When I was eleven years old, my parents decided that our family needed a change. When my parents do something, they strictly adhere to the idea that one must go big or go home. They certainly went big. That is how I found myself in eSwatini, a small kingdom in Southern Africa, 10,000 miles from the only home I had ever had in Los Angeles. I was initially optimistic, but as the separation from my friends and family began to set in, that quickly turned to despair. My sister, on the other hand, felt that her right to access Facebook had been infringed on, and was therefore against it from the start. But whatever the circumstances, our adventure led to some great stories. One of the most interesting, albeit not very action packed is the story of the flaming telephone pole.

In the USA we experience luxury that seems to go unnoticed. Sometimes we don’t even realize that they’re luxuries. When a man collapses on a subway platform after a drug overdose, and a bystander calls 911 and screams, “Help! There’s a man here who requires medical attention right away!” (which is an entirely different story that also happened to me) there is almost certainly someone there to hear you.

In contrast, people often assume that African countries are small, hunger-stricken villages with little or no urban development, and if you call for help, only the nearest goat will hear you. In truth, they are much more similar to urbanized Western countries than one could ever imagine. There are skyscrapers, fast-food restaurants and bustling city centres galore. It is in the minutia that these countries tend to deviate from the expected. Emergency services are an excellent example of one of these areas. Ambulances are entirely privatized small SUVs with the capability to reach people over rugged terrain. The fire department has an established presence in the cities but is virtually nonexistent in the rural areas, where regular burning of fields to maintain good grazing lands is extremely hazardous. These first responders are referred to incidents by calls to the emergency number “999.”

Like many things that take place in Swaziland, it's all very good in theory. The execution I learned, was an entirely different matter. I was on my way home from town one evening. It was a little past seven on a Thursday and absolutely dead quiet in the suburbs of Mbabane, the capital city. We drove past a golf course and rounded the corner, only to come across a singular inexplicably blazing telephone pole, upright along an empty sidewalk. The absence of a bush or a hill led me to believe that this was not in fact, a consequence of divine intervention, but that of a wayward lightning strike. As intrigued as I was, I tore myself away from the smoldering post and picked up my phone and dialed triple nine, out of reflex. The possibility of a power outage while the post was fixed did not excite me. I intended to make the electric company aware of it as soon as possibly. I dialed the number and brought the phone to my ear.

After the first ring, I expected an automated answering machine. There was none. “Huh,” I pondered the idea that maybe I had already been put on hold, and was waiting to speak to emergency services. After the second ring, I expected a human being to pick up, as they normally would, and ask about my predicament. Yet again, no answer. After the third ring I began to consider the possibility that I was alone in this world. By the sixth ring, I was certain that the zombie apocalypse had begun, and a survival plan had been fully formulated in my mind.

*Click* The line dropped. I was left in shock. No one picked up the phone. The emergency number. If I had just had a heart attack, I would have died. I was dumbfounded, and enraged. What kind of backwards country didn’t pick up their emergency number? Furthermore, why was I even here? I felt the resentment towards my parents that had engulfed me when I initially moved to eSwatini start to swell up again.

As bizarre as this is, reflecting on it helps me realize how much I still had to learn. As I learned the next morning, the call office closes in the early evenings. People relied on the good nature of the people around them to help them through difficult situations. As I came to learn more about eSwatini, I realized the people are some the friendliest I’ve ever met. When I would pass someone in the street, they would wave and smile, leaving me wondering if I knew them. I didn’t. They were just being friendly. I was used to the brusque interactions with Los Angelenos on the street. Although I had acclimatized myself to the environment, I had yet to make a connection with the Swazi people. The country and people weren’t primitive, as some would falsely presume. It just ran on a different schedule and philosophy that I was incapable of understanding. I had only been living in eSwatini for a little under two years.  I spent the majority of my time with other American children whose parents were part of the career foreign service. How could a cheeseboy (Swazi slang for city kid) like me ever understand?

The American families that I had befriended were permitted to ship various products to themselves from the United States regardless of where they lived. This could lead to extraordinary stashes of any manner of items from microwave mac ‘n cheese to toilet paper. eSwatini lags behind in a few areas, such as blazing fast internet access and regular access to Chinese food, but I’m fairly sure I could always scrounge up a few rolls of toilet paper every now and then from the supermarket. My family, however, was not afforded this privilege for various reasons. The lack of an American snack security blanket and the eventual departure of my American friends, whose parents were reassigned to different countries forced me out of my comfort zone, and I have never been so thankful for a series of unfortunate events. I made some of the best friends that I have ever had in the next few years. I came to love the place I lived in, so much so that I didn’t want to leave when the time came. The telephone pole incident helped my realize that I was in a foreign place. I couldn’t force it to change for my own comfort. I was the one who had to adapt. In a world that is increasingly connected by technology, it is imperative that we attempt to comprehend and appreciate cultures that may seem strange to us. I will never forget the time I spent in eSwatini, and I will never forget the lesson that flaming telephone pole taught me. Maybe it was divine intervention.