Friday, July 20, 2007

Day 10 (sorry it's late, my internet has been down)

Hmmm. What has happened lately?
I have walked on a lot of footpaths, here and there, in the hot sun. I think I’m becoming African. I asked Treasure, one of my teachers, to teach me to carry things on my head. But she just laughed. “In six months, I’ll teach you. You will be African then.” :0)
I’ve also ridden a kombi. No not our children’s Cup kombi, but a real honest to goodness public transportation kombi. Not sure how safe that might have been but I prayed about it and felt at peace before I went to the bus rank. That, and I was with Queeneth. I don’t think anyone would want to mess with her. :0) It was hot and smelly but overall an uneventful trip.
Although the Manzini bus rank is supposed to be sketchy, I thought it was kind of neat with all of the vendors and such there. And you simply look for a kombi with “Mbabane” on that back and that means they are driving to Mbabane. So you get in and sit down and they drive you. Pretty simple.
I also had the opportunity to see how Swazi resolve conflict. There was a problem,- well it wasn’t really a problem ,-that Queeneth and I had to work out for some teachers. But there was no shouting, demanding, or threatened law suits. They simply talked very submissively saying, “Well sister, this is what I suggest to you…” or “Do you see why this is a problem for me…”
I asked Queeneth why we had to drive all the way to Manzini and then walk around to solve the problem. Why couldn’t we just call and settle it?
“No. That’s not good. That’s not the way we do it. On the phone you can lie. But if I see you eye to eye, you can’t lie to me. And can you imagine how much money you would spend. You could go around and around and never solve anything.”
Interesting

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Face to face non-confrontation resolution...I like it!