in schools," she said.
The situation of children not going to school in rural Swaziland may not be a good example of a country which has made progress towards Millennium Development Goal number two whose target says as follows:
"Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling."
Some people interviewed indicated that a change in the governance system could help reduce some of the economic and social problems.
Although political parties are allowed to exist, their members are not elected or appointed to parliament.
According to Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, The Kingdom of Swaziland has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates of about 40 per cent and has been beset by social and other problems.
The head of State is the king or Ngwenyama, currently King Mswati III, who ascended to the throne in 1986 after the death of his father, King Sobhuza II in 1982.
As the monarch, the king appoints the prime minister, who is the head of government.
He also appoints a small number of representatives for both chambers of parliament. The senate consists of 30 members, while the House of Assembly has 82 seats, 55 of which are occupied by elected representatives.
The sugar industry is Swaziland's leading export earner and private-sector employer. Soft drink concentrate (a US investment) is the country's largest export earner, followed by wood pulp and lumber from cultivated pine forests. Pineapple citrus fruit and cotton are other important agricultural exports.
From the field research undertaken, one should conclude that more effort is required to reduce poverty and improve on the education system to allow for more people to access affordable education.
The government, being the primary stakeholder, should lead and facilitate the improvement of the livelihood of the people in Swaziland.
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