finally figured out how to upload pictures easier...

here are some of my favorite pictures...

two kids watching soccer at our vct tournament

african sunset from our driveway

our puppy, kamba, in our backyard. though she's no longer a puppy.

me being forced to dance in front of the crowd at our vct tournament. embarrassing.

picture of some of the kids at one of our events

me on a lion walk in livingstone

peter tosh memorial concert

picture at the refugee camp. pretty awesome.

sitting on the edge of victoria falls. where the water is falling behind us, we jumped into a pool from a few meters up -- it's called devil's pool.

funny sign considering the whole field is filled with garbage. there is trash everywhere here.

give me

the amount of things i get asked for on a daily basis by zambians is pretty absurd.

at the events we host, we all wear our grassroot soccer tshirts, and i get asked for one of them (or even mine off my back) no less than 10 times each event. and it isn't a nice, "oh, do you have any extra tshirts i could have?" instead, it is, "give me a tshirt," or "give me your tshirt." it is almost as if there is a sense of entitlement where they think they deserve my tshirt.

the same goes with food and drinks. we provide food and drinks for our staff and testing partners at our events. but, the kids can see it being stored in the classroom and constantly coming up asking for food and drinks. they will come up and say, "give me water," or motion to their mouth and rub their bellies to indicate they're hungry. the worst is when you get people come up and say they are hiv positive and they deserve food, and if you don't give it to them you are going to be the cause of them getting sicker. it is a tough thing to tell someone no when they say that to you.

but, there is no way to pick and choose who to give things to. it is dangerous. if you give a drink to one kid, and others see, it will cause a mass chaos chain effect and everyone will want one.

i remember our very first event we hosted. after it was all over, we had boxes of extra meat pies, like 200 extra meat pies, and we weren't sure what to do with them. as we were leaving the venue, there was a group of 10 girls, probably around 15 or 16 years old, standing with a couple of our coaches. we offered them meat pies and they came running in a stampede to the car. i unfortunately was the one with the box of pies in my lap. they all slammed up against my door and about 15 hands flew through the window grabbing at the meat pies. keep in mind there were more than enough meat pies to go around, but the idea of free food put them in a frenzy. i initially was trying to hand each of them one, but when i lifted a meat pie up, about 5 hands would go for it and would end up squishing the meat pies (squished meat pies are not a great thing to have all over you, your hands, and the car haha). i gave up on trying to hand them out and just let them grab at them in the box through the window. the aftermath was meat pies all over the place. and the ones that were left in the box were all crumbled up and destroyed. it was one of the craziest things i've ever seen - that free meat pies sent these girls into such a mad rush.

when i was in the refugee camp i got asked for things a lot as well since resources are scarce. little kids who barely spoke any english would come up and say, "give me money." i think that may have been the only english they knew because when i would try to talk to them and explain i didn't have any money on me, they just gave me a blank stare in return.

we had an electrician come a few weeks ago to fix our hot water switch and he asked me about getting a grassroot soccer tshirt. i said i would work on it (though i reality i was never going to get him a grassroot soccer tshirt...the tshirts are mostly kept for staff and coaches because when wearing it around town, people recognize grassroot soccer, so the people who wear them need to uphold our organization's reputation. if that makes sense. and not in a snobby way at all). anyways, he came back the other day to fix something else in our house and he asked me again about the tshirt. it is so weird to me that he wants a tshirt because i guarantee he has no idea what grassroot soccer even does; he just saw all of us wearing them so he wanted one for himself.

even our coaches, who are well brought up and well educated ask me for things. more tshirts. my jewelry. my water bottle. it gets tiring at times having to constantly say "no." especially when many time you could afford to give a little kid 2,000 zmk, which is like 50 cents, and that would make a difference to that kid. but when you're asked 10 times a day, you get a bit jaded and it is instinct to just say no. a little disheartening.

another reason i get frustrated is because i know they are only asking me because i am white. on the way up to the refugee camp it was me, alice, mike, and then 4 zambians. we stopped in a town on the way to grab some food. alice, mike, and i (the mzungus, white people), didn't get any food, but all the zambians had big take away trays of fried chicken and chips. as we were sitting in the parking lot waiting for the bus driver, people kept coming up to the window asking alice, mike, and i for food. we were obviously not eating and had no food on us. on the other hand, all the zambians were sitting right next to us chowing down on their chicken, but were never asked for food. it's so bizarre, but i've gotten used to it.

it is something i was warned about before coming, buy dealing with it everyday is another story.

hand holding

hand holding is a part of everyday life in zambia -- male, female, young, old, it doesn't matter. you'll be driving around town or in the grocery store and see two grown men in suits walking holding hands or with their arms around each other, and it is totally normal.

this was one aspect of zambian culture i was not ready for when first arriving. i remember my first couple weeks here we had dc's (development courses) which are 3 day refresher courses for our coaches. throughout the dc's the coaches constantly came up and would hold my hand as we walked or talked, come up behind me and put their arms on my shoulders so we were cheek to cheek, have me sit between their legs as we listened to lectures. whole trains would get going of everyone sitting on the ground between each others' legs and it was no big deal.

also, you get males and females, males and males, and females and females dancing all up on each other. shake shake shaking it. but they don't view it in a sexual way, it is just them dancing and having fun. a lot of times, when girls dance, they pull their shirts up so you can see the movement of their bodies better, and guys do the same with their pants/shorts. it seems a bit unnatural to me because when i'm dancing the last thing i want to do is lift my shirt up for all to see haha, but it's how things are done here.

males and females alike also tie chitenges (colorful patterned african fabrics) around their waists when dancing. i believe it is to draw attention to their hips when they dance, but i'm not 100% positive on that, i need to ask.

it is amazing to me that people of the same sex are so comfortable being affectionate towards each other and dancing with each other in zambia because it is illegal to be gay/lesbian in the country. there is a private scene for the gays/lesbians here, but it is very underground and never talked about. in malawi, one of the countries that border zambia, 2 men were put in jail just 6 months ago for being gay. they were initially sentenced to 14 years in prison until the president himself eventually pardoned them.

i wonder if that is a reason why same sex are affectionate towards each other....because no one assumes they are gay if they act that way. where as in america, if you showed that much affection to someone of the same gender, people may assume you were gay. who knows?!

refugee camp

for the past year, grassroot soccer has been funded by unhcr (united nations high commissioner for refugees), and we have set up our grs skillz programs in both mayukwayukwa and meheba refugee settlements in northern zambia. these camps have been around since the 1960's, so they are well established with houses and small markets. not what i expected for refugee camps. however, they do live very simplistic lives: electricity only from generators, for the most part only unhcr owns cars in the settlements (and that's only about 5 for each camp), small huts made from mud, trees, and straw for living, etc. also, since they have been established for a while and are the homes for thousands of refugees, they are much larger than i expected. meheba is the larger of the two and it takes close to an hour and a half to drive from one end of the camp to the other (on bumpy dirt roads though). but it was crazy because the different areas within the camp are like little communities amongst themselves; not everyone in the camp knows each other. not even close. also, there are refugees from many countries, such as the congo, angola, and solamlia, so many times the refugees gravitate to areas where lots of people from their home countries are located.

the other week i was lucky enough to make it up to meheba for a 5 day trip. it was about a 12 hour bus ride to the camp. sadly, it was the last trip grassroot soccer will be making to the refugee camps for a while. we lost our funding from unhcr because the zambian government is trying to get rid of the refugees and shut down the camps. as of now, all the refugees (for the most part) are registered and given permission to live in zambia. but, that is changing and the government is working to send everyone back to their countries, which is really sad. especially since many of the kids living in the camps were actually born there, and it is their home. it will be a slow process though; i'm not totally sure how it is all being played out, so we shall see.

it was very cool to get to see the camps. the first couple days were pretty chill because the schedule for our events got switched around. but it was nice to get to walk around and explore the camp. we got a lot of attention walking around the camps (mike, alice, and i all went), because white people are not common within the camp at all. people would come out of their houses to see us as we were on our walks, everyone said hello to us as we passed by, alice and i went for a run and had a group of kids running behind us, and so on. i thought it was bad in lusaka, but this was a new level. it probably didn't help that it was 3 of us together as well haha.

we had a lovely, old lady named clementine who helped get us get settled in and help cook meals with us. she was from the congo and a jehovah's witness, so her helping us was her work as the good samaritan as she liked to say. alice and i got called into the kitchen for each meal to help cook (as the boys watched tv and hung out. yes, we had tv. crazy. we don't even have tv in lusaka ha). but clementine said it was the woman's duty to be strong and cook to support the families. so we cooked. we cooked over a little coal fire outside using our headlamps as our source of light.

this is clementine cooking nshima on the porch

we also had to bathe, not shower, while we were in the camps. this involved boiling a big pot of water on the charcoal stove and taking a few buckets of the hot water into the washroom and bathe yourself from the buckets. no wasting water there.

we had a crazy thunderstorm one of the afternoons. downpour like i've never seen. things were flooded in about 5 minutes. then lightning struck a tree about 10 meters from the house we were staying in. it made the loudest noise ever and lit up the whole house. a few of the people were standing on the porch outside when it happened and all came sprinting back in haha.

the event we were hosting in meheba was a graduation for the kids who had graduated from our skillz program and an awards ceremony for the sports teams. we partner with another organization called breakthrough sports academy in the camps where we sponsor soccer and netball leagues for the youth. all in all it was a pretty easy event because there were no testing or tournaments involved. the kids got so excited for their certificates and awards, which is always fun to watch.

then shit got crazy. after the event, it was planned to feed at the participants from grs skillz program, the soccer and netball leagues, coaches, and special guests. all together this totaled somewhere around 1000 people. ridiculous to attempt to feed that many people if you ask me. and no, it wasn't just peanut butter and jelly sandwiches they wanted to serve, it was a hot cooked meal of nshima, fried chicken, and cabbage. granted events like this happen all the time in the us. buuut, we don't have the resources to do something like that here in zambia. let alone in the camps. so the system that was devised was to have about 7 women cook all the food in a classroom. yes a classroom. to do so, they had: 6 bags of coal the size of me, 6 bags of meali meal (the cornmeal to cook nshima) which each weight 50 lbs, 90 chickens (no joke), tubs full of heads of cabbage, and 10 pots big enough that i could fit in them. they started by building 5 coal fires directly on the classroom floor. obviously, being in a classroom with only a few windows, the room immediately heat up to a sauna. ridiculous. so these women started the cooking around 9 when the kids started to arrive. however, it obviously takes a long time to cook for 1000 people, so by the time the program was over around 12:30, they were no where close to being finished cooking. i got recruited to help cook while the others were doing all the closing stuff. luckily the kids were fine waiting knowing there was free food on the other end. i dont think the food actually started getting served until around 3:30. that's a long time to wait for food. then when we did finally start serving food, mass chaos broke out. there had been no system put in place about how the food was being distributed and no good way to make sure each person only got one serving. pure madness. we were serving from inside the classrooms through the windows while the coaches tried to organize the kids. buuut, it failed. after almost an hour of serving people non stop, finally some order was reached, and the kids were put into lines. then we continued with another hour of serving. this entire time i was in a squat position moving the plates from the cabbage station to the nshima station. then from the nshima station to the serving station. needless to say, by the end of it, my legs left like they were about to die, i was covered in sweat, and my shirt and hands were covered in dried, crusted nshima. but thankfully it was over.

it didn't slow down though. as soon as the feeding was finished, we quickly packed up and went back to our house for just enough time to grab our bags and sleeping bags. we had to catch our ride to the next town where we were getting the bus from the next morning. no shower. no time to change clothes. so all 8 of us crammed into the car for the 1.5 hr bus ride to the next time. when we finally arrived to the hotel i was so tired i just passed out on the bed in my full clothes and shoes. still no shower hah. got up at 5:30am the next morning to get on the 9 hour bus ride back to lusaka.

i'm really glad i was able to make it up to the camp before our funding ended. it was neat because it was nothing like i expected a refugee camp to be like. very naively, i expected it to be small, inside a closed area, where everyone lived in tents. but that wasn't the case at all. it was a whole mini village with lots of communities within it, and it was home for many of the people living there. not to say their lives weren't difficult there since many resources were scarce, and they had been forced to leave their homes in the native countries. but at least they had a place where they could start a new life.

frustration

it's been a while since my last post because we didn't have internet for the past 2 weeks. being operations intern, i had the privilege of dealing with the internet company multiple multiple times. so frustrating! nothing, absolutely nothing, is done efficiently here. and everything is made 100 times more difficult than necessary. many phone calls and trips to the office of iconnect, and nothing got fixed. it's a little tough to work and run an organization without internet ha. thankfully, 2 weeks later, we now have internet.

to add to that, we ran out of energy for our office on monday (energy is prepaid). usually this isn't a big deal because there is a zesco (energy) story just down the road. so i hopped in the car and went to buy some more zesco. of course, though, their system was down. for the entire day. so no power for the day. the next day i went to buy it and it's still down. of course. so we have to drive to 1 of 2 locations in lusaka that has zesco we can buy.

also, we have a gas account i set up a few weeks ago with one of the bp stations close to us for filling up our cars. but of course, the bp all of a sudden is going under/being bought up, so they have no petrol. we would hear one day here and there that they had petrol, so we would quickly try to go fill up. but of course, by the time we got there they were usually out. awesome. so we had to set up a new account.

oh the joys of living in africa. haha

preacher boy

religion is a very important aspect of many zambian's lives. around 98% are christian, and most are very devoted. any day of the week you can walk by churches and hear singing going on, especially on the weekends. schools and community centers are also taken over on the weekends to hold services. some examples of religion taking place in everyday life here...

i was talking with sharon, our "zambian mom"' who helps around the house/office, last week, and she was telling me how she was going to an all night prayer service at her church friday night. she explained how one friday a month people from her congregation meet on friday evening and stay up praying and worshiping all night long til 6am saturday.

a lot of the zambian staff here like to listen to either the bible being recited or christian music and sing along during work. for a couple week period i was working on organizing a bunch of receipts, and i was in the finance office with our bookkeeper, whitcah. his music preference was the bible. in a monotone voice. for hours on end. in an office that is like a sauna. looking at thousands of receipts. for two weeks. i almost went crazy.

i recently took a holiday to livingstone, zambia, where victoria falls is. both the bus there and the bus back, we were on 6am buses. and on both buses, we got preached to for the first 30 minutes of the ride by a preacher. normally i wouldn't mind, but at 6am all i was wanting to do was go back to sleep. both the preachers had their bible out in hand, pacing up and down the aisle of the bus, passing out pamphlets, and preaching the good word. not much escape on a bus (smart on their part), so i listened.

this past saturday we hosted another event for work. this was a vct challenge (voluntary counseling and testing where there is free hiv testing on site for people in the local community). mike spiak (another intern aka spike) and i were put on the very important duty of watching all the food and drinks to make sure they didn't get stolen. seems a bit ridiculous, but it is actually a legit job because otherwise everything would get stolen. throughout the day, kids constantly come up to the window of the room and ask for drinks or food. i always feel bad saying no when i have a whole room of drinks and food, but it's for all the testing partners, staff, etc. only. a lot of kids also just stuck around talking with us. one kid in particular, chipo, kept coming back to talk with us throughout the day. he's a little 10 year old boy with his torn shirt and bare feet, but so smart. he was asking us questions about obama, how america and zambia were different, and then moved onto the religious talk.
spike had left the room at this point, so i left by my lonesome to answer the religious questions. he started asking me if i believed in god, what i thought would happen to me after i died, if i had ever preached the word of god to anyone, and then the why's and why not's that followed each question. i kinda felt like i was being judged a bit by my answers because there was a group of probably 10 kids gathered around listening to the conversation we were having.
our conversation got cut short because i had to go help with some stuff going on with the event. as i was walking out to the main part of the event, bonyolo, a famous actor in zambia, was on the mic doing a performance with the kids all gathered around him. as i was still walking up to the event, i hear bonyolo on the mic say a few words in nyanga then say "mzungu!" i immediately knew i was being called out when all the kids turned and looked at me. surprise, surprise. i knew i should have stayed in my little food cave so i wouldn't get called out. bonyolo calls me into the middle of the circle and says all the kids want to see us dance. so of course, i have to attempt to dance and get laughed at by the hundreds of little kids gathered around. it's always a real confidence booster haha.
once i was threw with the dancing embarrassment, i sat down at the dj area to watch the rest of the performance. i was looking around at the kids in the crowd and made eye contact with chipo. he motioned for me to come over to him, so i went to see what he wanted. "can we finish our conversation?" he asked. "about religion?" i asked back. i hadn't realized it was an ongoing conversation he was wanting to continue, but he said yes. so we walked over to a quiet area, sat down, and he just started paraphrasing the bible to me. he started with creation, moved onto noah, cain and able, and so on. he was able to recite the stories with extreme detail and quote verses upon verses as he narrated the stories. i was immediately captivated by his passion and just listened without saying anything. eventually, others began to gather around to listen to him. at one point, it must have been 30 kids gathered around listening to this little 10 year old boy talk about the bible, and he was completely unphased. he continued looking me in the eye the entire time and never broke his story telling. he spoke non stop for about 30 minutes gaining everyone's attention who walked by. after 30 minutes, he stopped talking, said, "alright, that's all i wanted to talk to you about," got up, and walked away. i was still kinda in a daze from what had just happened, but i thanked him, shook his hand, and told him i was very impressed before he wandered off.



the whole experience was so crazy and inspiring to me. i'm not a particularly devout christian, but the passion he had, his ability to speak so confidently in front of a large group, his knowledge of the bible, and the strengths of his beliefs really amazed me.

driving mishaps

mishap #1:
the other week i was cruising along to the airport to pick up a grassroot soccer cape town employee. windows were down, nice weather, music playing, all was good. then all of a sudden a man jumps into the road and starts flailing his arms in the air and points for me to pull over. at first, i'm a bit confused, but i obviously have to pull over because he is blocking the entire road with his body. then, i realize he's in a uniform and this is zambia's way of pulling me over. the uniformed man walks over and says i was speeding and would have to pay a fine. big bummer. i ask him nicely if he can let me off with a warning because i have no money on me and just arrived to zambia recently (a little white lie). he then sends over his boss, a lady police, so i do my best to sweet talk her and give her the same story. she's a bit more forgiving luckily and lets me off with a warning, as long as i promise not to do it again. phew! dodged that one.
the whole process of the way they pull people over, though, was ridiculous. there was no one in a car to chase after cars that didn't stop. and i don't believe they had any device to catch people's license plate numbers fast enough before speeding by. so i wonder if people just drive past ever and just don't stop.

mishap #2:
yesterday i was driving and backing up out of a shopping area, when all of a sudden i heard a crunch. a bit of panic set in. apparently another car had started backing up as well (after me, i might add), and we accidentally backed up into each other. bad news. we get out of the car to look at the damage. luckily, there is no damage to our car, but there is a small dent on the trunk of the other car. it is me and tommy (one of the americans i work with) in my car, and it is a car full of zambians in the other. they saw we were white and assumed they could get some money out of us from this accident. they wanted us to pay for the full damage, which made no sense at all since we were both at fault. he wanted to take it to the police (cause we don't speak nyanga, he figured he would be able to negotiate with the police and we wouldn't be able to understand). so reluctantly, we decide to go to the police station with them. first though, we stopped back at the office to pick up one of our zambian co-workers, izek, to take with us to help translate for us if needed. we then head off to the police station. when we are almost there, the other car randomly puts his hazards on and pulls off to the side of the road. a bit confused, i follow his lead. he got out of his car and came back to my window to talk. "i thought about it again, and i changed my mind." awesome! no police. i slipped the guy 40,000 zmk, which is like $10 usd, to help with the damage, we shook hands, and called it even. we all got out of the car then and started chatting and realized tommy plays soccer if one of the guys who was in the car, and the guy who had been driving is cousins with izek. small world for a city of over 2 million people hah.
i was talking with the lady who was in the car, and she said everyone else in the car had been telling the driver the whole time not to deal with going to the police and to just settle it between us. the police take so much time, are usually a bit corrupt, and wouldn't have any real say/reasoning in the matter since it was our word against theirs. it also would have been a long, drawn out process. soo very glad he came to his senses and just settled things. izek said that is how things are normally dealt with in zambia when it comes to little fender bender accidents. most of the cars here are in pretty horrible shape anyways, so an extra little dent here and there doesn't really make a difference.

alright, there are my driving mishaps. hopefully there won't be any more anytime soon

wheelbarrows

zambia is in the process of conducting a census. however, instead of mailing out the census to people to fill out, people are hired to go around to each house individually and ask the residents a series of questions. the other day they came around to our house and most of the questions were pretty straight forward....where are you from, how long have you lived here, how many people live in this house. then out of no where, one of the important questions they decided to throw into the census was "do you own a wheerlbarrow?" haha. really?! not, do you own a car or something normal like that, but do you own a wheerlbarrow? we all found that pretty entertaining.

but i guess thinking about it, people here use wheelbarrows to transport everything. it's amazing to amount of stuff zambians are able to stack on top of a wheelbarrow and push it down the streets. it's very impressive. i would definitely lose control and it would topple over. the same goes for bicycles. people stack charcoal, wood, etc no joke 6 feet tall off the back of their bikes and ride around town. i can barely manage to ride a bicycle by myself without falling over, let alone with an extra 100+ pounds stacked on the back.

im in the process of buying a bike for the intern house, so maybe i'll be able to work on and perfect my bike stacking/riding abilities.

rain rain rain

the rains have come! months sans rain and now they are finally here. and now that they're here, they are here in full force. it doesn't necessarily rain for long periods of time when it rains, but it rains hard. and there isn't a great drainage system here, so the rain stays. it makes it a bit difficult driving through some of the compounds because many of the roads are not passable with the rains covering the entire road and even flooding the houses. it's no good.

but so far the rains have been good. it has helped cool things off here. and it is starting to make everything much greener and less dusty which is always nice as well. great thunder and lightning with the storms, too, which i love. hopefully the smell from the wet garbage throughout town doesn't get too much to bare. fingers crossed.

plastic bag soccer balls

soccer balls are a prized possession amongst kids in lusaka. if they are lucky enough to own one, they are usually pretty battered and most likely very flat. but they don't complain and are more than happy to play with a torn apart, flat ball, because that is more than most kids have.

as a substitute, kids gather plastic bags (like from the grocery store), pack them together, and tie them together with string to make a ball to play with. they are always about 1/3 the size of a normal ball and obviously tricky to play with since they squish under your foot. but again, kids guard these homemade soccer balls with their lives and spend hours each day entertaining themselves by passing the ball amongst friends or dribbling it through their compound.

it's crazy how soccer really is a universal language everyone understands and appreciates over here. as you drive through town or any of the compounds, you can't not see soccer being played or advertised one way or another.

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.

buckfever

i went hunting this past saturday! or, i went along for a hunting trip....i didn't actually do the hunting. but i went with tommy and zales, two americans i work with, and a guy named jason who works for the us embassy and is a big hunter. we went to a farm about an hour and a half outside of lusaka that jason knows from past hunting; it was great to get out of the city, since i hadn't really been out of the city since i got here (7 weeks ago, which is crazy).

we got up at 5:30am (again, another early saturday), and headed out at 6am. we took jason's car, which is i think my new dream car - a land rover defender, but decked out looking all safari like. (kara, if you would like to keep an eye out for one of these cars on autotrader.com for me, that would be super duper :) )

we arrived at the farm and met the family who owns it and their 5 gigantic lab dogs. all super nice and friendly. then the 4 of us hopped into the bed of their pickup truck while xander, their 17 year old son, and zulu, our scout, rode up front.

we drove for a bit to get more into the bush. it was beautiful seeing all the untouched bush and all sorts of animals - kudu (bigger than deer), impala (about deer size), zebra, warthogs, ostrich, reedbuck, and more.

tommy and zales decided they were gonna hunt impala - not too large, but good meat. tommy went first. we found some impala and he set up on top of a hill with zulu and jason to line up his shot. unfortunately, he missed his first shot, which made the animals scatter. at first we thought he had maybe nicked one of the impala, so we all started sprinting closer to where the animals were scattering to see if one would eventually stop running from the wound. after about a half mile of sprinting towards them, we realized it was a lost cause and it must have been a clean miss.

then it was zales' turn. we drove for a bit more and found a few new impala. again, he took a shot, missed, and the animals scattered. this time though, zales, jason, and zulu went and stalked the impala. me and tommy chilled back at the truck with xander asking him about a billion questions about their farm, hunting, zambia, etc. about an hour later they emerged from the forest. but alas, no impala.

tommy's turn again with the rifle. this time he proved victorious! we were all crawled up in some bushes/trees and tommy was able to get a clean shot of a female impala on his first shot. the shot about scared the shit out of me cause i didn't realize it was coming and it's super loud. luckily the shot was so loud i don't think any of them heard me scream.

we drove the truck over to the impala, about 150m away, and loaded it into the bed of the truck. its insides started bubbling out of the gun shot wound which was pretty gross. and then it started to smell really bad cause the insides had all been blown apart so the animal started bloating. an interesting tid bit though, impala only have bottom teeth, no top teeth. they don't need the top teeth cause they just rip the grass up to eat it rather than chew it.

so, zales was up again and determined to hit something. we drove around a bit more, found some impala, zales set up, and killed one on his first shot as well. his shot tore through on the other side making a huge hole where the bullet came out. when we had it loaded on the truck on the way home the hole filled all the way up with blood. kinda cool/gross.

when we were driving back we were all standing up in the bed of the truck and kept having to dodge tree branches as we were driving. a couple times i almost got fully taken out cause i got distracted and wasn't paying attention. once i almost lost my balance when i was dodging a branch and almost fell over on the dead impala...that would not have been very pleasant at all.

we got back to the farm house and i went inside to get some water and talk to the owner for a bit. by the time i got back outside, they had already gutted the impala and there was a huge pile of the insides and the blood sitting on the cleaning platform. it was really gross looking. the female impala had been pregnant which was kinda sad. you couldn't see the baby, but you could see the sack that it was in.

so, that was the end of the hunting trip. we loaded the impala into containers and headed back to lusaka. tommy and zales are getting the impala butchered today, so hopefully tomorrow were going to have a nice braii and grill the impala to see how it tastes.

were going to try to go again sometime in the spring for a kudu. they're more expensive, though, since they're larger, so probably just go for one. the impala was 400,000 zmk, which is only like $80 us, to kill. but the kudu can be upwards of 1,200,000 zmk, which is a bit more expensive.

the whole trip was very cool. maybe next time we go i'll shoot myself an impala. this time it was just fun to go along for the ride, though, and see how it all worked.

10k run

this past saturday i participated in a fun run. i did the 10k and one of my friends did the half marathon (i've done one of those before, and that was plenty haha). it was a very cool event because it was on the outskirts of lusaka in the bush.

registration was super early at 6:30am saturday morning, which i was not a fan of. but as we were driving out of town into the bush, we were the only people on the road and the sun was blazing hot pink just above the horizon; it was a very serine, peaceful moment. which is not the normal feeling i have when i know im about to go for a run haha.

20 minutes later we pulled into a polo field which is where the event was being held. as we got out of the car, i saw more white people than ive seen the entire time ive been in zambia haha. it was a good family event though, so lots of parents and kids all around (there was a kids run, 5k, 10k, and half marathon so a large range).

zales, my friend, started his half marathon at 7am. my race didnt start until 8am, so i decided to go take a nap in the car. since im not a morning person, i obviously fell right back asleep. i was passed out hard. luckily i woke up like 7 minutes before my race was supposed to start. i could only imagine waking up and realizing my race had already started haha.

so i made it to the starting line just in time to start my race. i was feeling good, had my techno/rap music blaring (i had to borrow my friends headphones because my cat chewed my headphones apart....i swear this cat has something against me), the whistle blew, and we headed out into the bush. there were only about 50 people in the 10k race, so a pretty small group.

the race was going well and i was feeling good when 40 minutes in i realized i was already at the finish line. and knowing myself, there is no way i finished a 10k race in 40 minutes... i wish i was in that good of shape haha. apparently, one of the volunteers instructed us wrong and a whole group of us took a wrong turn cutting out a couple km of our run haha. whoops! in the part we missed out on, though, which took you further into the bush, some runners saw animals like zebra and kudu (which are like big deer), which is cool. pretty standard for your saturday morning run, right!?

all in all, even with the early wake up call and cheating out a couple km of my run, it was a fun event. we, grassroot soccer, are thinking about putting together another fun run at some point in the spring. there's a fairly high interest for these type of events in lusaka, but not many available. so that's something were going to try to get in the works.

maybe ill do a little more training by then and suck it up and do the half marathon. or who knows, maybe even a full....

peter tosh

this past saturday was a fun night. we had some friends over for a braii (grilling) and bonfire, then we went to a peter tosh memorial concert (peter tosh is a reggae artist who wrote a lot of bob marley's songs). the concert was held outside at the botanical gardens on the outskirts of town in a fairly small venue wheres tons of local reggae bands played their own original songs and covers.

when we arrived and walked through the gate, all you could see was an overwhelming amount of red, green, yellow, and black, flags and banners flying everywhere, more dreads than you've ever seen in one place, and people bouncing up and down all over the dance floor as the bands played. i was unsure of what to expect with this concert, but this was no where close to what i had pictured in my head....and it was awesome!

we were some of the few white people there and definitely didn't fit the stereotypical "rasta" look, but it didn't matter. everyone was super friendly and in good spirits. we all attempted to join in with the rasta ska dancing, which is essentially doing extreme high knees the entire time. needless to say, by the end of the night we were all exhausted and very sore the next day haha.

i'll need to try to get some pictures posted soon which will give you a better picture of the concert (it takes a long time to upload pictures here with the internet). but hopefully i'll get them up at some point this week

ps-krista, i wore my gypsy pants you got me from india....they were great for dancing :)

living the life

it's funny how expectations of standards of living change depending on where you are. there are many everyday aspects of living in africa that i would have thought crazy in the us, but are fairly normal here. for instance...

- normally we have to flip a switch an hour before we want to shower to get hot water. but, that switch broke a few weeks ago. so since then, its been straight up cold showers. it's getting better though since the weather is warming up. the cold showers were a bit brutal when it was cold outside

- since we got here, we haven't had a light in our closet (which is its own seperate room). so we've been having to get dressed with headlamps on. we've decided the headlamp is a good accessory to an outfit. and then within the last couple weeks our bathroom light stopped working as well. so now we shower with headlamps too. doing makeup is also a tricky one with headlamps cause you get all sorts of crazy shadows ha

- the power likes to go out randomly for a few hours a couple times a week. luckily it's only been out for a couple hours each time, cause apparently it can be out for days. keep my fingers crossed that doesn't happen

- i've gotten used to the bugs in the house....they don't really phase me anymore

- we have no tv. this hasn't been so bad though. i actually haven't even noticed or missed it (which was surprising for me ha). we do watch movies though. we have a projector we use from work and project movies on one of the walls in our house. it's like our own personal cinema

- washing dishes by hand and no garbage disposal. again, i thought this was going to be super annoying, but it hasn't been bad. and were starting a compost to help with the trash and lack of garbage disposal. that is a project in the works as we speak

couch dude

i went for a run the other day and passed a man carrying on entire couch on his head!! and we weren't really near a shopping area, so i have no idea how long he'd been carrying it or where he was headed. craziness i tell you.

typical tuesday

after work yesterday i went to a market they have once a week with 2 of the other interns. it's an open air market under a roof with rows upon rows of men and women sitting on the ground selling fruits, veggies, beans, nuts, spices, dried fish, etc. ive been to a couple markets already, but this one is by far the best. the produce is super fresh and much cheaper than the grocery stores. for instance, i got 10 tomatoes for 2,000 kwacha, which is like 50 cents us. also, it's fun to interact with the sellers and do a little bargaining. although, it isn't really necessary at this market because most of the prices are pretty similar and set.

when we pulled up to the market we had about 15 little boys swarm around our car all offering to watch our car while we were at the market. this is very typical in zambia. you basically have to choose one boy out of the group and designate them as the "guardian of the car," and they will stand right by your car the entire time you're gone to make sure nothing happens to it. then you tip them a little bit when you get back. we also had little boys constantly come up to us while we were at the market asking to carry our bags for us. again, trying to make money any way they can.

after the market, we went to yoga. ive gone a couple times since ive been here (trying to work on my lack of flexibility for anyone who knows me). the yoga class is outside, and last night was perfect weather for it. it starts at 6, which is when the sun is starting to set, so you get the entire sky turning into a bright rainbow (which i love). then, by the time the class is over and you are laying on the mat cooling down, the sky is dark with the stars above. it's pretty cool and very relaxing.

tonight were celebrating rosh hashana because 2 of my roommates are jewish. cooking up a nice "family meal" with all the interns which should be fun.

dirty dirt

they hire people to sweep the dirt off roads here. they sweep the dirt off the roads, but then as soon as a car drives by, the dirt is right back on the road.

and in people's yards, they sweep the dirt. to make it look prettier?!? not really sure.

it's bizarre.

dancing mzungus

so we had our first big event this past saturday since i've gotten here. it was a graduation of roughly 300 kids from our grassroot soccer skillz curriculum. the event consisted of 300 kids, their parents, a graduation ceremony where they received certificates of completion, and voluntary hiv testing.

the event went off smoothly. it was one of our biggest events recently, so it was exciting to see how it all worked and went down.

i got hiv tested for the first time. even though i knew going into it that i didn't have to worry too much, it was still a scary experience and the "what if" factor kept popping into my head as i was waiting the 5 minutes for my results. im glad i went through the testing though to experience it myself since its a big part of grs. i can understand why so many people here are nervous to get tested

also, all the interns also got dragged up front and had to dance in front of the 300+ people. it was rather embarrassing haha. but then a bunch of the kids saved us and joined in and it turned into a dance party. i still have 7 year olds trying to teach me to dance and then laughing at me when i try to imitate them. its a real confidence booster haha.

*mzungu=white person

nshima

the traditional meal in zambia is nshima. its cornmeal (or meali meal as they call it) and water mixed until it gets to a playdough like consistency. then you pair it with cooked spinach, beans, tomatoes, meat, etc.

the best part about nshima, though, is that you get to eat with your hands!! its great. you grab a bit of the cornmeal aka playdough and roll/knead it into a ball using only your right hand (cause you only eat with your right hand....left hand is for shaking hands if needed during the meal). then once its in a ball you make an indent in it with your thumb and use it as the utensil to pick up the spinach, beans, or tomatoes and then pop it in your mouth. its a bit messy but lots of fun to eat.

i've become big fan of the nshima. the only problem is, it puts you into an immediate nshima food coma. its so heavy in your stomach you feel like you need to nap right after eating. makes it a little tough to come back to the office and work after lunch sometimes haha

planning on learning how to make it soon....shouldn't be too difficult

dericious!

zambians have a hard time differentiating between r's and l's. they can say both of the sounds, but for some reason they almost always interchange the two. i now respond to both marissa and melissa.....lucky for them i don't yell at people anymore when they call me melissa like i used to when i was younger. it's gotten to the point where the other american interns find themselves calling me melissa on accident cause they hear it so often

the zambians have a good sense of humor about it though. some of my favorite mix up...

french fries = flench flies
surprise = supplies (yes kara, like the joke!)
fresh = flesh
curriculum = culliculum (this one gets used a lot with grs' skillz curriculum)
delicious = dericious

booty poppin

soo now that i'm in zambia, i've learned a few more things....

* little kids here are much, much better at booty poppin dancing than i will ever be. i was seriously put to shame. multiple times.
* when driving on the other side of the road....cars may seem closer than they appear....and it is not advised to run into them.....but if it does happen, it's also ok to just leave the scene of the crime (this is not from personal experience...i was just a passenger)
* it is much colder here than i thought it would be....i've been wearing 6 layers every day....basically all the clothes i brought with me at once
* our cat is evil....it peed on my bed (similar to chance for whoever knows of my old cat)
* zambians are really good at soccer....i got schooled in a pickup game. pretty rough

alright, all i got for now. i can't wait to see what else i'm going to learn....

yebo!

"yebo" means "yes" in zulu....little tid bit

anyways, i leave for zambia today!!! im actually in the airport right now. hyping myself up for a long, fun flight to lusaka, zambia... eeh, not so much. i believe its around a total of 30 hours of travel

we just had orientation the last 4 days in hanover, nh. it was great meeting the other interns -- there are 26 of us in total spread throughout zambia, south africa, malawi, and lesotho. we also got a better understanding of how grassroot soccer works and uses their "skillz curriculum" for the coaches to teach and educate the youth about hiv prevention. it truly is an amazing program and the more i learn about it, the more im impressed and excited for this year to be a part of it.

a few statistics and facts about grs i learned this weekend....
* grs has graduated more than 320,000 kids from its skillz programs
* grs hopes to graduate 1 million kids by 2014
* grs is located in 18 countries throughout sub saharan africa
* the lusaka site, where i am stationed, as trained over 200 coaches and graduated over 26,000 kids

that's just a little bit of information about the organization, but when you see the numbers it's amazing to see how far grs reaches and how many kids and people is affects.

alright, well time to board the plane!! next time i write i'll be in zambia!!

donations

i want to thank everyone who has donated to sponsor me for my year working for grassroot soccer! it truly means a lot to me, and i am very grateful. the donations can come throughout the entire year, so if you are tight on money at the moment (damn recession), no need to feel pressured to donate right away. any amount of donation is amazing!

ps - if you didn't notice, the donation button is on the right side of the webpage...so, have at it :)

on a more serious note

i guess i should tell you a little bit about what i'll be doing while i'm in zambia....

well i was accepted to a year-long internship with grassroot soccer in lusaka, zambia. i'll be leaving this august (august 8th to be exact), and i am really excited! grassroot soccer (grs) is a non-profit organization that uses the power of soccer in the fight against hiv and aids. founded by former professional soccer players in 2002, grs trains african stars, coaches, peer educators, and teachers to deliver an interactive hiv prevention and life skills curriculum to youth.

so that is a very brief overview of grassroot soccer, but if you want to learn more about the organization please check out our website at www.grassrootsoccer.org.

grs has started programs in many african countries, but as i mentioned earlier, i will be working at the lusaka, zambia site. lusaka is the capital of zambia, with around 2 million people, so i am not living in the bush amongst the lions as some of you may have thought. on the contrary, ill be living in a house with the 5 other interns at my site. it'll be 4 girls and 2 boys in total. 2 of the interns are continuing a second year, so they will be helpful in showing us newbies the ropes...i hope.

throughout my internship, i'll be involved in many aspects of the grs program:
* planning youth-targeted hiv prevention programs
* networking with community organizations to build relationships and promote grs services
* coordinating events such as voluntary counseling and testing (vct) soccer tournaments
* building capacity of grs field staff and and local grs coaches
* recruiting community-based volunteers
* assisting in curriculum and business development

if you want to get a better idea of how the programs work and specifically how the zambia site interacts with the youth, check out the youtube video, "lusaka sunrise" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyplef2Hi6Y)... it's a sweet video.

all in all, i'm super pumped to get to zambia! i don't really have any expectations for the year, but i'm excited to see what comes my way and hopefully i'll be able to adapt well enough haha.

so i'm new to this whole "blogging" thing

a grasshopper walks into a bar. the bartender says "we have a drink here named after you." the grasshopper says, "bob?"