Counting- American Style

I found myself in Botswana with 750 other University of Swaziland students at the end of February.  We had come to participate in the Intervarsity Games, a competition between university students in Swaziland, Lesotho, and Botswana.  As the only non-African and also white person at the event of over 2,000 participants and spectators, I was in a unique position.  Walking around in my Swaziland tracksuit helped me really feel a part of the Swaziland team.  My teammates on more than one occasion put the rowdy Botswana fans in their place by telling them, "She is one of us!"

I will also not forget walking with my teammates and coming across other Swazis who addressed all of us as "fellow Swazis."  It wasn't, "Hello fellow Swazis and hello to the American girl..." 

But with all of this inclusion and efforts to try to fit in and be Swazi, I felt myself losing a key aspect of my personality and a cool opportunity at cultural exchange.  I am not a Swazi.  I'm a Swazi-AMERICAN.  Besides opportunities for cultural exchange, I also find it personally challenging to constantly be in an atmosphere where everything is so different.

So one day when we were stretching, my Americaness came out.  In Swaziland they count by having the leader count and then the rest of the team repeats.  For months now, I’ve counted 1-Mississippi, 2-Mississippi in my head because this style of counting always brings me back to grade school and the way we counted during hide-and-go-seek games to make sure we didn’t cheat.   So I started to count out loud, 1-Mississippi, 2-Mississippi…  I explained to my teammates the story behind the “Mississippi” and they quickly asked, “What would this be in Swaziland?  What is a name of a place that is also a long word in siSwati?

To my surprise and my teammates, I blurted out, 1-Ludzeludze!  Ludzeludze, along with being a long word to say, also means long!  I had come up with the perfect siSwati version of “Mississippi!”  Yes!  The rest of our cool down was spent counting in American-Swazi style and having a good laugh. 

I think this is the key to real cultural understanding and fun: learning how to not just be Swazi, or just be American, but how to be a Swazi-American.  And it can all start by counting…