During the days of colonialism—and most of the countries in Africa were colonized—Swaziland was a protectorate under British law. It had the benefit of not.... There are two sides to it. They weren't colonized totally, but the British were there, and they had a deal with King Sobhuza to be in the country. When the British left, there were funds that went back and forth, There were deals that were made. I don't believe that the country was ever a strong.... Certainly, it was never a first-world nation. It has always been a small, one-tribe, one-language country. However, AIDS has totally changed the face of the country.
The difference between Swaziland and the rest of the African nations is that in most African countries, certainly in sub-Saharan Africa, people live in tribes or in villages. You've heard the expression that it takes a village to raise a child. There has been parent mortality since the beginning of time. A parent gets eaten by a lion, the village brings the children into the village, and they get absorbed. But Swazis live in homesteads. They do not live in villages. They are polygamists, so you might have a man with six wives. Each of these six wives wants to give him as many children as she possibly can because that shows honour to him, and it shows wealth. Also, it's her insurance plan. It's her savings plan for when she is old: someone will be able to tend the garden and bring water for her.
Because of the high infant mortality rate, she might end up with six of the nine children she has given birth to. The man goes off to South Africa or somewhere to get a job so that he can fund his family. He has sex while he's gone. He gets infected with HIV and brings it back. When he comes back, he infects all six wives.
If it were a different country, he might infect his wife and his girlfriend, or maybe two of his wives, but because polygamy is very much an important part of their culture, he has infected all six or eight wives. Then, when they all die, you have a homestead where there are 36, 45, or 50 children. That, I think, is the difference between what is happening in Swaziland and other nations being ravaged by HIV. Those children aren't being absorbed back into a village because they don't live in a village environment. Their village was their homestead, and the homestead is now void of adults.