Thanksgiving '09 and VCT

So, the VCT. We had our tournament on the 28th of November, the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Another intern came down for the week to help us finish preparing for the big day. We decided to do a full-on Thanksgiving also, so that added a bit to the craziness of the week. Sarah and I took most of Thursday off to cook. We found a frozen turkey at Woolworth’s, and realized that morning that we were supposed to defrost it overnight in the fridge. Whoops. We filled the sink with cold water and threw the bird in, hoping it would thaw out in a few hours.

We had to run into the office quickly, and grab some last minute supplies, and then we rushed back to the house to start the bird. I can definitely say putting my hand into that turkey is one of the grosser things I’ve done, though essential to pulling off the day. We got the turkey into the oven, and then proceeded to make all the sides. I was nervous all afternoon that I was going to screw up cooking the bird, especially when I couldn’t find a baster. We found a rubber brush that ended up as a good substitute, so crisis averted.

We knew we were on the right track when the boys walked in the door and we could hear their excited voices exclaiming how wonderful everything smelled. At that point Sarah and I were collapsed on the couch, watching Love Actually, completely wiped out. The turkey came out brown and crispy, and we had a pretty good crowd for the evening: an intern from last year was here visiting his girlfriend, so we had them come, as well as another American we’ve met here, and the staff from our office. Our supervisor, Mpumi, and two of our Head Coaches, Titie and Ngwenya, had never had Thanksgiving before, so it was fun to share our favorite eating holiday with them.

On Saturday we were up early to get to the VCT venue to set everything up. We had 12 teams participate in the tournament, 8 boys’ teams and 4 girls’ teams. Teams were assigned to two of our coaches for the day, who acted as chaperones to lead them to and from matches and Skillz activities. They would compete in a match, and then move onto an activity from our curriculum. They were also given an opportunity to test. At one point I walked back to the classrooms being used as testing rooms, and lines were out the door.
























Nurses from the Ministry of Health, as well as a testing van from a local organization, came to test participants as well as community members who came to the event. In total we were able to test 188 people, including the teams who played in the tournament and many of our coaches and staff. I tested for the second time since being in South Africa. My first time was in Cape Town, and it was a nerve-racking experience. Even if you’re sure you’re negative, having someone sit you down, take a blood sample, and actually perform the test makes you question yourself. It had been three months since my test in Cape Town. This is considered the “window period,” meaning if you test negative, and then negative again in three months, you are definitely HIV-negative. The antibodies that are measured by the test take some time to be produced once the virus infects an individual. A person may test negative when in fact he or she is infected, and hasn’t produced a measurable amount of antibodies. The window period of three months allows time for measurable antibody levels to be produced if an individual is infected.

The day was a big success. All of the teams showed up to play, which is unheard of, and we managed to test just under 200 people, our goal for the event. We had a great time hanging with our coaches for the day. We rarely get to spend time with them outside of the office, on the weekends, so it was a good day for some GRS bonding. The people we work with are incredible individuals, and they help keep me centered when I get overwhelmed by this place.



One of our coaches, Zukie, running an activity with the players






Siya (left) and Mpumi (right) on the vuvuzelas




Siya with his team at half-time






One of our coaches, Bere, having a dance-off with one of the kids










An adorable little girl, ready to party










The Team

Happy New Year to all! I have completely neglected blogging since November, but I’ve been writing down thoughts and stories I want to share, so I’ll be doing smaller, separate blogs to try to catch up.

We returned from our trip to Tanzania on New Year’s Eve and celebrated the night here in PE. It was a relief to come back, to see my bed again, after sleeping in a tent for 5 days. The past couple weeks have been dedicated to finding new accommodation for ourselves. We had our third break-in the night before we left for Christmas holiday. For me, it was the most invasive we’ve had so far. The guys used a ladder to climb up through our bathroom window, about 16 feet above the ground. We had left it cracked, not thinking someone would actually put in the effort to climb up through it.

We think there were two men involved. I was asleep for the entire thing, but my roommates, Mike and Sarah, heard the men climb into the bathroom, and Sarah saw one of them when they came into her room. When the man realized Sarah was awake, he bolted out our back door with the stuff he’d already taken. Thankfully they were just as scared of us as we were of them, and only wanted physical goods.

I do know that one of the men came into my room, taking my backpack and a computer that was next to my head. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about having a stranger in my room, that close to me while I was sleeping, and don’t really know how to write about it. It’s obviously a complete invasion of my space, but I feel like it’s much more an invasion of me, mentally and emotionally.

My first reaction to this break-in was anger. I was so pissed that these guys had the audacity to use a ladder to climb up a 16-foot wall to get into our house. Over the couple of weeks we were traveling I had a lot of time to think, and I spent a lot of time dwelling on what had happened. It’s not like I could do anything about it while I was in Tanzania, but I did have moments of overwhelming anger, and then overwhelming panic. Being in Tanzania helped a lot, taking my mind off the break-in and helping me focus on things outside our little bubble here. It was a wonderful experience, and it was also wonderful to come back to PE, back to our lives here.

Mike came back a few days after us, and his first night back he woke up to some guys trying to break into our neighbor’s car to steal his stereo. The alarm went off, and the guys bolted, but Mike heard tapping on the windows of our place. Everything was closed, but the thought of someone else trying to get in put us all over the edge. We got permission from GRS to move into a motel for the time being, and the go-ahead to start looking for a new place to live.

It’s been an experience learning how the real estate market works. I’ve never apartment-hunted in the States, nor have 2 of the 3 other people I live with. I think we’ve been up and down almost every road in downtown PE looking for a place. If anything, I’ve gotten to know the city better. After 3 hellish weeks, we’ve finally got an application in for a townhouse. We’re waiting to hear that we’ve been approved, but things look good. We’re trying not to get our hopes up until the lease is signed, but it will be a huge relief to have a home again.

The next few blogs will be stories from Christmas holiday, as well as the long-awaited VCT blog from November. Enjoy!

Quick Hello

Just wanted to write a quick note to let you all know I’ve got several stories in the works right now, and I’ll post them soon. Quickly, our VCT ran really well and we had a great Thanksgiving. World AIDS Day was December 1 and we had a small gathering with the teachers at our school to acknowledge the day with some words about the history of the day, personal stories, and a song. This past weekend the four of us drove to Cape Town for the World Cup draw and the opening of the FIFA Football for Hope Center in Khayelitsha. It was a hectic, exciting weekend – great to see the interns and be back in Cape Town for the first time in 4 months. Vacation is fast approaching and we’re busying planning holiday camps for the 14-18 of December. I hope all is well at home and you’re enjoying the beginnings of the holidays wherever you are. Love to you all.

Rosie

Bafana Bafana!

Well, last week was a bit of a nightmare, but overall pretty cool. We had compliance training Monday and Tuesday, meaning we sat through two 8-9 hour days learning about how to properly use our USAID grant. Important in the grand scheme, but I mostly tried not to let my eyes close for over 5 seconds (otherwise I would have been gone). Our days were long, but Tuesday night was our last hip hop class, during which we video-taped our final routine. I will alert the press when the video is available – you’ll be able to find it on youtube and facebook, so don’t worry. You won’t miss it. I tried to dress as hip hop as I could: mid-length spandex with a longer tank under a somewhat shorter shirt. I dunno.

Wednesday was an interesting day. A Malaysian documentary crew came to film our office for a series on South Africa they are putting together. When I say documentary, I mean more of a staged, somewhat true representation of what is actually happening – we did multiple takes of each scene. They had two of their crew, decked out in soccer jerseys, carrying duffel bags and soccer balls, walk around the office and ask us at each of our seats questions about GRS, what we were working on, etc. When the camera came to Sarah and me, we conveniently had the GRS webpage open and were able to drop some names. I’m excited to see the final result: Rosie dubbed over with Malaysian subtitles. I’m finally living my fifteen minutes of fame.

After the filming wrapped for the day, we headed over to UPE, the local university, where Bafana was training before their match on Saturday against Japan. It was really cool to see them so closely…there wasn’t much in the way of security or barriers, so we hung out in the stands at the stadium for awhile, watching them run counter-attacking drills, and then free kicks. This was the first game back for Perreira, their former Brazilian coach who left the team last year when his wife got sick in Brazil. Their coach from that point last year up until about a month ago was another Brazilian, Santana, who was sacked after they lost nine international matches since the Confederations Cup in the summer. Friday was pretty uneventful…I paid my first speeding ticket – R80 (about $11). If only they were that cheap in the States.

Saturday was great. We took a cab downtown to the stadium, which we had yet to see. I was excited that our first experience inside would be at a Bafana game, and there had been a lot of build-up to the game, so we were ready for a huge crowd and loads of vuvuzelas (those horns people were blowing throughout the duration of the Confederations Cup). We walked in to pumping house music and painted-up fans waving South African flags, dancing and singing. It was insane. The stadium is beautiful, with a roof that people here describe as looking like a pumpkin. It seats 46,000 and 44,000 were in attendance for the match, so it was almost a full house. We wandered around for a bit, trying to find some of the coaches who said they’d meet us there. We found them 5 rows up from midfield – pretty good for R30 tickets.

We watched as the teams entered the field to a thunderous crowd cheering for Bafana as they enetered to the beat of the music. They ran what we called at Colby a Swedish warm up: 4 even lines going back and forth across the field doing dynamic stretches, clapping, twisting etc. It’s a good way to warm up, but more importantly, when done right, looks badass. Everyone in the lines was in sync and moving to the beat of the music. Had they played the way they warmed up, they would have crushed Japan.

Following the warm up, the teams changed in the locker rooms and came back out for the national anthems. I think this was my favorite part of the day. The lyrics of SA’s national anthem are a combination of Xhosa, Zulu, Sesotho, Afrikaans, and English, drawing from the hymn “Nkosi Skilelel’ iAfrika” and the previous national anthem “Die Stern van Suid-Afrika.” The history of the anthem is really interesting, as the hymn was originally sung in church, but was later used to defy the apartheid government. The Afrikaans anthem was sung with “God Save the Queen” until 1957, and then alone until 1995 when Nelson Mandela adopted both anthems. The songs were merged in 1997, forming the current national anthem:

(Xhosa) Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika
Maluphakanyisw' uphondo lwayo,
(Zulu) Yizwa imithandazo yethu,
Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo
(Sesotho) Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso,
O fedise dintwa le matshwenyeho,
O se boloke, O se boloke setjhaba sa heso,
Setjhaba sa.
(English) South Africa, South Africa!
(Afrikaans) Uit die blou van onse hemel,
Uit die diepte van ons see,
Oor ons ewige gebergtes,
Waar die kranse antwoord gee,
(English) Sounds the call to come together,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.

Translation:
God bless Africa
May her glory be lifted high
Hear our petitions
God bless us, Your children
God we ask You to protect our nation
Intervene and end all conflicts
Protect us, protect our nation, our nation

From the blue of our heaven,
From the depths of our sea,
Over our eternal mountain ranges,
Where the cliffs give answer,
And united we shall stand,
Let us live and strive for freedom,
In South Africa our land.


National anthems usually make me tear up a bit, but this one was particularly special. It was amazing listening to 44,000 people singing together. One of the coaches grabbed out hands and slapped them over our hearts while we listened. It was a pretty emotional couple of minutes, and I was really happy in that moment to be where I am.


The game was a little disappointing, South Africa playing pretty flat and not having much spark in their play. We expected with their newly returned coach and this being the second to last international friendly before the Africa Nations Cup that they’d be fired up to play, but that wasn’t the case. They managed to keep it scoreless, though – better than losing. We’re all hoping they pull themselves together and are ready when the World Cup rolls around, but we’ll have to wait and see for that one.

All in all, pretty great weekend. We had a lazy day on Sunday and went out to the Maitlands, a nature reserve about 30 minutes from where we life. It’s a beautiful stretch of rocky coastline and sand dunes, and we had a great afternoon jumping off the dunes and gearing up for this week.




Love to everyone,
Rosie

Round 2

Hey all,

Officially three months in, and it’s been jam-packed. We had a pretty quiet week after the break-in, laying pretty low and getting our heads wrapped around what had happened. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a one-time deal, and we were broken into exactly one week later last Thursday night. We didn’t realize it until we all went to bed, but someone had climbed up onto the balcony that overlooks our walled-in yard and used a cracked window to get into my roommate’s bedroom. They took his wallet, including credit cards and cash, his watch and two soccer jerseys, and then opened the sliding door and jumped back down into the yard. This all took place between 8 and 10ish while we were eating dinner downstairs. After the initial disbelief faded, we were all pretty shaken and angry. We called the cops around 2 am, again at 3, while we sat in the living room jumping at every noise we heard. At 4 we decided to get some sleep, and all brought our sleeping bags into one room upstairs. While we were moving our stuff around, I thought for a minute that the robber had been in my room and stolen a wad of cash I had in my backpack, transport money for our coaches that I was in charge of – total around $450. I flipped out before realizing I had moved it to a different hiding place in the bag. Aside from being scared that I’d lost the money, I was angry that this person has gotten so deep into my mind that I can’t think straight before jumping to some conclusions. It was a long night; one I spent lying awake listening for someone to try to break in again.

The next morning was mostly routine: we got ready for work, made some calls to our supervisors, and went to the office. Our wonderful maintenance man, Sheppard, came to the house and bolted the windows shut where the robber had climbed in. He was shocked, asking the same questions as we were: who the hell are these people? The total weirdness of what happened was accentuated by the fact that Sheppard had waved us down on Thursday morning as we were leaving for work to show us that someone had tried to get into one of the empty, furnished condos closer to the gate. The would-be robber tried to pry the window open next to the sliding door leading out to the yard, but the door was secured shut with a lock that had been installed at the top of the door. I’m sure he meant well, to give us an idea of how these guys think, but it was pretty eerie to actually see a failed attempt. We got robbed 12 hours later.

To top off all the drama, we were expecting 11 of the other interns from around South Africa to come on Friday for the weekend. We debated whether we should cancel or not, but everyone was still on for a weekend away, and we decided it would probably be a good thing for us to be with a group of people who understand where we’re at mentally, adjusting to life here and dealing with a bad situation. We ended up having a great weekend – chill, great weather for the beach, and some Halloween celebrations. It was a relief, at least for me, to have a bunch of people all looking out for each other so that I didn’t have to constantly think about the robbery.

Talking with Sheppard, he told us that people living in another complex down the road from us actually saw the robbers throw a blanket over their electric fence, and jump it with things they had stolen. These people chased the robbers into the bush behind our neighborhood, and found themselves in front of two plastic shacks where they uncovered a bunch of stolen goods. They informed the police, who refused to go check the shacks out. The people who found these shacks also told the police they could identify the robbers among the men who wait around down at our gas station, looking for work, but the police again were not interested.

Did they sit back and wait to get robbed again? Nope. They formed a group and went back to the shacks, recovered their stolen possessions, and then torched the shacks. A big f-you to whoever has been creeping around. I also sent my regards vicariously through that bonfire.

At this point, we’ve made some security updates and are working on getting some sort of legit security system…German Sheppard? We all agree that if we do get a dog, we’ll fight for who gets to keep it, smuggle it out when we leave, as South African German Sheppard puppies are much better than the American version (at least in our opinion). It was tough week mentally, jumping at any and all random noises, imagining noises when they’re not there, and generally not sleeping well. I was pretty nervous about being home last Thursday night, as this creep seems to enjoy prowling through the neighborhood and our belongings on Thursdays, but we had a beautiful day – sunny and warm – went surfing, grabbed dinner, and then went home to find it securely locked and untouched.

Away from the negatives, we’re organizing one of our VCT (voluntary counseling and testing) tournaments for 28th November, and it’s non-stop at the office every day. These tournaments involve teams competing from schools is the communities where we run our curriculum, and participating in Skillz activities between games. They are able to test for HIV for free, and counseling is available for those who test positive. We have been trying to nail down a venue, prizes, security, the list goes on and on. One huge aspect of a VCT is getting a celebrity or two to make an appearance to draw in people who otherwise wouldn’t be interested. We’re probably going to get a widely popular DJ from the area to emcee, and we may get one or two Bafana players (SA men’s national team) to show up. Bafana is playing Japan at our stadium on 14 November, and we managed to get them to agree to sign a t-shirt that we can give away as a raffle prize. One of Bafana’s players, Khanyeza, is featured in our Skillz dvd that we use in trainings, and he may make an appearance and talk about our VCT on the radio when he’s in town. It’s stressful, but really exciting. We’re trying to make this our largest VCT ever in GRS, with the buildup to World AIDS Day on 1st December and the World Cup on 4th December.

Congrats if you made it all the way through this blog. I’ll try to write more often so you’re not reading a dissertation on my life each time.

Stay warm,
Rosie

I need to apologize for not writing in so long. I had an entry prepared about my week at our training of coaches – great detail and pretty witty in my opinion. I planned to post it with some pictures, and then our house was broken into Thursday night and my computer was stolen, among some other things. I suppose that’s what I get for not blogging more often.

Joking aside, it’s been a weird couple of days trying to process being robbed. I spent most of Friday in shock. We woke up early that morning, and I saw that our gate that leads out of our walled-in backyard to the rest of the compound was wide open. I remember having a flash of some feeling that something wasn’t right, but it didn’t stay long and I didn’t really think about it. I had left my computer on our counter, having used it to look at a recipe for dinner Thursday night. It wasn’t where I left it, but I figured someone had moved it before they went to bed. As we all started eating breakfast and getting ready for work, I found out no one had moved my computer, and some other things were missing as well. It started to set in that we may have been robbed when we realized no one had used the gate that morning.

Initially I thought someone was messing with me. That feeling of being duped lasted most of the morning…I kept expecting someone to start laughing and pull my computer out from its hiding place. We checked with Sheppard, one of the nicest men we’ve met who manages maintenance and upkeep of where we live, and the night guard, Elvis, to see if they had seen anything suspicious. There were no signs of forced entry, leading us to think that we had forgotten to secure the lock on the sliding door that leads to the backyard. We’ve forgotten to lock the doors on other occasions, something you absolutely don’t do here. We’re good about it for the most part, but having grown up in a place where there’s not a constant worry and suspicion that someone will break in, it does slip our minds sometimes.

I knew coming here that the petty crime rate is very high, but our time here has, up until last week, been completely uneventful in that arena. I am upset that my computer was stolen, but in the grand scheme I’m relieved that no one was hurt, even relieved that it was a relatively cheap computer that I’d only had a couple months. Most of my files and pictures were safe on my memory stick in my bag. Having said that, I feel violated and angry that some jackass broke into our home and took our belongings. It’s unsettling to think of a stranger going through our things while we were asleep.

I’m not one to want to hash these kinds of things out right away, if at all. There was definitely shock and anger on Friday, along with just feeling at a loss with what to do or think about what’s happened. The weather was beautiful, so we went to the beach to surf late in the afternoon. Usually being active and physical helps me more than anything to center myself and get back in a positive mindset, but having the waves crash against me again and again did the opposite. I called it quits early and hung on the beach for awhile, the sun still warm and the breeze low…the calm I’d been looking for. This weekend was quiet also and I’m feeling pretty okay about putting it all behind me, and getting on with things.

I’ll write soon about the training of coaches, which was a really incredible experience and I want to share it with you all. Also, another update: the hip-hop dance classes we’ve been taking are awesome and will be video taped in a couple weeks, so get excited. I’ve been sharing some of my moves with the kids…



-Rose

Hey to all! Sorry I've been terrible at updating the blog. Life went into overdrive here in the past two weeks, and I'm working on my next blog, so bear with me. Things are going well -- the weather is warming up (sorry to those who are facing the dropping temperatures at home) and we just finished up holiday camps and coaches' trainings. We've been working on inputting data and reporting for the past two weeks, and today is our deadline for the last of it. 20 of our coaches have been part of a Psychosocial counseling trainings at our office this whole week, so our workspace has temporarily been moved into our supervisor's office -- not the best work space for 6-8 people trying to input quiz results and attendance information on a system that freezes or cancels your data at random. I finished the last of my work last night around 1, so I'm hoping to coast through today and get some more writing done to update you all on other things that have been going on here. I hope all is well wherever you are!

Rosie