I have now been in Swaziland for a month, having arrived on 27 August. Now that I have this blog-site up, I’ll try to post at least weekly. But, for starters, I’ll try to summarize some of what’s happened so far.
Not a lot, at least on the work front here at University of Swaziland. I was scheduled to begin teaching a Newswriting and Reporting class on Wednesday, September 3, but on that day the students went on strike (or a “toyi-toyi” as it’s called here). They held a rally to correlate with union demonstrations going on in nearby Manzini. The students, however, had there own issues to protest – namely, the speedy release of living allowances, a desired increase in living allowances and a desired decrease in the cost of food on campus. No classes could meet that day as I was told that demonstrators would disrupt any classes and force those students in attendance to leave. So I sat in a colleague’s office listening to the chanting going on outside and eventually watching students run past the window pursued by either police or security staff. At that point, I returned to my campus apartment and hid out for the rest of the day. Apparently, the demonstrators did some damage to campus property during the afternoon, so the campus was closed and all students ordered off the premises until further notice. That notice finally came about three weeks later, on Monday the 22nd, when a memo circulated stating that classes would resume on the 25th. So, I’ve actually held one class now, but next week is the official mid-term “short break.” I got to meet my students once and give them a couple weeks worth of homework, but now I won’t see them again until October 8.
While waiting for classes to start, I prepared several weeks of lesson plans and got moved into an office space of my own. The photo above, which I can't yet figure out how to caption, is a shot of the office corridor. In this climate, each office opens to the outside. My office is quite spacious -- about 10 x 12, and has loads of shelves. I've decorated the big bulletin board with an Alaska flag and some postcards. (I am reconsidering this decoration scheme as quite a few people ask me about Sarah Palin once they know where I'm from).
As the UNISWA Journalism & Mass Communications Department (my official host here) only has me scheduled to teach the one course, I’m trying to drum up business with other departments. Most likely, I’ll end up with an academic composition course – I’m told these classes feature well over a hundred students, which will make it next to impossible to assign and give prompt feedback on even a few writing assignments. So far, though, no one seems in a big hurry to make specific arrangements for this additional class. Perhaps, they’re all waiting to see how many students return after the short break. “Wait and see” seems to be a common attitude here, and every official transaction I've been involved with so far has required several layers of bureaucracy.
