Kisimusi kuMalindza (Christmas in Malindza)

December 26^th, 2012

After being wishy washy about where to spend Christmas this year I decided to just stay at my homestead.  I was told to not really expect a big celebration so I emotionally prepared myself to just skip Christmas this year.  However, like most things in Swaziland, I was surprised by how things actually played out.  I ended up having a really good Christmas.

Despite the really warm weather that Christmas brought in (it hovered around 100), I managed to channel some Christmas spirit.  I was surprised by the visit of four of my host sisters for Christmas.  I was told they all go to their husbands homestead to celebrate.  My oldest Sisi Winnile (Win-ee-lay) did just that, but the next two came home.  Zandile (Zan-dee-lay) is super pregnant, like going to have the baby any day, so she didn’t want to travel far to her husbands parental homestead, so she came here instead.  Lungile (Loon-gee-lay) is a police officer in manzini and is on duty during the holiday so she was in an out.  Nosipho (No-see-po) came home after a month away with Lungile, and Buyile (boo-ee-lay) came home now that she is on break from school the High School she attends in Manzini.  My bhuti Sifiso (Si-fee-so) is also home from University in South Africa.  Three out of the five grandsons were here as well, so it was a busy house.

Since it was so hot, we spent most of the time just sitting outside enjoying each other company and the breeze.  On Christmas Eve we did a lot of preparing for the Christmas meal.  I baked g-free chocolate chips cookies, while Make and Babe shucked fresh mealies (maize) for the mealie bread.  Sifiso slaughtered a goat, hung it from a tree and impressively skinned and butchered it in a record time before the sun completely set.  Lungile had brough professionally butchered goat steaks and she braaied (grilled on an open fire) them up for dinner.  I have had boiled goat here a lot, but braaied is so much better.  Having it professionally butchered helped – a better meat to fat ratio.

Christmas morning didn’t bring presents but it brought the excitement of Christmas food.  All my bosisi started cooking early to avoid the afternoon heat, and Make made two giant batches of mealie bread (my favorite Swazi food).  Once the food was done, the rest of the day was spend eating at our leisure, sleeping, watching TV.  It was awesome.  I love being lazy and I love food so really it was a great day for me.  It was really fun to just hang out with the family and it was really comfortable.  I felt free to just enjoy the day any way I wanted and was in my “home” so I could just do that.  It sounds weird but I felt like I belonged there, as another kid, not a guest.  Despite living here for 1.5 years I sometimes still feel like I am just a guest.  I am always asking permission to do things, worrying about what everyone is thinking when I do things.  But not today, today I was part of the family and that was what I needed and wanted for Christmas.

Goat skinning



christmas cookies





Grinding mealies with Make for the mealie bread



Customer Service Does Exists!

If you haven’t read the previous blog post title “at least it makes for a good story,” read it now before you continue.

My faith in the existence of customer service here in Swaziland was revived!!!

Today I was returning home from a camping trip and was sun-burnt and tired but desperately needing groceries before I headed back to site.  Its month-end (aka pay day) and Christmas time so stores are hectic.  I had to wait just for a basket at the grocery store and then braced the crowded aisles.  Finally I got to the check out and waited in a long line as expected.  I got to the front, unloaded my cart at the till, and just as the teller was about to swipe my first product the power goes out.  We waited in total darkness for a minute before the lights came back on.  I then waited another 15 minutes for the tills to come back up.  The line I was in never did start back up.  Eventually I was asked to pack up my cart and find another line.  Due to the power outage the check-out lines were now half way down the store.  I reluctantly pushed my cart to the very back.  I had now been in the store for 1.5 hours.  Half an hour later the girl at my original till passed me and said “How [expression of surprise]! You are still in line?”  I was half way down the dry foods aisle and just smiled and said “yep, still here.”  Ten minutes later she rushed up to me again, grabbed my cart and said follow me.  I didn’t have time to question so I followed her.  She got her till on and kindly brought me to be first in her line before she opened it up.  I couldn’t believe how nice she was.  I had to really fight back the tears from her kindness.  I tried to express how thankful I was in every form I knew how, without physically leaning over the counter and hugging her.

It is moments like this that I am so ashamed of being so cynical here.  Goodness does exist, but sometimes only when we aren’t fighting for it.  I find myself fighting a lot these days.  I use to call it standing-up for myself, not letting people take advantage of me, but what it feels like now is just fighting.  Usually at times like the one I mentioned above I am to tired to remember or try to fight for myself, it’s always in these moments that I realize that there are people on my side.  Something I am going to try harder to remember.

Mahamba Gorge

December 17th - 19th, 2012

Since my time is Swaziland is rapidly decreasing I have made it a point to start checking of things on my Swaziland Bucket List.  One of these things was to go camping at Mahamba Gorge.

This gorge is situated on the southwestern border with South Africa, very close to where I did my pre service training in Nhlangano.  Myself and 6 other volunteers made the trek down there for a 2-day camping stay-cation.  The Mahamba Gorge Project, which included the camping site, is a community run project as a source of income generation for the community.  The campsite consists of tent space, 4 small cabins that can be rented and a small main lodge.  There is no electricity on the premise, but there is running water as the community pumps water from the gorge.  On arrival you meet Babe Kunene, he handles check-in and out.  He is a friendly Swazi man, who really went out of his way to make sure we had everything we needed.  He let us power up the gas run refrigerator and gas stove, for no charge, gave us a key to the main lodge to use the kitchen, and showed us how to cross the river, find the waterfall, and climb around the gorge.  His directions included phrases like “you follow along until you see a pile of rocks, then you follow that tree,” as he points to the top of a mountain, “see that one, the green one.”  Oddly enough once you get out there those directions actually make sense.  We did find the tree, the green one, at the very top.

We camped under the stars on the banks of the gorge, nestled snug between towering hills.  We ate family style and played cards outside under a tree framed by the beautiful, picturesque landscape.  We spend all of day two exploring. Our first adventure was crossing the river.  It was waist deep and the current was a bit strong but we forged our way across.  Then we discovered the waterfall.  Exact words upon discovery I believe were “holy crap, its amazing.”  It was amazing and fell approximately 30 feet into a small, very cold, pool of crystal clear water.  We had packed picnic lunches and after the waterfall we spent the rest of the morning climbing to the very top of one of the mountains to have lunch.  It was hard, but I made it.  I climbed a freaking mountain!  We found the green tree, sat underneath it and devoured our lunches while looking out across the world, Swaziland to our left, South Africa to our right, Mahamba gorge down below.

The Green Tree

Aside from the waterfall, the green tree, and the rock pile, we saw some other pretty cool things.  We found a group of grasshoppers all migrating together.  It was a mass of bright green, yellow, and black all hopping together.  A snake was briefly seen by Kelly; we all stopped and were curious about what kind it was, but our wise friend Mia gratefully hindered any snakebites by instructing us all to “stop asking questions and walk away from it already.”  We also meet a group of six dogs that were loving life at the top of the mountain.  They had owners who we saw later, but we enjoyed watching them run and play across the hills.  And of course what is walk anywhere in Swaziland without an encounter with a herd of cows.  It was amazing to see the cows go up the mountain – but I wonder if they can come back down?  Isn’t it that cows can go up stairs but not down?

Mahamba Gorge is officially being added to my list of favorite places in Swaziland!!


The Waterfall!



The hill furthest back is the mountain we climbed!



At Least It Makes for A Good Story In The End

December 7^th, 2012

My life in Swaziland has gotten to a point where I feel really comfortable with my surroundings and myself.  This is a blessing and a curse at the same time.  I am happy that I am comfortable in living with my host family and working in my community, however with comfort comes a certain expectation of control.  At home in America I can be fairly in control of almost any situation I find myself in and with my increasing comfort here in Swaziland I have begun to let my guard down assuming that I have any sort of control.  I’ve learned that I still have none and my biggest struggle at this point in my service is dealing with this feeling of no control.  I have worked so hard to figure out how to live here, found happiness and every single day things still go wrong.  I know deep down its my problem for not being flexible or accepting the fact that I have no control over my life once I walk outside of my hut.  I guess I naively thought that as I figured out how to live, life would stop feeling foreign; that I would discover that things work just the same as home just in a different language and at a slower speed, but yet be done with the same integrity.  I’m found the exact opposite and am having a really hard time accepting that what has always been right to me is wrong here.  “There are some laws and customs in this empire very peculiar, and if they were not so directly contrary to those of my own dear country, I should be tempted to say a little in their justification.  It is only to be wished, that they were as well executed.” (Gulliver’s Travels, Swift, 65). I feel as if instead of expanding my world-view and opening my mind, I am actually closing it.

Here is an example of a frustrating moment when my “American senses” were completely opposite from what I encountered. 

A few days ago I met some PCVs in town for a mini town-cation.  We hung around Ezulwini Valley, which is the touristy area of Swaziland and because of that it feels like an American suburb – a really great escape.  At least that’s what I assume, I see what looks like America and expect it to act like America and then it doesn’t.  We went to the one and only movie-theater in Swaziland.  Its brand new, yet has the movie projection quality of the budget, one-room, vintage movie theater in River Falls, WI.  Aside from the movie sometimes being unfocused, the sound mixing being off balance, and occasional un-intended intermissions when something goes wrong up in the projection box, seeing a movie is such a nice option when us PCVs need a break from PC life.

So we buy our tickets and try to go into the theater.  We of course are hauling backpacks and bags of food for our stay in town (essential parts of the PC uniform) and are told we can’t bring our bags in the theater, but the employee taking our tickets lets us put them in an office.  We were really surprised and thankful for the employee to help us like that, so we went and bought her a chocolate bar to say thank you.  Then we went in to watch the movie.  When we got out the theater was closed, and there was one employee left.  We soon realized our bags were now locked into the office and the one employee still there didn’t have the key.  He kindly called someone with a key then picked up his bag and left.  We let out a shock of distress that he would just leave us unsupervised in his place of work as well as leave us unhappy customers to solve a problem the theater created.  As he walked away we said “wait, you are just going to leave?”  and all he said was “oh you wanted me to wait with you?”  We let him go on his way but got the number of the employee coming, unsure if we would ever get our bags back.  Half an hour later, just as the mall security guard was about to harass us for loitering, a khumbi pulls up and the employee, who we quickly learned was the manager, got out.  At this point my American expectation was that he would apologize profusely for the carelessness of his employees, perhaps offer us a discount on a movie for the inconvenience the theaters caused us, or less preferably but acceptable a mild scolding for leaving our bags there.  Nope, upon approach and without being greeted he immediately went into a tirade about how we inconvenienced him, and made him turn around 30 minutes ago.  He accused us of being over-privileged for using the office as a coat check, not once asking how our bags got there in the first place.  I, having lost my patience somewhere in the African bushveld, launched right back in our defense, but didn’t get far as my PC pals told me to cool-it.  Not a single sorry for the trouble or miscommunication, but we got our bags back!

I know its my problem that I can’t accept the lack of customer service here, or that things always go wrong, or that as a customer I am always wrong but isn’t it also wrong of me not try and correct these things.  Swaziland desperately wants to be a developed country, and they have a lot of influence from South Africa that they mimic.  Sometimes I feel as if it’s all role-play here.  Swaziland sees what it wants to be and tries to be it before it really knows what its doing.  Its like I am playing house with a five-year-old; they so want to be an adult yet can’t quite get it right.  They get the basics, but when it comes to the details, things get lost; like customer service.  In my fiver-year old scenario, the five-year old has years to watch and grown and has adults in their lives to fill in the blanks.  Where is Swaziland’s adults?  Is it the International Community?  And if so isn’t it my job as a representative from a developed country to guide and fill in the blanks.  Am I wrong to get mad when I confront a problem someone has caused me and am told that it’s my problem in the end?  Or do I just smile and accept that things don’t work here and that it’s just part of the culture and just how things operate here?  I used to accept these things quite well.  I shook them off because everything was foreign and uncomfortable to deal with.  But now I am comfortable here, I know things don’t have to be difficult and yet they still are.

Where There Is No Doctor

December 1^st, 2012

First off Happy World AIDS Day!

Second, I have had a very important and defining moment in my Peace Corps Service.  I finally administered treatment for someone who was seeking medical care by consulting the book ‘Where There Is No Doctor.’  Every Peace Corps Volunteer around the world, as well as most workers in any rural part of the world, have this book on their shelf.  It is the go to guide when trying to diagnose and treat any symptom or injury where/when there is no Doctor available.  It’s the web-MD of the non-internet world.  Despite the fact that I am a community development health volunteer my copy of this jewel of a book is a bit dusty.  My experience with consulting its pages, mostly trying to self-diagnose, has made me a hypochondriac.  It seemed any symptom I was having was a result from contracting TB, Malaria, a parasite, and a worm simultaneously.  In reality I really only had mild cases of the runs (aka diarrhea), but its really easy to freak yourself out in the middle of the night in rural Africa when you feel like you are dying.

To avoid any un-needed stress I decided it was best not to look up my symptoms anymore.  However, a few days ago my Babe (host dad) was building a new fence and the wire snapped and hit him in the eye.  Make (host mom) had gone to bed and I was left to attend to Babe’s swollen and very painful eye.  It was night, going to the clinic was not an option, so I pulled out my copy of ‘Where There Is No Doctor’ just to see what it had to say.  It recommended an antibiotic eye ointment and keeping the eye covered for a few days since Babe was still able to see out of the eye, so I prescribed just that.  I wasn’t really convinced he had heard what I told him as the next day he was out working in the field again and not seeking treatment.  I left the homestead for a few days and arrived back today.  I asked Babe how his eye was (it looked much better) and he showed me an antibiotic eye ointment Make had bought him when she went into town and he has been wearing his sunglasses as a protective barrier.  He was so happy it was no longer causing him pain. 

I feel I can officially call myself a Health volunteer now.  I had read many accounts of PCVs consulting and treating out of this book, but so far my service had not presented me with a situation where I was being relied on for medical help.  I’m glad I can finally add a ‘Where There Is No Doctor’ story to PCV service resume so to speak.

Thanksgiving 2012

November 22^nd, 2012

Thanksgiving was really awesome for me this year.  I have a lot to be thankful for. 

For the past three years the American Embassy has hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for the entire American community here in Swaziland, with Peace Corps making up the majority.  This year, however, there was a changeover in Ambassadors, and thankfully the new Ambassador was still game for inviting the 70+ Peace Corps Volunteers and staff over for dinner.  However it was just us and the Ambassador this year.  The new Ambassador gave the Embassy staff the option to come celebrate with us or to celebrate at their homes.  I actually really enjoyed the slightly smaller crowd this year, but since it was just PC it was up to PC to supply all the food.  Well everything except the meat, the Ambassador supplied that. 

Myself along with 4 other G9 PCVs were recruited to help our Country Director’s (our boss) wife and our Administration Officer make all the fixings of a Thanksgiving meal.  Addy was also recruited and her and I, plus Addy’s husband Ryan and our friend Libby who were in Mbabane (they edit our monthly Peace Corps Volunteer publication), got to camp out at our Country Director’s house for 4 days/3 nights.  And by camp out I mean we slept in a bed that was softer then a cloud and had full access to all the modern amenities (showers, internet, television).  It was the best stay-cation ever!!!  We were treated to home cooked meals, had running hot water to do dishes with, slept without the fear of bugs, and didn’t have to haul water.  It was amazing  - I am tearing up just thinking about it.

We did work for our stay though – but not too hard.  We spent a day and half baking half of what we needed.  The other three PCVs were at the other house baking away on the other half.  We made 2 pans cheesy potatoes, 2 pans baked potatoes, 2 pans oven baked beans, 2 pans green bean casserole, 3 pans stuffing, 2 bowls green salad, 2 cheese and fruit platters, 3 made from scratch pumpkin pies (actually butternut squash – no pumpkin here this time of year), 2 pans apple crumble, and 2 to-die for chocolate pudding and brownie trifles.  Once all said and done I think between our two houses cooking and the Ambassador we had 20 dessert options (sadly only two of which I could eat). 

 Even though I had limited options, it was still so, so, so delicious.  I ate way to much as expected.  The Ambassador not only had turkey but also ham.  I have no idea where she found a ham because I sure have not had it once since leaving the States – it was so amazing.  It was my first time meeting the new Ambassador, who if you didn’t pick up is a woman, and she is really cool, very friendly, open and approachable.  I am very thankful that even though she is new to Swaziland she opened her house to us PCVs. 

It helps to feel like you have a family to celebrate with even when we are so far away from our own families.  PC Swaziland has really become a great family.  I am truly thankful for my group, Group 9 volunteers.  We started with 39 in my group and we are now down to 24 still in Swaziland.  We have become really close over the last year and a half and I wouldn’t change them for the world.  I am also thankful for PC Swaziland staff for helping make PC Swaziland feel like a family.  The staff really becomes our surrogate parents; they are whom we call when everything is falling apart, but as of lately they have also become friends, mentors, and guides, as life after PC is getting closer and closer for us G9ers.

On An African Evening

It’s 5:30pm; the setting sun has cast everything in a golden light.  I’m sitting on my steps, the breeze is crisp and the air smells fresh.  I watch as the neighbor boys and Babe hand plant the maize.  The hoe pierces the ground with a thud and a shoeless boy tosses in a seed before covering up the hole with his bare foot.  Three teams of two scale up and down the rows.  This is the third and final section of the field to be planted.  Section number one is already burgeoning.  The maize stocks, about 2 feet high, rustle in the wind.

Everything is stunningly green from the recent rains.  Where there was only dirt last year, there is now rapidly growing grass that just begs to be laid in.  I just spent an hour bengihlagule (weeding) in my garden.  It is finally looking less abandoned.  Time to plant lettuce and beetroot!  I found a giant spider and what appeared to be its egg sack in the dirt.  With a heavy heart I sprayed it with bug killer and reburied it.  It may have been poisonous and had direct access to my window.

Now time for dinner and another glorious African sunset!  But wait… sisi Nisipho has just come into the family garden.  She is picking tonight’s dinner – spinach.  She carried her 1 and ½ year old son on her back.  She bends with the balance only a Swazi mother knows.  A four donkey drawn car has pulled through the far gate.  They are dropping off firewood; a symbol of time passed and self-sufficiency. 

Life seems simple and pleasant tonight.  Past remorse isn’t clouding the senses, the urgency of the future isn’t pressing.  Its nice to just enjoy the moment.

Top Ten: Hey It’s Ok… in Swaziland (spoof off of Glamour mags “Hey It’s OK” list)

… to use a dirty pan because you are just going to make it dirtier

… to eat only popcorn for dinner because the day was just too hard already

… to wear whatever is clean or at least doesn’t smell, even if it is a striped shirt with a floral skirt

… to only wash your hair once a week to save money on shampoo, only to spend it on a weekly E20 cup of coffee

… to not leave your homestead for 5 days because you are perfectly happy there

… to dream about America and curse Swaziland some days

… to become an airtime dealer at the end of the month because you spent all your money already

… to skip the parts of your workout DVD that you don’t like (cough, cough… the dreya roll)

… to watch more TV series here then you ever did in America

… to plan what you want to do after COS even if you still have 8 months or 20 months left
... to sleep for 10 hours in a row, night after night
... to spend an extra 26 rand on a taxi just so you don't have to walk an extra 40 feet
... to replace your social life with a pet cat
... to feel no remorse when a rooster gets its head cut off
... to be s self proclaimed sommelier on PnP No name Box wine
... to say you are camping at Bombasos backpackers but never actually sleep outside
... to use your pee bucket in the middle of the day just because its 3 feet away and not across the yard
... to start excepting marriage proposals if the labola prices get high enough
... to think you are dying every day because 'Where There Is No Doctor' told you so
... to walk around with your lahiya or blanket tied around you and call it an outfit


"Africa is an addiction.  Life here is so challenging that you feel you've done something really fine - really rewarding - just by surviving from one day to the next.  There is so much that is new, exotic, and exciting, you feel like you are discovering unknown secrets to a lost world.  But the last few weeks have just been a glorified adventure holiday.  It is what you extract from all that raw material and make your own - that's what matters, that's your contribution."
- from "Into Africa" by Craig Packer

The End of Health Club

November 14^th, 2012

The Health Club at the local High School that I was co-leading with Addy is finally finished.  We started this Health Club a year ago and we had the simple goal to complete a 10-week life skills/HIV knowledge course with them.  It’s now been 44 weeks and we only just finished.  That is the reality of working as a PCV.  Things never go as planned and even the most thoroughly thought out schedule never works out in the end.

Granted there was a 10-week teachers strike.  Then this past term all of our students were completing their Form 5 exams (exams they take in 12^th grade to complete High School), so they couldn’t meet with us, but still this Health club has been dragged out way to long.  I was ready to call the class a wash in terms of finished, but the students really wanted to complete it.  You may say oh that’s so great that they care about their education, but no they just wanted the certificate we promised them if they finished.  Even though, we agreed that if the students wanted to come back after their exams were done, we could do the last four lessons and complete the course.  Organizing this seemed easy at first but ended up being a nightmare. 

Eight students agreed to come back on the Thursday and Friday of this week, however when this week rolled around we were informed that the students made an executive decision without consulting us that they wanted to meet on Monday and Tuesday.  Addy and I of course go the refugee camp on Monday and Tuesday so we reinforced that the plan had always been to meet on Thur. and Fri.  Despite our argument the students decided that  Wednesday would actually work better for them.  So Addy and I showed up at the school at 8am on Wednesday with the prepared lessons and a “bucket of verbal shame” we were ready to pour all over our students for being disrespectful to us.  By 9:15am only three students had arrived so we just started anyways.  No one else showed up, but we completed the course with the three we had and the lessons went well.  We played a game at the end to see how much information they actually pick-up and they did really well!

In the end it feels good to know we imparted some knowledge on a few kids, but it also feels really good to rid my life of leading this Health Club.  I guess I will count it as a success in the end, but overall organizing this was way more stressful the rewarding and not for my lack of trying, it just the nature of how things work here.

Oh Holy Weekend

November 10^th, 2012

Shopping, hanging out with bosisi bami (host sisters) and Swazi friends, and a Benjamin Dube concert, equaled a very holy weekend.  I have officially been healed and probably been saved.

A Swazi girlfriend of mine talked me into spending the weekend in town with her and four of my host sisters.  The great South African gospel singer Benjamin Dube was holding a once in a lifetime Healing concert in Manzini and we had VIP tickets.  I was very skeptical that this weekend would be fun.  I had to surrender my days to the plans of my friends and sisters and that I had never done before.  I had no idea was to expect and I didn’t have the refugee of my hut to escape if everything became too much to handle.  However, I sucked it up and went.  Surprise… it was such a good time!!!

The weekend started with coffee with Addy (who I haven’t seen in a month, since she was on leave in America) and my Swazi friend Nosipho.  Then Nosipho and I took over the town.  We spent hours window shopping and having dressing room fashion shows to find the perfect outfits for the concert that night.  Then it was off to my host sister’s salon for nails and hair.  Then to my host sister’s apartment to get all dolled up.  I had on my new skinny jeans (thank you P90X, the last two months of grueling workouts was totally worth it) and a shiny new top that Nosipho insisted I needed to wear to stand out.  I was the only white person at the event, so I thought I already had that covered but no I needed to sparkle. 

I’m not really into the huge gospel scene here, but the concert was actually a lot of fun.  The who’s who of Manzini was represented (I sat 10 rows behind a Swazi Prince), and they were sporting their most fashionable outfits.  I was thankful at that moment for the new clothes I was wearing as my wardrobe is defiantly showing battered signs of rural living.  Benjamin Dube is apparently a really big deal and I soon realized that people didn’t really come to the concert to listen as much as they came to form a gigantic church choir.  His band consisted of two guitarist, a drummer, three keyboardists, a saxophone player, and nine back-up singers.  His songs are full of praise and energy.  The whole crowd was on their feet dancing the night away.  I even got swept up in the rhythm and was dancing.  His gig is a family act.  If South Africa had a Branson MO, the Dube family would be headliners.  Benjamin’s Mother came onstage and sang a song (actually my favorite song of the night), and his three sons also performed.  Appropriately named The Dube Brothers, these boys are the African, gospel version of The Jonas Brothers and the crowd just about died when they came onstage.


My friend Nosipho and I



My Bosisi (host sisters) and I
LtoR: Lungile, Zandile, Winnile, and Tengetile(Me)



The Dube Brothers

The concert ended well after midnight so I spent the night at my sisi’s apartment and then went to church with them on Sunday.  Social crowds defiantly develop around churches here.  Four of my host sisters and all their friends all go to the same church in Manzini and now I am officially in their crowd.  Church was three hours long, and it was really hot inside the cinder block building, but the service was full of energetic singing so I managed to stay awake after the short night.

Overall the weekend totally exceeded my expectations.  I increased my social circle, I discovered the social gospel scene in Manzini, and I had much needed modern girly time.  For PCVs in Africa, a social nightlife basically does not exist.  You get used to going to bed at 8:30pm because there is A. nothing to do, and B. the few after dark social options are not safe.  However, when the very rare occasion comes around where you get to get dressed up and go out after dark and have fun, you realize just how great it is.  I can’t wait to regain my social life in America.