graduations

we've been busy at work the past few weeks. we're having multiple graduations for the kids who just finished going through our grassroot soccer skillz curriculum. we've had events the past 2 saturdays, and we have them the next 3. keeping busy.

the graduations are a lot of fun. we invite all the kids who graduated and their families. it's always good when we can get the parents to come because then they can better understand what grassroot soccer is about and see some of the activities we do with their kids during the interventions. the graduations are held at the various schools around town where the kids attend.

a typical graduation consists of the coaches doing some of the activities with all the kids, lots and lots of dancing, vct (voluntary counseling and testing), lunch (lots of meat pies), and then the delivery of the certificates.

vct is a new component that we added to the graduations in recent months, and it has proven very successful. it is nice they can test right on site during the graduation and receive their results immediately. if any of the kids or parents test positive, we have a partner organization there we refer them to for counseling and treatment. it is a good system because it immediately gets them started in the treatment process and puts them in contact with someone to keep them accountable. this used to be a problem because people would test positive, but then not know the next step, so they usually did nothing and never received any treatment.

2 weekends ago we graduated 315 kids from the grs skillz curriculum (usually aged between 12-18), and around 230 of them tested, which is a pretty high percentage. there are some difficulties with testing the children because they have to receive consent from their parents or guardian. so, if the parents come it isn't a problem. but most of the parents don't make it to the graduations. in those instances, the parents can sign a consent form allowing the coaches to receive the child's results and pass the results along to the parents. however, many of the parents don't get around to signing the consent forms so the kids aren't allowed to test. it is something we are constantly working to improve upon. at yesterday's graduation we graduated just over 400 kids. i'm not sure of the number tested yet though.

yesterday i got called out and put on the spot to greet all 400 kids in nyanja (the native language that i'm not so great at). i got really nervous, because earlier that day i had been talking to another intern who had tried the same greeting at one of the interventions and all the kids just started laughing at him (because he was a white person trying to speak nyanja and had a weird accent). however, i managed to get through it and the kids responded which is always a plus. small vistory. haha

so there's a little bit more about some of the events and stuff i do with work. let me know if you have any more questions

hotness

i think yesterday was the hottest day i've ever experienced in my life. it was zambia's independence day on sunday, so we had a holiday yesterday. and i literally just sat on the couch sweating the entire day cause i couldn't motivate myself to do anything active. anywhere that was touching the couch was completely soaked through. so miserable.

we attempted to go on an ice run to make slushies, but failed horribly. we went to no joke 6 different grocery stores and gas stations looking for ice and everywhere was out. it was very sad cause i had my heart set on some slushies. it would have made the hotness a bit more bearable.

today isn't much better. i just looked over and tommy, one of the guys i work with, is standing in front of one of the fans in the office blowing the air up his shirt to cool off hah. our new country director is making it a priority to get aircon in the office, which would be amazing! because everyone is basically worthless in the afternoons cause it gets too hot to think. that combined with nshima for lunch (which i just had), is a deadly combination. i actually just walked past one of the rooms and another intern is passed out in their chair haha.

hopefully the rains will start coming soon and cool things off a bit.....or make it more muggy?! we shall see. it looks and smells like rain could potentially happen today. it would be the first rain in months. if not today, most likely sometime this week.

lake of stars!

this past week i went to malawi with 10 friends for the lake of stars music festival on lake malawi. we left last thursday morning on a 430am bus which took about 9 hours. shouldn't have been that long but the bus broke down for 2 hours when we were still in lusaka. not a good start to the trip. we took that bus to a town near the border of zambia and malawi. then we took a taxi to the border. had to go through border control, walk across the border, then get on another bus to the nearest town. then get in a mini bus for another couple hours to make it to lilongwe. long day of traveling! crammed on buses with lots of people and no air conditioning. and of course, october is the hottest month. lots of sweating. luckily, im a really good sleeper and i was able to sleep most of the bus rides ha.

we spent the night in lilongwe with the grs intern in malawi. he was nice enough to host all 10 of us in his house. i believe i slept on the bath mat outside of the bathroom cause there was no room anywhere else. then the next morning we got in another mini bus and took a 5 hour ride to mangochi, which is where the festival was being held. we had a mad man as our bus driver and feared for my life most of the drive haha, but luckily we made it there in one piece. although, we did hit a goat that was in the middle of the road :( i've never hit an animal with a car before. kinda sad.

but then we finally got to the festival!! hours upon hours later. lake malawi is beautiful! its a huge lake with beaches all along the shore. so we set up camp in the campsite directly on the beach. got everything set up just as the music was starting friday evening. perfect timing.

the music was awesome! mostly local bands from malawi, zimbabwe, and zambia. and mostly reggae which was so fun to listen to. they were all crazy good. and it was such a nice setting with the 2 stages both directly on the beach. the music went from around 4pm-4am fri-sun nights. also very nice cause we had the days to relax, swim in the water, take naps in the shade, etc. being at the lake made me miss being at home at the lake a lot. i didn't realize how much i love being around water. needless to say, spent a descent amount of my time in the water over the weekend.

there were probably around 3-4 thousand people there. a good mix of malawians, zambians, south africans, and english people. the whole vibe of the festival was chill and everyone in a good mood. no drama for problems which was nice.

i ended just sleeping straight up on the beach in my sleeping bag 2 of the nights cause our big/main tent is apparently not very wind resistent and collapsed the first night from the wind. basically it just looked like a huge tarp that we threw all of our stuff on. the beach was pretty comfortable though.

we stayed until monday morning then hopped on another minibus back to lilongwe. we took a different way back which was much shorter and through some beautiful mountains. zambia is really flat, so it was nice to see some mountains. spent the night in lilongwe again and then made the trek back to lusaka.

had a minor setback on the way home when some super sticky fruit juice started leaking from the overhead compartments onto our seats. its ok though, we pulled some ninja mcguyver moves and were able to fix it. also, towards the end of the trip someone told me we were only an hour or so away. so i started chugging my fanta organge i had been saving. however, apparently i had been lied to and we were still 4 hours away! not good since i obviously had to pee after chugging all my fanta and there are no bathrooms on these buses. so the last few hours were a bit rough ha.

but we finally made it back all in one piece, and it was an awesome trip! ill try to get some pics up soon (i know i keep saying this). but i now have my new computer!! so ill be able to get back into blogging more often and get some pictures uploaded within the next few days.

rip computer

so you may have noticed (most likely not), but i haven't written a blog post in a while. it's because my computer has been dying a slow death since i got to africa. the past couple weeks it took a turn for the worst and decided to stop connecting to the internet and opening up any programs. a little difficult to do any work without a computer, so i have been stealing people's computers when i can to get work done. thankfully, my amazing dad worked some of his magic and i should be receiving a computer in a couple days :) hooray

for some reason computers in africa are very susceptible to viruses. also, it doesn't help that here in the office people use flash drives all the time to share documents (to save on using bandwidth), which spreads the viruses. i was unaware of this my first couple days here, and let a couple people in the office use my flash drive. i believe that is where the problem originated. silly me. learned my lesson.

it's a funny metaphor though: the more sticks you put in your computer, the higher chance of getting a virus.

pretty poetic for a company that works with hiv prevention haha. basically, i learned i need to stop being a slut with my computer so it doesn't get any more viruses :)

on a different note, im heading to malawi tomorrow for a music festival called lake of stars! a group of 10 of us are going, so it should be pretty fun. its on the beach on a big lake with tons of uk and local artists performing. hopefully when i get back my computer will be here and ill be able to tell you all about it in a blog post. keeping my fingers crossed.