During my tenure as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a country where English was the second language, I would often, in conversation, hear different pronunciations of words than I was used to hearing. Simple things like my brother at the homestead asking me if I had always worn spectahclees. My sister asked me the same thing on a different occasion, wanting to know how young I was when I first had to wear my glaysees. I would often mimic their pronunciation when responding to them, which made me giggle, but mostly went unnoticed by the speaker.

There was a day when my favorite sister, Winile, had been out of sorts, moping around the homestead, and being generally cross and cranky. And I needed to talk with her about the application to the teachers college that she was preparing to submit. So I called out to her as she passed my house, to come in and talk with me. She snapped and said, “Just leave me alone, Maseko. Stop bothering me!” That was pretty unheard of, for a teenage girl to snarl at her uncle/ grandfather, which was what I was to the family. One of my two mothers was nearby, and heard her snap at me, and I could see that she was troubled by it. Later, my little sister Ncamsile came by.

Nca: Maseko, the mothers are talking about how Winile was disrespectful to you.

Me: Aw, she was just in a bad mood, Nca, and she will get over it, and things will be fine.

Nca: No, Maseko, you must do something to correct her. It is your duty as an elder, to help guide the children. They should not act toward an elder like that. That is what the mothers are talking about… what you will do about it.

Me: Well, Nca, I am not from your culture. In my culture, you should be patient with someone who is cranky, and let them work it out. What do the mothers think that I should do?

Nca: Make Mamba thinks you should take her over your knee and spank her to teach her the lesson.

Me: Oh, I couldn’t do that, Nca. She is 16. She is too old to be punished like a small child. And I don’t believe that spanking is a good solution to things like this. And in addition, I never want to force a child to do something just because I am larger and more powerful than the child.

Nca: Well, Make Khumalo thinks that you should grab her by the arm, and make her come in here, and talk strongly with her to show her the error of her behavior. But you need to do something. You can not just let it pass. That would teach her that it is ok to disrespect an elder, and that will cause problems with my father and my uncles. Everybody is waiting for you to do something.

Me: Ok, Nca, thanks for your wise council. I will think about it tonight, and do something tomorrow. You may assure the mothers that I will not let it pass without something to resolve the problem.

So, we worked on her homework, and she went off to bed. I sat there in my chair in front of my house as it got dark, and thought about what to do. I was trying to be a part of this family, and took my responsibility as an elder seriously. And what they saw as an egregious sign of disrespect, I saw as a teenage girl maybe being overwhelmed by her feelings in the moment. I knew she wasn’t trying to disrespect me. I had a great relationship with Winile. She was always respectful, and was intelligent, and funny, and loving to me and her family. The more I thought about it, the more agitated I became. The idea of grabbing or spanking a child was abhorrent to me. My childhood had been full of that, and the memory of my dads big fist descending from the sky to crash into my face had stuck with me, and I never wanted a child to feel the fear that I felt in those moments. Ever. I became so upset, that I knew I had to go take a walk and calm down. So I got up, and as I was walking out of the homestead, my brother Sydney, stopped me.

Sydney: Maseko, where are you going? It is dark. You must not walk around in the dark. There are snakes. And if the muti killers find you, they will catch you, and cut off your testiclees, and sell them to the witch doctors.

Me: Cut off my testiclees? It is ok, Sydney.I will watch for snakes. And if the muti killers catch me, and cut off my testiclees, I don’t care. I am not using them anyway.

He looked alarmed. I am not sure about which, that I would go walking in the dark, or that I didn’t care if my testiclees were cut off. I didn’t really believe in muti killers. They were, theoretically, bad people who inhabited the darkness, and would kill people for their body parts if they caught them out and about. I thought it was more a thing for mothers to scare the kids into not walking around outside of the homestead after dark, and had heard about them before. Tho, I had never actually met anyone who had encountered a muti killer. Swazis, when darkness fell, would go inside of their houses, and lock the doors, and stay in there until sun up. I, on the other hand, never let darkness slow me down. At school, I often walked down to my woodshop late at night, where I would take my guitar, and stand on a workbench in the dark, and play and sing. The concrete walls of the shop reflected my voice back to me, and I could work on staying in key while singing. Darkness was also a good time to walk in the moonlight, and think on the things that occasionally troubled me. There was nobody out there to have to do the whole greetings exchange with, and it was peaceful, as long as you watched for the snakes. I thought about Winile, and decided that inviting her to have supper with me the next day would give me the venue for asking her what was bothering her. Something was, for sure. With patience and kindness, I felt sure she would tell me, and we could work on resolving it together. I arrived back at the homestead, testiclees intact, and went to bed.

The next morning I walked to school early, and was sitting on the bench in front of the house where I had lived before I moved to the homestead, and I saw a small boy by the primary school, chasing something with a stick. As I walked over to see what was up, I saw it was a snake, and he had chased it into the roots of an aloe tree there. Aloe plants grew into trees in Swaziland. He was hacking away at the roots of the tree, and I asked him to stop.

Me: What are you doing, little brother? Why are you beating that tree?

Small Boy: There is a snake in there, sir, and I am trying to kill him.

Me: Why are you trying to kill him? Snakes eat rats, and there are plenty here for him to eat. Why not leave him alone so he can eat them, and there will be less rats trying to get into your food?

Small Boy: Mr Maseko, I am trying to kill him because it say so in the Byebell.

Me: What? It say so in the Byebell? Where in the byebell does it say that?

Small Boy: I don’t know the verse, but I can show you.

Me: OK, wait here a minute.

I walked over to the Science teachers house where he was getting ready to go down to school, and asked him to borrow his Bible. He was also the local preacher, and held services wednesday nights for the teachers, up in the primary school. He gave it to me, and I returned to the primary school, and handed the boy the Bible. He whipped it open to Genesis, and in a minute, handed it back to me with his finger set on a passage. I read it.

Suffer not the asp, for he shall bite you on the heel.

I read it twice. I had never come across that in my Bible, but there it was, plain as day, in that Bible.

Me: So, what does that mean to you, my little brother?

Small Boy: Why, sir, it means that if you see a snake, you should kill it immediately.

Ah. Ok. There were certainly plenty of snakes in low veldt Swaziland to be killed.

Me: Well my small friend, I don’t see where it says that you should damage a nice tree while you are not suffering the asp, so maybe you should throw the stick away, and leave the tree alone, and go to your class, and worry about the snake after school.

And he did. Later that evening, back at my homestead, Winile came by to have dinner with Ncamsile and I. It only took a little encouraging to open her up.

Me: Well, Winile, why were you so rude to me yesterday?

Winile: Oh, Maseko, I was thinking all day about having to go away to teachers college if I submit this application, and that was making me very sad. I do not want to go away from my family or you. And I knew you were going to ask me about the application, and I was not ready to talk to you about it. I apologize for being short with you.

Me: It is ok, little sister. I am not mad. Just surprised that you were so short with me. It was not like you to be like that. And now, because Make Mamba overheard you, and talked to father and the rest of the elders about it, everybody is expecting me to punish you in some way. What should we do about that?

Winile: I guess you should beat me, Maseko. (Kids in Swaziland always used the word beat, for the word punish. Like “Don’t beat me.” Or “The teacher will beat me.”)

Me: I don’t think I can do that, my sister. I am not a person who can beat another person. But, if you will go along with my plan, maybe we can calm everybody down about your punishment. Here is what you must do…

And I took my belt off, and beat my pillow on my bed with half a dozen good hard licks, while Winile made yelping sounds that all outside could hear, and Ncamsile had her hands over her mouth so nobody could hear her giggling. Then Winile jerked open the door, and ran crying over to the chicken house, rubbing her backside, and went inside. Nobody bothered her in there.

Later she came by the house, and thanked me for not beating her. I told her that it is ok to have feelings, and that nobody deserved to be beaten for having them. But please don’t put me in that position again. She agreed.

And I laid down and took off my spectaclees, checked that my testiclees were ok, and my Byebell was on my bookshelf, and I went to sleep.

Subterfuge Matters 

 Winile