First Post from Cape Town

Wow! So much to share, so bear with me (this will probably be done in 2 posts).
First, know that I’m sitting here writing to you all while everyone else is out playing soccer. Reason? The little toe. Enough said.
My last week in Maine was incredibly laid back, considering I was getting ready to move half-way around the world and couldn’t walk due to said little toe. I spent Tuesday-Thursday shopping and gathering supplies with Nance basically morning to night. Thursday night was spent laying out everything I planned to bring and shoving it all in bags with the mindset that I may lose one or more of the bags in the process of flying to SA (DWPJR was the leading force in that project). Amazingly I didn’t explode or cry or yell at anyone in my family during this whole process…signs of personal growth.
I left Boston on Friday night with two other interns and we arrived in London Saturday morning, meeting a wave of interns who had just arrived from JFK. We all went into the city to meet a GRS staff member, Nik Haigh, who works in business development on his own in London. We saw Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace, and passed out in the park for a while until it started to rain. He also disclosed that Hillary Clinton is coming to Cape Town this week to see the Football For Hope Center in Kayelitsha (the township in Cape Town where we operate) AND Zinedine Zidane is coming to its official opening on Dec. 5, the day after the World Cup draw in Cape Town. YES!
The flight to Cape Town was 11 hours, overnight. By the end I was pretty delirious and it really didn’t register when we finally landed in Africa that it was AFRICA. Though, my first sighting was out the window as we landed and the mountains were silhouetted by an orangey sunrise – The Power of One came immediately to mind. Taxis took us to the Best Western Cape Suites (Whit, I think of you every time I see the sign at the entrance…the Worst Bestern for some).
Sunday was mostly settling in and Monday began bright and early. We were split into groups of 3 or 4 and sent on a “Resiliency Race” across Cape Town. We had a list of tasks, terms, and items that we had to find and document throughout the day with a budget of 100 Rand (a little over $12) each. My group immediately made our way downtown where we met some fruit vendors who lacked a few teeth but more than made up for it in conversation. One man in particular, Faisel, helped us out with some of our list items, like “Name the 11 official languages of SA” and “Name the 9 provinces of SA”, though he did tell me Congolese and Zimbabwean were official languages. I was later called out on this in front of the group and thoroughly laughed at. Faisel called a friend who took us around in his “minibus”, a taxi van seen all over the city.
Adie was our minibus driver and he was fantastic. He helped us map out exactly where we wanted to go and how to do it quickly. We got down to the beach and the hospital, both items on our to-do list, and he helped us translate some Afrikaaner and Xhosa terms into English. From there we walked to the 2010 World Cup Site, the Green Point Stadium, which is still under construction. It will seat 60,000 and is situated downtown on the water. From the stadium we walked up a long hill and ended up in a wealthier end of town, from which we made our way back into the center of the city following one long road. Along the way we met our third local acquaintance, Marcillino, a statistician who happened to be walking in the same direction. Among other things, Marcillino helped us find an HIV testing center that was free and willing to test us (Getting tested and videotaping someone sharing a personal story about how HIV has affected them was a big point-getter on our task list).
Getting tested was a really nerve-wracking, but great thing I did that day – definitely wasn’t expecting to be positive but when I was called in to have my results read, the nurse asked me to read my own test. She had explained that one line meant negative, two positive, but I wasn’t really paying attention and when I saw the one line I was really nervous to ask “Negative?” She could totally tell too. I feel better having tested, not only knowing my status according to an official test, but also knowing that I’ll be preaching the importance of testing for the next year and I’d be a complete hypocrite if I didn’t do it myself.
We all met back at the hotel for a quick sandwich and then we had an hour to prepare a PowerPoint on our day with the pictures and video we took. Each presentation was great and we all feel pretty competent finding our ways around the city now. It’s much less intimidating and I’m already recognizing certain areas and streets when I’m out.
Immediately after presentations we walked into town to the GRS office (so cool) for a Sexual Harassment meeting. Gross. We were all dreading it. Jet lag + running through a city all day + extreme dehydration = not in the mood. Kirk, one of the founders of GRS, was there to meet us in the darkened office where we sat on the floor and signed an alcohol/drugs policy. Just as he was opening the binder to read the policy, a guy came out of the dark wearing a black fedora, followed by a line of people walking to the beat of Thriller. I had no idea what was going on. It progressed to a full-fledged concert by the entire staff who were hiding in the darkened rooms (separated by glass-window walls) and up in the rafters. They had re-written the lyrics to Thriller, We Didn’t Start the Fire, Escape, and Wonderwall and they put on an intense performance for us. Every one of us was smiling ear to ear. It was hilarious. I’ve never felt so excited to meet so many people at once. I feel like I finally understand how lucky I am to be part of this organization and I’m so ready to get going.
Tuesday was our first day of training and consisted of introductions to some of the staff and the GRS mission, our F4 Initiative (Football for an HIV-Free Generation), and a brief overview of the curriculum we implement (SKILLZ) by some local coaches. I also found out we’ll be getting our site assignments on FRIDAY!!! Definitely nervous/ excited about that. One staff member in particular is working on developing a project in Khayelitsha where kids are given small cameras and are asked to go into their communities and document what they see as important, after having been through the SKILLZ curriculum and learning about HIV transmission/prevention/etc. I got really excited about this idea, especially after experiencing the kids with cameras in India. He also worked on the “11forHealth” initiative that is FIFA’s step toward health education programs. Also something I’m really excited about watching develop with FIFA’s Football For Hope Center in Kayelitsha.
Today was some more of the same with other staffers. Intros to our partners, business development, SKILLZ magazine, brand and marketing, etc. Basically an overview of everything so we can get an idea of what each department works on. The best thing I’ve taken away from the past two days is that everything is connected here. No one department operates alone and there is plenty of opportunity to work with numerous people on multiple interesting projects at the same time.
Personally, I’m feeling more confident and assured that I made the right choice coming here. The first couple days definitely rocked me and it caught up to me yesterday in a moment where I really just wanted to go to my room and cry. I held it together and we ended up having a great night. Ordered pizzas in and 20 of us played charades in our suite for three hours.
If you’re still with I’m impressed and hope you enjoyed. I have some more info in regards to partners and projects GRS is working on, but I’ll save it for another blog. It’s pretty interesting stuff, so you’ll see it soon.
Love to you all,
Rosie