Hello friends and family,

Happy New Year! It has been almost 4 months since I last emailed with an update and my last email was about my time at the World Cup in South Africa. I am now into my 6th month back in Zambia and it has been a very interesting 6 months, mostly because my work with Grassroot Soccer has been very different than last year’s work. If you remember, last year I spent much of my time working in two refugee camps, Meheba and Mayukwayukwa, through a project funded by UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). When I left the project was continued by Lazarous (my coworker if you remember) and taken over by one of the other interns. We were very fortunate to receive continued funding from UNHCR for another year. While I was away at home and the World Cup the project continued and when I came back in mid-July I was actually asked to go on the next trip to Meheba to help with a VCT Tournament (soccer tournament with free HIV testing for participants and spectators). It was very exciting to be back in the settlement and see some familiar faces from the previous year.

However, I was just making a guest appearance in the project. My new role with GRS is under our newest project funded by the Elton John AIDS Foundation. It is a project that is very different from a typical GRS project. The title of the project is Bridging the Gap: Effective HIV Prevention, Testing, and Treatment Through the Power of Soccer. As an organization, GRS focuses on HIV prevention education (teaching kids how to prevent themselves from getting HIV and teaching them healthy life skills through a fun curriculum delivered by peer educators/coaches). If you notice in the name of the project it mentions prevention but also includes testing and treatment which is something that falls outside of the normal GRS model and goals. In the HIV research world, some studies are now finding that prevention education alone is not reducing HIV rates which basically means that even though people might know the correct information they are not changing their behavior and still acquiring and spreading HIV.

The idea of this project is to “bridge the gap” between prevention, testing, and treatment and reduce loss-to-follow up. So what do I mean by this? When I say loss-to-follow up it means that often when a person tests HIV positive there is a disconnect between that test and getting them to a clinic for care and treatment. This is because often tests are done outside of a clinic setting and they get lost in the system because no one is checking up on them or they are in an overcrowded government clinic. Under the Elton John project, we have partnered with a small private clinic called Tiny Tim and Friends (TTF) who solely focuses on treatment of HIV positive youth under 20 years and HIV positive pregnant mother (with the goal of preventing mother-to-child transmission of the virus). Without care and treatment the chance of pass HIV to a child during pregnancy, birth, or breastfeeding is about 40% but with proper care and treatment it can be less than 2%.

There are two kinds of activities that are involved in this project. There are the interventions and there are the community events. The interventions are normal GRS program that we’ve always done (peer educators/coaches facilitating the curriculum with kids) but now there are a few additions to the program. As the intervention begins the peer educators go on home visits to meet with all the parents/guardians of the kids in their group (~30 kids per group). During the home visit they explain about who they are and what GRS does and they also invite the parent/guardian to the graduation planned for the end of the intervention. They bring consent forms with them and ask the parents/guardians to think about if they would be willing to have their child go for an HIV test during the graduation. HIV tests are voluntary but the Zambian law says that those under 16 years old need consent from a parent/guardian. During the home visits the coaches (peer educators) are partnered with a woman from one of the TTF women’s groups. TTF is affiliated with ten women’s groups around Lusaka that are made up of HIV positive women who are community health workers as well as do other activities with their communities. Because they are older the parents/guardians may take the pair (coach and woman) a bit more seriously and since the women are HIV positive they have personal experience and can answer a lot of questions. Then, during the graduation, with the help of TTF we offer free voluntary counseling and testing (VCT). We encourage parents to attend the event and also test but it is often difficult to get parents there because of work, other family commitments, and stigma. There is a lot of stigma attached to testing which is often why people are scared or refuse to test.

The other kinds of activities we do are community events/outreaches. These include VCT Challenges and VCT Tournaments. They are the same type of event except that one includes a soccer tournament and one doesn’t. These events consist of setting up tents in a community (usually at a school or field) and providing an opportunity for community members to go for VCT. The events are either full day or half day and are mostly just a fun environment with music blasting (occasionally graced with performances from Zambian musician and TV celebrities) and free VCT as well as family planning services. We work with TTF as well as a few other organizations that focus on these issues. The coaches and women spend the week leading up to the event going throughout the community to homes to tell people about the upcoming event and encouraging them to come. Since the project started in June we have held 37 events (big and small), tested 8212 people, and found 287 people to be HIV positive.

We also had 30 of our 60(ish) coaches trained in Child Counseling by the Ministry of Health. This allows them to disclose test results to families and counsel them properly. This is actually an essential part of the process in order to ensure success in the program because many of the kids come to an event with a signed consent form but no parent/guardian present. Even though our partners can test the child they cannot disclose results without the parent/guardian. This means that after the event ends the GRS Coach/Counselor will go to the home of the child and disclose the results to the family. It is up to the family if/when they would like to disclose to the child. Sometimes when a child is very young and HIV positive the family may put them on medication but not tell them what it is for because they may feel like they are too young to understand. That is why it is important for those who are HIV positive to go regularly to the clinic for medication as well as counseling.

My main role in this project is to advise in the project and act as the liaison between GRS and TTF. At the beginning of the project there were a lot of issues with communication and understanding between the two organizations so I’m there to help in that regard. I usually spend a few days at week at the GRS office and a few days at TTF. I’ve really enjoyed working at TTF and getting to work closely with their staff. I’ve learned a lot because they are a clinic and focusing in a field I know nothing about.

We have found many challenges since we started 6 months ago but are all looking forward to kicking off 2011 because we have learned so much and have a lot of activities planned this year.

So yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing the past half-year. On the more social side we went back to Malawi for the Lake of Stars music festival like the previous year, had a lot of fun, slept very little, and listened to a lot of great live music. I just came back from a holiday/new years vacation to Tanzania and Zanzibar. We took the train from Zambia to Dar es Salaam which took 47 hours and had beautiful scenery along the way. We spent most of the time in Zanzibar at the beach which was absolutely beautiful but one of my highlights of the trip was going on a spice tour. Zanzibar is known as the Spice Island because it grows so many spices and it was really cool to go on a tour of a spice farm and see how spices are grown. (Little fact…at one point Zanzibar was producing 80% of the world’s nutmeg.)

On a last note, I will be coming home for a brief visit in February. Exact dates have not been finalized but the plan is sometime in mid-February for about two weeks. Looking forward to seeing some of you guys while I’m home and seeing my family!

Stay in touch! Miss you all

Lena

Hello!

I know the last time that you heard from me with an update a long long time ago. Although the World Cup was a long time ago I never sent any email about my experience in South Africa during the World Cup so here it is…

I spent my first six weeks in South Africa in the city of Rustenburg. The last email you received from me was just after I first arrived and was starting the Grassroot Soccer program. Although I was living in Rustenburg I often had meeting in Johannesburg and Pretoria so I was constantly driving between the three cities. The night before the World Cup opening game I attended the World Cup Opening Concert which was held at Orlando Stadium in Soweto township, Johannesburg. It was the perfect way to start off the World Cup celebration. The stadium was completely packed to capacity with all of the 30,000 seats full and the entire floor packed with people, which is where I was standing. The energy in the stadium was amazing! Everyone was so excited to be at the concert and that the first World Cup hosted in Africa was starting the next day. There were people from every corner of the world packed into the stadium ready to have fun and enjoy the music. The concert started off with the Black Eyed Peas performing the super popular “I Gotta Feeling” and everyone was going crazy and then proceeded for about 4 hours of non-stop music. Half the groups were popular international groups like Black Eyed Peas, John Legend, Alicia Keys, K’Naan, and Shakira (who performed with the South African group Freshly Ground at the end and performed the official World Cup song “Waka Waka”). The other half of the groups were popular South African groups that did everything from traditional music to more pop music. Unfortunately I didn’t know most of the South African music but I kept thinking how amazing it would be to be South African and attending this concert and literally seeing all these super famous local and international musicians performing the songs that you know so well. South Africa President Jacob Zuma and FIFA president Sepp Blatter opening up the concert by making some short speeches and then the night proceed with performer after performer entertaining the huge crowd. I heard later on the news that it was the biggest musical event of its kind when it came to the number of musicians and people attending.

The next day was the opening match, South Africa vs Mexico. I was in Johannesburg at the time which is where the match was taking place and you could feel the energy vibrating throughout the city with the non-stop blowing of the vuvuzelas no matter where you went. Most of my friends in Joburg were actually attending the game but I just watched the match from my friend’s house with another GRS friend. It was actually a very exciting match especially for South Africa who scored an amazing opening goal. I can’t imagine what it must have been like in the Soccer City Stadium when that goal was scored. Anyway, it was a good opening match and kick-off to the World Cup.

Later that night the interns from Zambia actually flew into town which was very exciting for me to see some old familiar faces. Early the next morning we drove as a group up to Rustenburg to watch the USA vs England match which would be the first World Cup match that I would attend. Unfortunately there were no tickets through the Sony Ticket Fund which meant it wasn’t a game I was ‘working’ at and it wasn’t a free game (unlike the rest of the matches which I attended which were all free). Everyone was dressed up for their country with USA flags and English flag everywhere. Based on the number of flags I saw I think that there were definitely more England fans that US. I must also admit that the England fans were a bit more lively than USA because they have so many football chants than USA. My seats were really great though, right near the midfield line and about 20 rows from the front.

My next game was New Zealand vs Slovakia. It was also my biggest game in terms of the number of people attending with me with the Sony Tickets (371). There was a lot of coordination to deal with on game day because I had groups coming from as far as Johannesburg (2.5-3 hours) and Pretoria (1-2 hours) as well as within walking distance to the stadium. I had given all the groups parking passes to the parking areas just next to the stadium as well as matching bandanas from Sony that we used to help identify our group in the crowds. My job on game day was to meet the groups in the parking area and distribute their tickets and meal vouchers to them. It was very exciting for everyone who got to attend because these are kids and adults who would never have gotten an opportunity to attend a World Cup match. The kids were especially excited and didn’t even care that much who was playing, they were just excited to be there! They spent the whole game singing and dancing. During the game I was basically just able to enjoy the majority of the match and at the end of the game I would walk back with the groups to their vehicles to make sure no one got lost of the way and they were ready to start off back home.

That was the basic routine for all the matches that were played at my Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg. The next game was Ghana vs Australia and I was lucky enough to be accompanied by one of my best Zambian friends Grace and her sister Helen. For each game I was allocated a certain number of tickets to be distributed to each organization but I also had about 3 secret buffer tickets in case there were any ‘emergency’ issues that came up at the last minute (ie. An extra kid came on the bus even though I said over and over again THERE ARE NO EXTRA TICKETS). Basically though if at the last minute those extra buffer tickets were unused I could distribute them to other people. I was supposed to try to give them to someone GRS-related and since Grace and Helen had come down to visit and be in SA during the World Cup they were able to join me at the match.

The next day we drove back to Johannesburg to pick up my boyfriend Kennedy who was flying in from Zambia. That night we attended the Brazil vs Ivory Coast game at Soccer City in Johannesburg. I was able to get tickets through the GRS Site Liaison Officer (SLO) at Soccer City (the guy who was doing the same job as me but in Joburg) because there were some extra tickets. We also met up with my friend TommyD (who had been an interns with me in Zambia) and a couple of his buddies which was awesome. It was a super exciting game because Soccer City is an amazing and gigantic stadium (about 85,000 people) and watching Brazil and Ivory Coast play was very cool, Brazil because it’s BRAZIL and Ivory Coast people they were one of the six African teams competing at the World Cup and are a pretty good team with famous players like Didier Drogba who plays on Chelsea. We had amazing seats in the first section right behind the goal.

We ended up staying another day in Johannesburg because the GRS SLO at the other stadium in Johannesburg (Elis Park) was able to get us tickets to the Spain vs Honduras match. Little did we know at the time that we were watching the future World Cup 2010 champions. The next day we were back in Rustenburg for the Mexico vs Uruguay game where we brought about 250 youth, chaperones, and adults. The next day we were actually able to get tickets to the game in Pretoria which was USA vs Algeria. I’m not sure how many of you watched this game but for me this had one of the most exciting goals of the tournament. There was a game-winning goal scored by USA in the extra time . The stadium was WILD! Even Bill Clinton was at the game! The next day we were back in Rustenburg for the Japan vs Denmark game. The last game in Rustenburg was the Round of 16 match USA vs Ghana. I must say I was a bit torn during this match because I wanted USA to win because obviously they are my home team and it would be awesome for them to do well but Ghana is also my team! I studied abroad there and they were also one of Africa’s last chances to win the World Cup 2010. In the end Ghana ended up winning with a great goal in extra time. As much as I was sad that USA had lost I was also very excited for Ghana and Africa.

Sadly enough that game was my last game working as a Site Liaison Officer so the next day I moved out of my home on the game farm in Rustenburg and on to my next adventure in Johannesburg. Luckily I had made a few friends in Joburg during my weekly trips so I was able to stay with them during my time there. This next adventure was at the Football for Hope Festival. If you don’t remember the Football for Hope Festival is sort of like a youth World Cup with a twist. Teams came from all over the world and were made up of youth between the ages of 16-18 years old and were mixed boys and girls. The teams represented came from: South Africa, Mali, Senegal, Rwanda, Lesotho, Kenya, Nigeria, Botswana, Mauritius, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Argentina, USA, UK, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Germany, Northern Ireland, France, India, Cambodia, Israel/Palestine, Australia, and Tahiti. Each team was also representing an organization that works with disadvantaged youth and tackles social issues using soccer (Grassroot Soccer even had a team there). For many of these kids it was the first time they had ever left their countries or flew on a plane so it was very exciting. All of the teams lived together at a boarding school like the Olympic Village (all schools in South Africa were closed on holiday for the month of the World Cup).

The Festival itself took place over a 2 weeks period. The first week was like a cultural exchange and team building and the tournament itself was during the 2nd week. During the first week teams participated in different team building activities where they were split up from their country teams and all mixed together. It was a very interesting experience because there were many languages spoken by the kids so they had to learn how to interact even if they couldn’t verbally communicate. The kids really enjoyed the week and getting to make new friends from around the world. My favorite part from the week was the cultural performances. Each team was told to prepare a performance to represent their country. It was two amazing nights filled with so many different type of performances with everything from traditional dances to just being silly and dancing around to local popular music. A lot of the African and South American groups went all out with traditional clothes and danced very traditional dances. I kept thinking about how all these kids came from all over the world to play soccer but now they’re up on stage performing traditional dances for their peer who may have never met anyone from that part of the world before and now they are seeing their new friends are performing something very traditional to their culture. For example the Cambodian group did a traditional rice harvest dance, the Tahitian group did an amazing fire dance, and the Zambian group really showed everyone how they can shake their butt. You would have thought that you were watching a real cultural show, not that these kids were all here from around the world to play soccer.

The second week was finally time for the tournament. During the first week teams spent a lot of time training with their teams or just playing with their friends from other countries…because soccer is the universal language and what brought all these teams together. The tournament itself was not like a typical tournament. Teams were made up of boys and girls and the games were played 5v5. The tournament was also following something called the FIFA Fair Play rules. This means that there are no refs, instead it is up to the players to call their own fouls and discuss any issues that arise. They say it is ‘a game of 3 halves’. Each game starts with a discussion between the two teams to agree on the rules (ex. both teams celebrate if a team scores or there are no throw-ins, just kick-ins). There is a young leader that came with each team to act as a moderator to help facilitate these discussions. The game itself is just 12 minutes long with no half time. The last ‘half’ is to discuss how the game went and any issues that arose during the match. It was really interesting to see how the teams interacted with each other even with all the different cultures and language. You were constantly seeing kids helping each other get up after they fall or working together to carry an injured player off the field.

As a volunteer I was in the Hospitality group and was a Team Leader. That meant that I was in charge of making sure teams taken care of during the day. The team that I was assigned to help with was the team that was representing Special Olympics Africa. It was a very interesting team and different from the other teams. Because it was a team representing this organization it was actually made up of kids from 4 different countries. Since each team only brought 8 kids each country had 2 representatives, one ‘abled’ and one ‘disabled’ player and an adult chaperone. The kids came from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Mauritius. It was me and two other volunteers that helped this team. My two co-volunteers were both from South Africa and one was from the community where the event was actually taking place. There was a special stadium built by FIFA for this event in Alexandra township which is one of those places in Johannesburg where they tell you not to visit because of the history and violence. However, the location was picked just for that reason, to help build up and give something positive to the community. Don’t worry though, the place was fully secured with police constantly patrolling.

I really enjoyed spending time with the Special Olympics team. They did a great job and won a bunch of their games, but unfortunately not enough to move on to the next round. There was one day when the volunteer Team Leader from the Cambodian team couldn’t come so I got to spend the day with the Cambodian team (Spirit of Soccer) instead. It was really interesting learning about their organization. They basically use soccer to do landmine educate. What they do is try to keep kids busy during the times that they are not in school because too often kids go into the forest to play or collect bamboo or food and stumble on an old landmine and lose a limb or worse. If these kids spend their time playing soccer instead they may avoid these situations. The people from the organization also do land mine education in schools to educate kids on what to do if they find a landmine and how to be careful. Unfortunately their team also didn’t make it to the next round but played hard. They actually won the Fair Play award at the end of the tournament and were beyond excitement (and I was almost in tears)! They even gave me a Cambodian scarf (called a krama) at the end of the day as a thank you for spending the day with them.

The tournament was really exciting to be part of because it was such a cool experience for these kids from all over the world. There were two winners in the end because they made two brackets for the second round and both teams that won were from Africa which I thought was pretty cool.

At this point I was living in Joburg with some friends and was actually able to go to a few more World Cup games. I went to both quarter finals games that were played in Joburg: Paraguay vs. Spain and Uruguay vs. Ghana and actually sat near the Football for Hope kids during both games (they also got to all go to a game which was VERY cool for the teams from Paraguay and Uruguay because they saw their team play). Possibly my favorite games of the entire World Cup was the Uruguay vs. Ghana game. This game was played in Soccer City with 84,000 spectators, most of them dressed and ready to support Ghana, the last hope for Africa at this point. Again we had amazing seats on the lower level right behind one of the goals. It was a very energetic and exciting game and it seemed as though Ghana was going to win it with just a couple minutes left in the match. They were awarded a penalty kick off of a hand ball but the shot hit the crossbar, thus pushing the match into overtime! You should have seen the crowd’s reaction when the ball hit the bar, it was like the whole 84,000 people gasped at the same time. At the end of overtime the score was still tied and Uruguay ended up winning on penalty kicks. It was such a dramatic game and you could feel the disappointment and disbelief throughout the area. Ghana had come sooo close!

Wow okay I think that’s a good ‘short’ version of my time at the World Cup ;-) …I know that was a lot! Next is photos which I will try to do soon. Hope you all enjoyed the World Cup from wherever you were and which ever team you were supporting. It was quite an amazing event to experience, especially with it being the first time for Africa to host it!

in soccer,
Lena

Hi friends,

Dumela! Hello from Rustenburg, Northwest Province, South Africa. I guess I left the US over a month ago and I can’t figure out if that was a long time ago or not. All I know is that I feel like a lot has happened since I left Boston.

I started off my newest Africa adventure in Zambia where I spent almost 3 weeks in my old ‘hood. It was so nice to be back and it felt like I never left. I had really only been gone for 2 months so I actually wasn’t gone very long (just like an extended holiday) but it was so great to see everyone again! Unfortunately a lot of my closest friends were away for the majority of the time I was there because they were running Training of Coaches workshops in the refugee camps (the continuation of the project I was working on last year!). It was a bit strange to be there just visiting because everyone else was working on the kinds of things I was doing last year and kept me so busy and now I was just there visiting. I was able to help out a bit here and there (even help with some leftover work from my project from last year!) even if it just meant driving people around. Even in the short time I was gone it felt like there had been of bunch of changes in the organization as well as in the city of Lusaka. My work partner, Lazarous, and his wife even had a new baby (Lazarous Jr.)! It was pretty funny to see some of the people I knew from living there because they knew I had left to go back to the US but they had no idea I was coming back. They were quite surprised to see me when I showed up at meetings, etc! Other people never knew that I had left and just carried on as if they hadn’t seen or heard from me in a while but didn’t know why. I really really enjoyed my time there with my friends at my old home. I feel like often you go to a place, maybe to live or work, and as much as you say you’re going to go back to visit it doesn’t happen. It was so nice for it to actually happen. Many of my friends said that to me too, how so many people come to Zambia for a period of time and become close to each other and when they are leaving say they will come back but never do.

Then it was time to start the real adventure in South Africa! I am back working with Grassroot Soccer (I guess I just can’t get enough) under the title of Site Liaison Officer (SLO). Like I mentioned in my last email this is working with a program call the Sony Ticket Fund. As SLOs we are posted all around the country at each of the different World Cup stadiums and are in charge of coordinating the logistics around getting partner organizations and kids to the World Cup matches at our stadiums. The same morning I arrived in South Africa I attended a 5 hours training in Johannesburg with some of the other SLO which was basically a crash course of the entire program and what our responsibilities were going to be during our time here. The next morning we went to pick up our rental cars from the airport and jumped directly on the highway to head to our respective cities. I got into my blue Hyundai Atos and was exciting to be driving such a new car. It might be the newest car I’ve ever driven, especially over a long period of time. After about 3 hours of driving I found myself on a long dirt road in Rustenburg sitting in front of the gate to my new home. What I found myself at was a game farm owned by a white Afrikaans family only to find that I was the only person staying at their place. Apparently over the weekend a group of guys usually comes to stay at the guesthouse to go hunting on their farm but during the week it’s just me and the animals. My room is self contained/self catering which mean I have everything I need (bed, bathroom, hot plate for cooking, sink, fridge, TV!). The rug on my floor is actually an animal skin, still in the shape of the animal (I think an impala or other deer of some kind). Rustenburg, the platinum capital of the world, is a rural city in the mountain. It is mostly farm land (except for downtown) but very beautifully placed in the mountains. I almost feel like it could be placed somewhere US Southwest and fit in pretty closely. The weather is nice and warm during the day but FREEZING at night! I spent my first few days just driving around town trying to figure the city out. A Zambian friend of mine who now works in South Africa was actually in town for a couple days with his colleague for some work so I was able to see a friendly familiar face. Unlike many of the other sites where there are World Cup stadiums, Rustenburg has no GRS programs and so no real connections to the organizations here.

Toward the end of my first week I was sitting in an internet café trying to sort through emails when I saw one inviting me by a fellow SLO of my to visit the country of Lesotho for the weekend. A few people in Joburg were leaving that day (and had actually already left by the time I read the email) but I immediately called them up and said that “I’m coming! I’m getting into my car right now and catching up with you!”. No problem, I’ll start all my work next week! After about 8 hours of driving I cross the South Africa/Lesotho border. For those of you who don’t know, Lesotho is a tiny country completely surrounded by South Africa and is known for its mountains. The second day we were there we drove 2 hours through absolutely beautiful countryside and mountains to a place called Malealea and hiked through a valley to a waterfall. The landscape was truly an amazing scene of which pictures will never do justice!

The next week the real work began! Unfortunately there is no internet at my farm house and it took me a few days to find an internet café where I could actually bring my own computer to do work but once I did I would spend half my day sitting in the café trying to start to get things organized for games at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg. On Thursday (of last week) I drove back down to Joburg where that night I got my first real taste of the World Cup. I attended a friendly match between South Africa and Colombia in one of the newly build huge stadiums in Johannesburg called Soccer City. The match was sold out and attended by 80,000 most of which were obviously South Africa fan! The atmosphere was wild! South Africans are known for their vuvuzelas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vuvuzela) during sporting events and for the entire match there was a non-stop cheering and vuvuzela-blowing! It was so loud in the stadium that you could barely talk to the person sitting directly next to you. By the end of the match, which ended with South Africa winning 2-1, you were both deaf from the loud noise for 90 minutes and hoarse from trying to cheer and talk with those around you. Everyone was in Bafana Bafana uniforms (the name of the South African national team) which meant the stadium was filled with yellow. It was so exciting to be there and part of all the craziness and excitement. I was entertained enough by the atmosphere that I almost didn’t care much about the actual match. It was very cool to see Bafana Bafana play too because they are not playing any of the matches in my stadium.

World Cup fever is crazy here! You cannot go 5 minutes without hearing or seeing something about the World Cup. Every commercial on TV is about the World Cup, either the actual event or something from their official sponsor. South African TV shows (there are so many soap operas) all have stories around the World Cup. There are posters and banners on every light post on all the main streets in town. Accommodation everywhere in booked up to capacity. There is so much construction going on in this country! All the roads are being fixed up and I’ve spent my fair share of time sitting in traffic! I only hope it is all done before everyone arrives for the matches (5 days!) because it will make everything very complicated if it’s not done (fingers crossed!).

After the game on Thursday night I spent half of the next day in Soweto. Soweto is a huge, well-known township in South Africa. We had a few meetings with some of our partner organizations who will be coming to matches with us. They are all sooo excited about going to a World Cup game! It was very cool to drive through Soweto and see what all the talk was about. It was very interesting to see it compared to what I know of townships from my experience in Zambia. Although Soweto is known to be this huge township with somewhere around 1.5 million people it looked like it was in much better condition than any of the townships I had seen in Zambia. First of all the roads were paved! Many of the houses also looked very nice, as nice as the one I as living in in Zambia, although smaller. Most Zambian townships that I have been through and worked in have terrible dirt roads and many are dirty and packed in very tightly with people. The part of Soweto I saw looked like a pleasant place to live compared to Zambia. I know that there is much more than what I saw and there is more than what meets the eye there for sure but it was a very interested first reaction for me.

The next day (early early Saturday morning) one of the other SLOs and myself left from Johannesburg to drive to Swaziland to go to a big music festival we had heard about called Bush Fire. After 5 hours we crossed the boarder to Swaziland and soon found the festival. We spent the day watching smaller performances and being entertained by clowns from Clowns Without Boarders. Swaziland is another country in the mountains and was a bit crazy driving up, down, and around the mountains in the city just to get to the festival. At night the big performers came on. The two that I enjoyed the most and were two of the big names were Freshly Ground and Lira. Freshly Ground is actually in one of the official World Cup songs. Most of the groups who performed were South African, including these groups, and the show was really great, although a bit cold! We also saw some of the people who we had met the previous week in Lesotho.

After a fun and crazy 36 hours we drove back to Joburg where I dropped off my fellow SLO and continued on myself back home to Rustenburg. I moved into a backpackers for a week people but once the World Cup games begin I will have people staying with me so I’m back on the farm. The first game at Royal Bafokeng is USA vs England and although GRS does not have tickets through the Sony fund (the only game at that stadium where they doesn’t have tickets) I’ve managed to get a ticket through a friend of a friend and have some other friends who will also be there, including the interns from Zambia who are coming down!

This is crunch time to get everything finalized now. I had a private tour of the Royal Bafokeng Stadium by a FIFA official so I got to see the layout of everything (parking, seating, etc). I also held my first chaperone training with one of the groups of chaperones to make sure they know their responsibilities as chaperones and the logistics of the day. A few more more trainings this week and other preparation to get everything set and then it’s game time! If you happen to be watching any matches at any of the stadiums look for a group of about 500 people wearing similar bandanas and that should be one of our groups!

The games at Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg are:

USA vs England (June 12)
New Zealand vs Slovakia (June 15)
Ghana vs Australia (June 19)
Mexico vs Uruguay (June 22)
Denmark vs Japan (June 24)
Round of 16 Match - 1C vs 2D (June 26)

This is going to be wild….!! What is World Cup fever like where you are? Kick off in 5 days! Hope everyone’s well! I’d love to hear from you if you get a chance!

Salasentle (“stay well” in Setswana)

Lena

...Lena is Coming to America!! I know many of you thought this day would never come but next week I will finally be back on US soil after an 18-month absence. Like I mentioned in my last email I have been trying to find a job here but unfortunately have been unsuccessful so far so it is finally time to me to come home. I'm very excited to be coming home and seeing you all again! I will be leaving Zambia on February 14th (yes, Valentine's Day) and flying straight to Florida to meet up with my parents and visit with the grandparents. I'll be back in Lexington, MA (and reintroduced to the New England winter) on Friday February 19th. Well, just thought I'd pass along the news because I know a lot of you have been wondering and asking me when I was coming home. Looking forward to seeing everyone soon!!

usale bwino,
Lena

Hello and happy 2010 (again)! Hope the year has been going well so far for everyone!

Hash - Well, to jump right into it and pick up where I last left off...a few roommates of mine and myself have started (sporadically) participating in something called hashing. The group is called the Hash House Harriers and it's basically a running and drinking club (actually what they say is that they are 'a drinking club with a running problem'). Hashing is actually an activity that happens all around the world. The location of the Hash changes every week and the hosts of that week set out a course for the run (there is also always a walking option). The course is marked by white chalk and as you run you have to figure out the correct course along the way. For example, when you come to an intersection people have to go out to test each direction to find which is correct. The course usually takes between 30-60 minutes and you end up back where you started only to find some kegs full of beer (and soft drinks). Then there is a circle where people get called out and made to stand in the middle and drink for various reasons. When that's done everyone just hangs out. We've usually been the youngest people there with the oldest probably in their seventies. The first one I went to was at the American International School and then next two were on farms just a bit outside of the city. It's a cool way to see different parts of the city. Like I said they take place all over the world so if you're traveling you can just look up their hash and join (I found it in Boston just by searching online).

Settlement Project - We made our final trip to the settlements at the beginning of December to wrap up the 2009 project and what a year it has been! There were two main objectives of these last trips. The first was to do a full-year evaluation of the project. This went well in both camps with very long feedback sessions with the coaches we trained. The second was to give all of our coaches a sort-of thank you incentive. All of our coaches are volunteers and we do not pay them anything to help us with our program so for our incentive gift we gave each coach a duffel bag filled with a 10kg bag of mealie meal (for making nshima), 3kg rice, sugar, salt, cooking oil, laundry soap, washing soap, candles, and matches. It was a really great thank you to give to the coaches (especially since we heard there was a shortage of food in the settlements) and because the coaches have been asking since the beginning for some 'motivation' as they call it to continue working under the program.

All in all it was a great project. It was very challenging and rewarding and an amazing learning experience for me and I think for everyone involved. I think our coaches really enjoyed and benefited from it a lot as well as all the kids who passed through the program. We still have to figure out a final tally but we estimate to have reached about 1500 kids through the UNHCR/Grassroot Soccer program in 2009, trained 100 coaches, and reached over 6000 community members. We have heard that UNHCR plans to fund our newest proposal for 2010 and we are just waiting for them to finalize the budget and sign an agreement. In the new proposal we made some changes and additions to the 2009 project. We have proposed to add a netball league to encourage more female participation in sports and to reach more girls in the HIV messaging (netball is a sport mostly played by girls that is sort of like basketball). We propose to train 80 new coaches (40 GRS coaches and 40 netball coaches) as well as continue to work with the 100 coaches trained last year. Although I will not be staying to work on it, my Zambian GRS coworker Lazarous who I worked so closely with in 2009 will continue to work on the project with the assistance of one of the new interns Brian (who is no longer new since he arrived 5 months ago). Very exciting year ahead with this project!

Interns - On a sad note, one of my fellow interns (TommyD) left to go back home in mid-December. Tommy had been here with me since February back when it was just me and Stuart and made a great addition to our duo. Tommy and I had a lot of fun together. He's truly a great guy and a great worker. LUCKILY TommyD is also from the Boston area and I can't wait to see him when I finally find myself in Boston again. He also send our cat Iwe home with him (because a couple of my roommates are allergic to cats). Can't wait to hit up the city with him and rock out to Zam tunes together!

Events - Just a few days after TommyD left I attended something called the Born and Bred awards with my friend Kennedy. Basically the Born and Bred awards are like the Zambia music video awards. It was a night filled with all different Zambian music and musicians. All of the famous Zambian artists performed which was fun for me when I actually knew the musicians and songs (some was more traditional or gospel which I don't really know well but almost all of my favorite musicians were there). We got all dressed up and hit up the non-existent red carpet. We were sitting at a table all the way in the back which actually happened to be right next to where all the musicians would go after winning an award to be interviewed. It was really cool because they were literally right next to us so it was fun to see them so close up and showin' off their stuff to the TV camera. Unfortunately my camera was broken so I wasn't able to get any photos of them!

Holiday Season - Holiday season has now come and gone. If you remember, last year I spent my holiday traveling through Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Malawi, and Zambia. Well, this year was exactly the opposite. I spent my entire holiday season in Lusaka relaxing (finally) and really not doing much at all. There were even some days when I never left the house. My roommate TommyL and I started off our holiday with a Season 2 24 marathon where we literally watched the entire season of 24 in just a few days. We were so sucked in! It was also interesting to be around Lusaka during Christmas and New Years. Christmas is so different than what we experience at home. Here it is a lot more religious than the commercial Christmas in the US. People go to church or don't do anything. I even heard of a bunch of overnight prayer services. Some people may go to visit their families but there isn't necessarily a huge family dinner or anything for most people. There isn't really a santa that people believe in (and it really doesn't feel like the Christmas I know without the cold weather and snow).

New Years was fun and exciting. My roommate Emily and I started off in the afternoon of New Years Eve at a 2-hour yoga session. It was really hard but so good. A nice way to start the new year (and so sore!). Later we cooked a delicious Mexican dinner with a couple friends and then went out and hit the town!! Let's just say I didn't get home until the daylight hours of the first day of the year. I spent the first day of the 2010 Then a few days later we were back to work...

Future Plans - I know most of you have been wondering what will be happening with me next in life and I must tell you my plan changes every other day. This week is my last week of work at GRS after an amazing 18 months. It is definitely sad because I have really enjoyed working with GRS and spending my time in Zambia. I have met so many wonderful people and learned so much. I would like to continue working internationally for another year or so because I've really been enjoying it and would like to get some more work experience before hopefully heading back to school. I have spent the past couple of months looking for a job here but have so far been unsuccessful. Many organizations are not sure of their funding for this year and so are not hiring at the moment but may be in the next few months. I have a few possible prospects lined up and will hopefully be able to sort through them in the next couple weeks. (If anyone has any suggestions or connections to international organizations let me know!) At the moment I do not yet have a plane ticket home but do plan on coming home soon (whether for a few weeks or for good). It all depends on what happens in the next week or so...hope to have a real update on that issue soon......

Well, that about wraps up my update for now! As always it's great to hear from you regarding your lives wherever you are in the world. Keep it snappy!

Hello everyone,

I just wanted to wish you all a happy and healthy 2010! Hope everyone
enjoyed their celebrations!!

Lena

Hello hello,

Muli bwanji? I hope everyone is doing well. Today is World AIDS Day so I thought it would be a good time to send out another email update. A lot has happened since I last wrote about 2 months ago. I have constantly been on the road with very little time to rest but it’s been an exciting and packed couple of months.

My roommates and I along with some other friends went to Malawi for a weekend to go to a festival called Lake of Stars. It’s a big annual music festival right on Lake Malawi with people camping, swimming, and listening to music for four straight days. The music was a combination of Malawian groups playing both traditional and more modern Malawian music as well as UK DJs playing electronic music. We met up with some fellow GRS interns working in Malawi and some of their friends and had a great weekend of music.

Unfortunately a few of us had to leave the festival a day earlier because we had to start our adventure to Mayukwayukwa for the first Skillz VCT Tournament. We hired a big minibus, piled all our supplies (which took up the entire back half of the bus) and eleven people, and started off. After a long trek we finally reached Mayukwayukwa. We couldn’t stay at our usual UNHCR guesthouse because there were students from the University Teaching Hospital also in Mayukwayukwa at the same time doing some research and helping in the clinics. Instead we all stay at a house. Day One was full of meetings from 9am to 9pm meeting with all different people throughout the day to check on the progress of the tournament preparations. Unfortunately things were not quite in place the way we had hoped and the tasks that we had left with the committee hadn’t been done. We spent the next few days doing all the different things that were supposed to have been done before we arrived. One example is the goal posts. The tournament was a 7v7 tournament so special new smaller goal posts had to be built for the tournament. That meant going into the bush the day before the tournament, cutting down some trees of the correct size, and constructing goals out of them. It was a pretty cool site to see it all come together. There were also supposed to be tents arranged but we found out that it hadn’t been done either.

The day of the tournament was finally here! We started as early as we could in the morning with the final preparations at the field and signing in the volunteers (the coaches that we had trained and worked with all year were our volunteers) as well as giving them breakfast (some bread and Maheu, a thick drink made of corn that comes in all flavors). Then the teams started to arrive from all part of the camp. Eight teams participated, four from the league, two from the far part of the settlement called Shibanga, one from the hosting school, and one representing the churches (they had had a separate playoff between the interested church teams to decide which church team would play in the tournament). We partnered with the local Mayukwayukwa clinic as well as an outside group called Adolescent Reproductive Health Advocates to run the VCT for the day. The whole morning consisted of group play for the league. As teams waited their turn to play their matches they would participate in GRS Skillz activities with messages in HIV prevention, reproductive health, and behavior change. Alongside the field the VCT partners were available for anyone who wanted to go for HIV testing. We also had incentives available so each person who went for VCT and received their results got a 1kg bag of brown sugar. This was to encourage more people to come to the event and go for VCT. The testing was available all day to players, coaches, invited guests, and community members. We also set it up so that each team should bring 50 supporters who would be fed lunch. This was also to encourage more people to come to the event. In total we fed 600 people the typical Zambian cuisine of nshima, veggies, and meat. All of the meat actually came from one cow which we slaughtered the day before the tournament. Throughout the day we were entertained by four different cultural dance/musical groups from throughout the camp. There was one from Angola, Congo, Burundi, and a mixed Africa group. At the end of the tournament we played a special game of the GRS/BSA staff versus the medical students. The students were actually so helpful throughout the day helping with everything from drawing blood for testing to surveying to handing out AIDS ribbons. At the end of the day we estimated that about 3000 people were present for the event and 378 people went for VCT. Although we had a lot of bumps along the way before, during, and after overall we had a successful event.

The following Saturday (on Halloween) we had a similar VCT Tournament in Lusaka in a compound called Bauleni. It was the 2^nd VCT Tournament in Lusaka and 3^rd in Zambia. Because I was not part of any of the planning and just there to help the day of it felt so much less stressful for me. During the Mayukwayukwa VCT Tournament I was running around crazy all day but in this tournament I was just another helping hand. The tournament went well and we were even graced by a few famous Zambian performers (Michael Zulu, Sister D, The Third). By the end of the day over 700 people had gone for VCT. One unique thing about the VCT in this tournament was that one of the partners specializes in testing children under 16. In Zambia there is a law that anyone who want to go for VCT has to be over 16 years old unless they have a parent/guardian.

Two days later we were back on the road headed up to Solwezi for the VCT Tournament in Meheba. We spent the first day in town running around doing preparations and meeting with different people, organizations, and ministries. We had invited our Guest of Honor from the Ministry of Youth Sport and Child Development in Solwezi so we met with the ministry who suggested that we invited the Majorettes, a group of girl baton twirlers, to add to the entertainment of the event. The ministry was very excited to be invited and thought it was a great idea for an event. The next day we headed to Meheba to finalize the rest of the preparations. No matter how much work you do ahead of time there is still always so much to do. We felt much better going into this tournament because of our experiences with the previous one in Mayukwayukwa. Running these tournaments in the refugee settlement setting is much different than in Lusaka and we learned so much from the last one.

One difference with this tournament from the previous in Mayukwayukwa was that we had all the teams come to the school where the tournament was going to be held the night before to camp at the school. We did this because Meheba is a very big settlement and it can take hours to pick everyone up people from all the different zones around the settlement even with a big truck. We did this to ensure that if nothing else the tournament would start on time. The tournament was a coed tournament so each team had to have at least 2 girls on the field at a time so for the camping the girls had to be separated from the boys with a few coaches watching over to make sure there was no funny business going on. The morning of the tournament went smoothly. We learned a lot from our experience in Mayukwayukwa and were able to make some very helpful adjustments to this tournament. One bump along the way was that at around 11:00 it started to downpour. Everyone ran for cover except for the footballer who continued with their games. The heavy rains lasted for about an hour and then stopped. However, by that time the field was completely mud but this didn’t even slow down the tournament. Also at around 11:00 we found out that we had run out of the brown sugar incentives already and we could barely believe it. That meant that we had already tested about 450 people by 11:00. We quickly ran to the market to buy any sugar we could find and were able to get about 100 more packets. In the middle of the morning all of the teams went for mandatory group counseling, however VCT stands for Voluntary Counseling and Testing so after the teams went for group counseling they could decide as an individual if they wanted to continue and go for testing. We actually found that almost all of the players from the teams decided to go for testing. It was almost like it was the cool thing to do. By the end of the day a total of 690 people had gone for VCT which was an amazing number. Two really interesting facts about the people who went for testing was that 1) about half of them were going for VCT for the first time, and 2) about half of them were between the ages 10 to 24 years old (young people) which are both really great. I even had one young man come up to me and show me the six packets of brown sugar in his arms that he and his family had received when they all went for testing together (we somehow managed to communicate all of that without understanding each other’s languages). The rest of the tournament went on well. Again we were able to feed 600 people which really helped to attract people and make the whole idea of VCT a lot less scary.

All in all after so many months of planning the tournaments were finally over and were a big successes overall! We had so many people come up to us to say that the idea of a VCT Tournament is such a good idea for getting people to go for testing, especially in the refugee settlements. Everyone also really enjoyed themselves during the events. In total in just two days we tested over 1000 people, fed 600 people, and reached over 5000 people during the events.

When we finally came back from this tournament I should have taken the weekend to rest but instead I went on a weekend road trip with some of my roommates and my boss and her family. We drove about 7 hours north to a place called Kasanka National Park to watch the largest gathering and movement of mammals in the world. Can anyone guess which mammal I’m talking about? Fruit bats! For about two months out of the year (Oct + Nov) at dusk you can watch as between 5 and 10 million bats move from their roost/nest and go out into the dark in search of food. The bats literally cover the entire sky. These are big bats too, with wingspans of about 1 meter. It was truly an amazing sight to see!

Well I think that’s enough for now. Hopefully I can get some photos up soon. I am currently in the middle of our final trips to the settlements for the year and for the project. We are wrapping everything up and celebrating a job well done by the coaches. I can’t believe this year and project are coming to an end!

Hope all is well on that side and hope that everyone was able to enjoy Thanksgiving!

Lena

Hello everyone,

Wow, so I know it has been almost 3 months since my last email. Don’t worry I haven’t forgotten about you! You are all always on my mind. Everything has just been so super busy the last few months now that the UNHCR project is in full swing but things are going really well from this side!

Forman/Friedman Family Reunion - Before I get into that I will start off where my last email (from June) ended. I was lucky enough to have my whole family (mom, dad, bro) come and visit for just over two weeks. It was the first time for any of them to visit Africa or anywhere like Africa so not only were they getting to visit their wonderful daughter they were also about to have an amazing experience in a place very different from home. I must say, too, that I was very proud of them! I will just give a short run-down of our adventures in southern Africa…

We spent the first few days in Lusaka where they got to meet a lot of my friends, co-workers, and fellow interns and basically just see where I live. They also got to taste traditional Zambian cuisine (made up of nshima, meat, and vegetables). From there we took a 7-hour bus to Southern Province to go to Livingstone and see Victoria Falls. The Falls are really an incredible sight and we got soaked as we walked around from all the mist that the Falls produce (the name in the local language is Mosi-oa-Tunya which means ‘the smoke that thunders’ and the name really lives up to that during certain times of the year). While in Livingstone we went on a two day safari excursion across the border into Botswana and spent some time camping and on safari in Chobe National Park. We got to see all different animals (like hippos, elephants, crocodiles, birds, impala, kudu, lizard, lions, buffalo). One of highlights was when we watched a leopard in the middle of the day sitting in a tree scanning the area. The leopard was so beautiful and it is also very rare to see, especially during the day so we were very lucky. My second highlight was during our final drive we drove far from where we usually went around because our guide (Leonard, who was fantastic and a separate highlight) was determined to find some zebras for us because they are my mom’s favorite animal. We drove through a whole other area of the park and through this amazing field of monkeys and just as we were about to turn around because it was getting late we spotted 4 zebras moving across the land. It was a really great moment for all of us but I was especially happy that my mom was getting to see them!

After the safaris and some bargaining for crafts (of which my mom was very impressed with my skillz) we took a flight down to Cape Town, South Africa where we toured around for about four days. Some of our activities included taking the cable car to the top of Table Mountain, visiting Robben Island where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners were kept during apartheid, going to the Botanical Gardens, stopping by the Grassroot Soccer Cape Town office, visiting various parts of the city, and eating lots of good food. Cape Town is a great city and it’s interesting to visit it and see how different it is from places like Lusaka. After Cape Town we headed back to Lusaka for some final days before they headed home. While in Lusaka we actually got to attend part of a GRS Training of Coaches of which I was glad because my family was able to see a bit more of the work that we do and help them understand the program better. We also took a minibus into town one day (which my dad absolutely loved) and went to the National Museum. I also took them into one of the busy busy African markets in the heart of town where you can literally find anything you want from meat to fabric to shoes to q-tips and my mom was able to get a lot of chitenge fabric.

Like I said our trip was so great! My family really got a chance to see a lot of different sides of Africa from the NGO-workers lifestyle to the lower class compound life in Zambia to the countryside with dirt huts along side the road during our bus ride to one of the top natural wonders in the world (Victoria Falls) to seeing lions, leopards, and zebras to Cape Town which included seeing the construction of one of the World Cup stadiums to my own house where they can now picture me when I’m taking to them to meeting a lot of wonderful Zambians. And as they now know, you really can’t accurately describe your experience unless you experience it yourself and I’m so glad that they got a taste of my life here and now understand why I enjoy myself so much!

Interns and My Position – Well, just a few days after my family left, it was also time for my partner-in-crime and one of my best friends to head home as well. Stuart, my fellow intern who I had been here with since Day 1, had finished his time here as an intern and was going back to Montana and Chicago to start the next chapter in his life. I was so sad to see him go as we had become so close over those 10 months together literally doing everything together and always having each other as support during the tough times. He is honestly one of the top highlights and reasons that my experience in Zambia has been as amazing as it has been. He was my friend, fellow intern, co-worker, housemate, teammate, dance-mate, fellow chef, fellow complainer, fellow philosopher, fellow HIV fighter, and so much more. He’s been gone about two months now and I keep thinking that someday he’ll just show up coming down our dirt road (but that’s just wishful thinking). He is greatly missed by everyone here and is talked about often. I am very much looking forward to our reunion someday (soon hopefully) back in the US.

After that it was just me and Tommy for a while but we were joined a month ago by 3 new interns who will be here for the next year which is great. Two of them went to Dartmouth and one went to Brown. We will also be joined by another intern next month who will also stay for the year. Our house went from having 2-3 people to having 5-6 people. It’s taken some getting used to but it’s fun having people around and they’re great.

Lastly, as of August 1st I am no longer an intern but now a ‘GRS fellow’ which will be my position until the end of January 2010. Very exciting.

Refugee Project – So the last time I wrote I had just returned from running Training of Coaches workshops in each of the settlements. Since then I’ve been back to each of the settlements twice (about once a month to each settlement). The first was a follow up visit to check and see how everyone was coming along with their programs since our training. During this trip we collectively went to about 10 graduations and watched about 400 kids graduate through the program. On our second visit we actually ran a 3-day Refresher Course to review a lot of what we talked about in the Training of Coaches as well as talk about some other things. As of now we’ve graduated about 800 kids between both settlements which is really great!

Our coaches are doing a great job and seem to be really enjoying the program. They say that they really feel like it is making a positive impact in their communities. Also Grassroot Soccer and Skillz (the name of our curriculum) name has definitely made a brand name for itself. Whenever we arrive and are just walking around kids always yell things like “Skillz!” or “Kilo!” or other Grassroot Soccer lingo to us as we pass. A lot of kids somehow know my name and so whenever I’m outside I always hear my name being called from all directions. I feel like a celebrity haha.

We have lost of few of our coaches to repatriation aka they have gone back to their home country (mostly Angola). One of our coaches from Mayukwayukwa actually left the day after we left. We got to be apart of her graduation with her kids just a few days before which was really great and we were glad she could finish out her program before she left. We have also started to hear some of the stories of some of our coaches and why and how they came to Zambia. The stories are just unreal, like what you read about in books or in the newspaper, and everyone has their own story to tell. Everyone has also been affected by HIV in someway on top of it all, whether it was a sibling, parent, aunt/uncle, cousin who has died from AIDS.

We did an activity during one of our trips called Most Significant Story where we asked the coaches a question and they each had to come up with a personal story/experience answering that question and then as a group we choose the story that is “most significant” or shows the most impact of the program. The question we posed was “Since being trained as a GRS coach three months ago, what is the most significant change you have seen in the behaviors and attitudes of the kids you coached?”. This story is the one that was chosen from Meheba:

Most Significant Story Since I Became a GRS Coach by Kamonji Konko

In Kamonji’s community sometimes boys are in the habit of following girls to their homes at night when the parents are asleep. Sometimes boys and girls take alcohol and drugs which leads them to bad behaviors. As for girls sometimes they accept gifts from sugar daddies* because they want to look nice. (*sugar daddy = an older man who gives a young girl gifts in exchange for favors; sugar mommies are also possible just less common)

When Kamonji started coaching for Grassroot Soccer, he had both boys and girls who were interested in finding out what Kamonji was coaching about. After the first graduation, there was a girl who had been apart of his group who was on her way to Solwezi (the nearby main town) being driven by her sugar daddy. On their way out of the settlement their car was in an accident and overturned. The girl was taken to the local clinic which was near where Kamonji stays. Some people came by his house and told him that there was someone at the clinic who wanted to see him. He did not know who it was that wanted to see him but he went with the people to the clinic. When he reached the clinic he found a lot of people outside who he knew and when he entered the room they followed him in. That was when he saw the girl who he has coached. The nurse wanted to send her to the general hospital but she refused to go until she spoke with Mr. Konko (Kamonji). When she saw Kamonji enter the room she started crying and said, “Coach, please forgive me as if I did not know what you were coaching me. Today I have found myself at risk of going out with a sugar daddy. And as a result of me not following what you taught us it is what I’m dying from. Please continue teaching with the same spirit because it is helping us.”

One day Kamonji was at home late in the evening. He heard a knock on his door that he did not recognize. He was annoyed by the disturbance because it was late at night but when he went to the door to see who is was. At the door he found one of the boys he had trained during his second Skillz intervention and he was very drunk. The boy said to Kamonji, “Please don’t be annoyed with me. I am drunk. Please allow me to explain something to you. I was with my friend drinking beer and we saw a girl passing. Me and my friend decided to follow her. On the way something came into my mind, ‘I’m taking a risk because I am drunk’. When I think of that I even remember all the activities that you had been teaching me. I realized the action I wanted to take would lead me to high risk. That’s why I have run away from my friend. That’s why I’m telling you that you are a coach and continue coaching so we can know more about HIV.”

These two events have made Kamonji feel very proud of the GRS activities because young boys and girls are able to realize when they are about to make a mistake and are able to take a different step to change their action. All GRS coaches should take these as serious activities because they may seem that they are not helping but they really are helping.

It’s pretty amazing to hear stories like Kamonji’s because it really helps to show the impact that GRS is having on a young person’s life and in changing their behavior.

A very exciting development that has happened very recently for our program. We have been trying very hard to get some bicycles for our project to give to our Local Programme Coordinators (LPCs). LPC are 2 coaches who we’ve chosen from each settlement to help oversee the project while we are not within camp. They help other coaches when needed with their interventions, assist with graduations, and keep us updated with how programs are going while we aren’t there. The issue, however, is that the settlements are so big that it can take you all day to walk from one end to the other. So we’ve been trying hard to get some funding to buy our LPCs some bicycles and we were finally successful! Globalbike has raises money and donated it to us to buy our LPCs some bicycles. This is HUGE for the LPCs because bicycles are so handy in the settlements and will make doing their responsibilities for GRS so much easier.

You can check out a short write-up about this on the GRS website (http://www.grassrootsoccer.org/2009/09/08/globalbike-makes-work-easier-for-grassroot-soccer-in-zambia/). A new updated version of the GRS website has just been launched and it is definitely worth checking out. It has so much more good information about GRS than the old site and is really interesting to see all the different programs and projects happening all over the world.

Lastly, I want to use this email to acknowledge and spread the word about what a few others are doing. Firstly, you should vote for Ethan Zohn (co-founder of GRS and fellow Lexingtonian) who is one of the top five finalists in GQ’s Better Men Better World Search (http://www.grassrootsoccer.org/2009/09/14/ethangq/). Secondly, my friend Matt Lopez will be running in the upcoming New York Marathon and has joined the Grassroot Soccer team to help raise money GRS (http://www.grassrootsoccer.org/join-the-team/marathon/matthewlopez/). He has reached just over half his fundraising goal so far so you should help him go all the way. Thirdly, some founder friends of mine (Abrami, (e)Rica, Jeanie, Caliendo) have just begun a “Voyage of Discovery” where they will be biking from the east coast to the west coast of the US over the next few months to raise money for the Merrowvista Scholarship Fund. (Merrowvista is the amazing summer camp where I spent 5 wonderful summers of my life as a camper and staff member). You can donate to their cause (http://www.active.com/donate/ayftour) or check out their travel blog (http://avoyageofdiscovery.wordpress.com/). Anyway, I just wanted to highlight some of the other good works that some of my friends are making happen around the world.

I am headed out on my next trip in a few days. Hopefully my next update email won’t take me so long to write and send out!! I’d love to hear from ya’ll and what you’re up to so feel free to drop me a line. I’ve been in Africa for over a year now and been in Zambia for 11.5 months! Pretty crazy huh! Oh and congrats to my cousin Deb who just gave birth to the cutest baby boy Jake! Can’t wait to meet him some day! wedding

Well, keep on truckin’ from your end and I’ll keep on truckin’ from mine!

Lena

Hello everyone!

How are you doing? I know it’s been a loooooong time since my last update. Life has been very very busy and I’ve been out of town for a lot of it. Since I last sent an update three major event have happened, the VCT Tournament and a Training of Coaches in each of the refugee camps…

VCT Tournament – I know I described what this is in my last email but in short a VCT Tournament is a soccer tournament that incorporates VCT (Voluntary Counseling and Testing) and Grassroot Soccer activities. After months of preparation the tournament was finally upon us. The afternoon before the tournament Stuart and Tommy (my roommates) with the help of Stuart’s brother who was visiting went to the grounds in a compound called Kalingalinga to set up tents before the big day. However, while they were setting up there was randomly a freak hailstorm that started right as they had finished and they had to quickly take all the tents down before they were ruined. All we could do was hope that it wasn’t a sign as to how the next day was going to go…

The tournament was a full-day event with teams from different parts of the city who were invited to participate. The teams were all coed with players around the age of 16 years old. One of the teams that was in attendance was the girls team (Go Girl Go) from Chikumbuso Womens’ and Orphans’ Center that me and some of the other ladies in the office had helped to start just a few months earlier. We were so proud to see them there participating in their first tournament and first real games. The set up of the tournament was that teams would play a match within their bracket and then immediately after go to a space behind the field where they would participate in a Grassroot Soccer activity. By the end of the day everyone had played everyone within their bracket and had also participated in three GRS activities. At the far end of the field we had testing partners who had individual tents set up where they would do VCT with anyone who was interested (players, coaches, community members, etc). We had about 10 tents set up available for VCT. We also had service and treatment partners available on site to answer any questions and be available to be referred to for those who tested HIV+. In the middle of the day all the teams went for group counseling as a team (not for testing but they could choose to if they wanted to). We had about 40 of our peer educators who had volunteered to help out with the event doing everything from registration to helping with food to helping the tournament run smoothly to facilitating GRS activities. It was so great to see all of our peer educators from all over town and from different projects come together to make this a successful event because we couldn’t have done it without all of their help. Also while this was going on we had music playing all day as well as some performances by a dance/drama group who is a partner of ours called Barefeet who did some traditional dancing. We also had performances by some local musicians which helped to draw attention as well. Before the tournament two of our staff were on the local news programs talking about the tournament to help spread the word.

Overall, it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever been apart of. The tournament went so well. Of course there were a few hiccups (like the hail storm) but nothing major. At the end of the day 573 people had tested for HIV and a total of 41 were found positive (~7%) 37 of which were referred for treatment and about 2000 people in total were in attendance and exposed to the tournament. That’s an amazing amount of people to get tested during a one day event. One important reason to have this kind of tournament is to help reduce stigma around VCT and HIV because there is a lot that surrounds it. I think the fact that 573 people were tested at this event shows that the knowledge is out there as to the importance of getting tested and that the stigma is reduced around doing it.

Mayukwayukwa ToC - The whole next week was focused on getting ready for our next trip to Mayukwayukwa for the Training of Coaches. We were holding two simultaneous trainings, one for those who would be trained at Grassroot Soccer coaches and the other for those being trained as soccer coaches under Breakthrough Sports Academy. We were all supposed to leave early to make the final preparations at the camp but in the end me and a couple others stayed behind and went up a few days after the others. I still had so much to do to finish preparations for the trip but we also needed some guys to go ahead to make sure we were all set for the training in camp (venue, food, participants, etc). We also had a colleague who works in South Africa (a fellow intern of mine) come up to help us with the training. The reason we had him come help us was because we have recently launched a new GRS curriculum called Skillz and we haven’t been fully trained in this new program so we needed him to help teach and guide us. It was really great to have him join us because he was trained with me as an intern at the same time back in September when I was in Cape Town and I haven’t seen him since then so it was great to have him around.

I was lucky enough to get a ride in a UNHCR vehicle going straight from Lusaka to Mayukwayukwa with some doctors (usually we have to take a coach bus then stay overnight and then go into camp the next day) and arrived in camp Sunday afternoon. I couldn’t find my guys when I got to camp so me and the doctors walked to the nearby soccer field that I had played at the last time I was there. When we got there we found that the field was completely crowded with people and a huge match was taking place. Then all of a sudden I heard someone yelling “Tika! Tika!” (short for my Zambian name Tikambenji) and saw two of my colleagues running toward me. It was so good to see them (even though it had only been a few days since I had last seen them) and they said they missed me in camp and were glad I had finally arrived. I asked what the game was that was going on and they told me that it was a select team from Mayukwayukwa versus a select team from a nearby village. One of our colleges from Breakthrough Sports Academy was playing with the Mayukwayukwa team and another one was actually reffing the game. The field was so crowded with people!. It was such an exciting event to find myself arriving to. I had some people come up to me who I had met the previous trip with huge smiles on their faces including some of the people who we were going to be training. They said they’ve been waiting and waiting for us to come back because they were excited to get started. That made us very happy to hear!

Finally it was time for the Training of Coaches (ToC) to begin. With this new Skillz curriculum we are supposed to run a 4-day training but we decided to extend it to stretch for 5 days because we were going to need translation for everything and wanted to account for that in our time. We had one of our participants translating everything into Portuguese (and back to English) and we were able to cover everyone in attendance in terms of language. Everyone could either speak/understand English or Portuguese with the exception of one person who was best in Umbundu (an Angolan language) but could understand some English.

So what is it exactly that we do during our week-long training? The Skillz curriculum is a program with 8 ‘practices’ or sessions and within each session there are different activities. A big part of what we do during the first half of the week is teach the coaches how to facilitate the practices with all the different activities involved. Then in the second half of the week we have them teach the activities back to us for practice and it’s also an opportunity for the group to give them feedback as facilitators and fellow coaches. These are the activities that the coaches will do with the kids when they start running programs.

The other part of the training involves sessions on good facilitation techniques, how to be a ‘caring coach’, HIV information, how to create a ‘safe space’, how to facilitate a ‘vital conversation’, and how to give good praise. I won’t go into detail about all of them but I do want to tell you about the first two because I think they are really interesting.

Caring Coach – Grassroot Soccer did a study last year which involved going to Zimbabwe where GRS was start in 2003 and found the youths who were involved in the very first programs ever run (or at least as many as possible). They participated in a study to measure their HIV knowledge and behavior 5 years after going through the original GRS program. They also asked participants who weren’t apart of the program the same questions to better measure the answers of the GRS group. They found that 5 years later there was no difference in the amount of HIV knowledge in both groups. However, those who participated in GRS had a later sexual debut and fewer sexual partners. The two reasons for this was that they had increased belief in their ability to avoid HIV and that they had formed a relationship with a coach, in other words they felt that had a caring adult relationship in their life. These youth knew the information about HIV but they were actually able to change their behavior compared to those of their peers. That is ultimately the goal of the GRS program, behavior change, because that is what will stop the spread of HIV. Having the knowledge is not enough; you have to be willing to act on what you know.

HIV Information – One of the big questions that we try to tackle during the week is ‘why is HIV such a big problem in southern Africa?’. We ask the participants to come up with a list of why they think HIV is such a big problem in southern Africa. Usually the list includes things like poverty, ignorance, prostitution, lack of education, traditional beliefs, and promiscuity. We then go down the list and talk about how there is poverty in other parts of the world but the HIV prevalence rate isn’t as high in those other countries. In terms of ignorance and lack of education, there are billboard everywhere about HIV, everyone has learned about it in school or on the radio or TV or at the clinic. Southern Africa is very sensitized around HIV and AIDS. Prostitution…there is prostitution everywhere in the world. Promiscuity…it was actually found that Europeans and American have more sexual partners in their lifetime than southern Africans. So what is it that makes the rate so high specifically in southern Africa? All of these factors definitely have an impact but there has to be something else. Then we introduce something called MCP, or Multiple Concurrent Partnerships. This is the idea of having more than one long-term concurrent (at the same time) relationship. For example a guy who has a wife and two girlfriends at the same time. Now, often when people are in long-term relationships after a while they start to trust each other and have unprotected sex (sex without a condom) and there can even be stigma around using a condom because it means you don’t trust your partner.

Now see if you can follow me…when you first contract HIV, in the first 6-8 weeks your viral count in your body is very high because your body hasn’t figured out how to start to defend itself against the virus yet so it multiplies very quickly. In this time you show no symptoms at all and have no way of knowing you have HIV. Even if you go for an HIV test your test will come out negative during this period because the test checks for the antibody that fights HIV, not the virus itself. In this time your body has not been able to produce enough HIV antibodies to be detected in a test. This is the Danger Zone. After 8-12 weeks your body has had time to produce the antibodies to fight HIV and if you go for a test it will detect the antibodies and your viral count drops dramatically and can stay low for a long time (depending on other factors like nutrition and medicine). However in this 6-8 week period since your viral count is so high you are 40 times more likely to spread the virus. Sooo back to our example, if we have a man who has a wife and two girlfriends (GF1 and GF2), let’s pretend GF1 contracts HIV. She then has unprotected sex with her married boyfriend within a week or two and since her viral count is very high she gives him HIV. Now the man has HIV and has unprotected sex with his wife and GF2 within a couple weeks. Since he just contracted HIV his viral count is very high and it is almost guaranteed (40x more likely) that he will pass it on to these women. Now let’s say GF2 also has another boyfriend (a concurrent relationship) besides this married man, the process continues. Now the wife to the original man could be 100% faithful to her husband but since he isn’t faithful to one partner but rather faithful to three partners the wife finds herself infected with HIV. Basically what happens is that there is superhighway that is formed for HIV to spread very quickly. The difference is that in places like the US and Europe, although people may have more sexual partners in their lifetime than Africans, the majority are in serial monogamous relationships which means that they may have one long-term partner at a time and then end that relationship and switch partners. Even if someone within one of these relationships contracts HIV it is likely that they will still be with their one partner while their viral load is very high and still with that one partner 8 weeks later when it has decreased. Even if they switch partners a few months later it is a lot less likely that the HIV+ person will pass the virus to their new partner because their body has had time to fight the virus.

Wow, okay I know that was A LOT to try to follow (it’s much easier to explain with diagrams) but I hope that made sense. It’s really interesting and really helps to explain why HIV is such a huge problem here in southern Africa as opposed to other parts of the world. Anyway, it’s amazing to literally watch people’s faces when they start to understand the concept that you are talking about because they know that Multiple Concurrent Partnerships (MCP) take place but they had never put a name to it or thought of it as the main factor contributing to the high HIV prevalence rate in southern Africa. However, after the discussion and questions they really see that it makes sense.

So, those are some of the topics that we talk about during our ToC. We had a lot of fun throughout the week and trained 19 GRS coaches in Mayukwayukwa which was great!

Meheba ToC – Okay I won’t go into much detail about this ToC because the layout of the ToC was the same as the one in Mayukwayukwa. We got permission from the headmaster at the basic school (elementary school) across the road from where we were staying to use two of their classrooms to run our trainings which was great. The headmaster was so friendly when we talked to him and so willing to help us out. The training was really fun and we had a great group of newly trained coaches ready and excited to implement the program. I even got a call from one of them today to tell me that programs have started which is great to hear. This time the majority of those we trained were Congolese and instead of translating to Portuguese like Mayukwayukwa we had translation into a French/Swahili combination. Meheba is huge in terms of physical size so we had a vehicle drive to specific areas around camp each morning to pick people up because it could have literally taken hours for some people to reach training location even though it was in a pretty central location. We trained a total of 21 coaches by the end of the week and can’t wait to go back in a month to follow up and see how programs are going.

Overall the ToC experiences in each camp were amazing and unique. We worked really hard but had so much fun. I could feel myself getting more comfortable and confident in facilitating throughout the weeks and by the second workshop was even running some sessions that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to run. Now that our coaches have been trained the rest of the project will consist of them running interventions with groups of youths and us checking in with them to provide support and do any additional training.

On a sad note, last week the elder sister of my workmate Peter died suddenly. He said in the morning she had been perfectly fine and had even woken him up to go to work. In the afternoon he got a call saying that she was really sick and needed to go to the hospital. Peter and some other family members took her to a government hospital but last week government workers, specifically government teachers and government doctors, went on strike so since last week government schools have been closed as well as government hospitals. They are on strike from the government for higher pay. So Peter took his sister to a government hospital which wasn’t admitting people but he pleaded and pleaded and eventually they admitted her. However, since the hospital workers were on strike there wasn’t adequate care at that hospital so a few of the family members went to a private clinic to see if they could move her there. The private clinic refused to accept her because she was hooked up to meds at the hospital and they felt it was too dangerous to move her. The pleaded and pleaded but the clinic wouldn’t accept. They tried the same with another private clinic but they also said the same thing. In the end there was nothing left for them to do and she passed away. He told me she died from malaria. It was so sad to hear him tell me this story and how in the end they basically had to give up.

Wow, right, so that email super long! It’s been a long time since I wrote and I think I got a bit carried away. Anyway, on a very exciting note, as I am sending this email my family (mom, dad, brother) are in flight on their way to come visit me!! I’m so excited as I have not seen them or anyone else from home in nine months. I can’t wait to show them around and let them experience some of what my life has been like for the last nine months.

Thanks again for reading and staying interested in what I’ve been doing. Like I said I always want to know what’s going on in your lives so please keep me updated!!

Usale bwino,

Lena

Muli bwanji!

Well we did it! We finally made our first of many trips to the refugee camps that we’ve been waiting so long for! Just a quick recap of the project for those of you who don’t quite remember...I am working on a project that is being funded by UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and we are working in two separate refugee camps in Zambia. One camp is called Mayukwayukwa located in Western Province and the other is Meheba located in NorthWestern Province. We will be training people to be Grassroot Soccer coaches and teach HIV/AIDS education and our partner Breakthrough Sports Academy will be training people how to be good soccer coaches, establish leagues, and run tournaments.

It was really exciting to finally be on the bus headed for the first camp (Mayukwayukwa)! I actually went a few days earlier with one of my roommates Tommy to the main town in Western Province called Mongu to attend a traditional Lozi ceremony called Kuomboka (Lozi is one of the tribes in western Zambia). Kuomboka means “to get out of water” in the Lozi language and basically it’s a ceremony in which the Lozi chief/king called the Litunga moves from his home in the floodplain to higher ground. The ceremony begins early in the morning when the Litunga and his family load onto boats with their belongings and a full day of traveling through the floodplains begins. Tommy and I spent the day hanging out at the end of the route (near the Litunga’s higher ground home) to see his arrival. There are many different boats that travel alongside the Litunga who has his own boat at the front with a huge elephant structure on time and 100 royal paddlers paddling the boat all in sync to a big drum on board and dressed in special attire. Red is the color of the Lozi people and most of the men there watching the ceremony had special red hats on (including Tommy). We thought they looked pretty funny though because they looked like red hairnets that you would wear if you were working in a kitchen. Later that night we also watched one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen at the harbor overlooking the floodplains.

Finally it was time to head to camp. Since this project is funded by UNHCR and they have vehicles that go from town to the settlement two to three times per week we get rides from them into and out of camp. It seemed so official being driven in an UN vehicle. The first part was from Mongu down a main paved road where you really felt like you were heading out of town and into rural areas. Then after about an hour we turned off onto what looked like any other dirt road where we drove for another hour to get to Mayukwayukwa. It is really in the African bush! Driving down the road was really beautiful. The road was a red dirt road and we were surrounded by green vegetation. There is a lot of farming that is done in these parts because each plot in the settlement is given 2.5 hectares for growing.

The purpose of our first trip to camp was to do a site assessment. A similar project had been done about three years ago so on this first trip we wanted to try to find those who were apart of the project the previous time (if they hadn’t repatriated to their home countries) and talk with them about the previous project and see if they were interested in being retrained with our newest curriculum as well as identify new people to get trained. During our second trip we will run our TOC (Training Of Coaches) so we also had to make necessary preparations during the first trip.

We arrived in camp in the afternoon and got started. Within camp there are a few government ministries who are helping to maintain the camp. We started off by meeting with the Refugee Officer who oversees the entire camp and well as someone from the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services in order to introduce ourselves and our project. The last thing you want is to start a project without the support and blessing of the government officials overseeing the settlement. We found out that there are currently about 10,500 people living within Mayukwayukwa. The majority (about 10,000) are from Angola and the rest are from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, and one person from Sudan. Because of this most people speak Portuguese (the official language of Angola) as well as many other local languages from different countries although most people speak English as well. After our meeting it was getting too late to start to try to find people so we decided to go for a walk. There is no cell phone network within camp so the only way to find people is by word of mouth and it is a big place with a lot of people. As we were walking we came across a soccer field with a game going on so we decided to join in. The guys who were playing thought it was pretty funny to see me out there playing because not only was I the only female but I was also the only muzungu (white person). It was an interesting game to play in because you could tell the guys were from all different countries because of the different languages and accents and physical appearances. After playing we walked back through a small market and a man came up to us and introduced himself. It turns out that he saw the shirt of one of my colleagues earlier in the day which was written Grassroot Soccer and this man had been one of the guys we had trained in the previous project and not only that, he was also what we called a Local Program Coordinator (LPC). Basically he was one of the people who oversaw our program within camp and he was one of the people whose name we had from the last project and were planning on trying to find him the next day. Turns out he found us first! He said he would come over the next morning so that we could talk. Also in the market another man found us who was also an LPC last time but for the soccer league. When we went back to place we were staying the man from the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services who we had met earlier came over to tell us that he had gone out and found a bunch of people who had participated last time and they were all planning on coming over the next morning. We were all so happy and excited because we were worried that it would be difficult to try to track people down but we had only been in camp for a few hours and already word had spread that we were there and a meeting had already been planned for the next morning.

The next morning we held a meeting to discuss who we were, why we were back in camp, what our plan was for this new project, as well as run a feedback session to learn from the previous project and give people a chance to say if they have any new ideas for the program. We were amazed to find that we had 45 people at our meeting! Not all of them were people who were trained in GRS or BSA (Breakthrough Sports Academy) last time but we also had many new people who were interested to being trained which is exactly what we were looking for. The meeting went really well (and really long, 2.5 hours) but we learned a lot from each other and had a meeting again the next day to finalize some plans as well as finalize a list of those who will be trained during our next trip. We had someone help us translate into Portuguese some people didn’t speak any English which is part of why the meeting was so long. We plan to train 20 people for Grassroot Soccer and 30 people for Breakthrough Sports Academy. During the feedback session we had a long discussion about volunteerism because our GRS program is not a job, it’s a volunteer position. This is how all of our programs work. However, most of the people we train as peer educators do not have a job or any source of steady income. So what we give a transport stipend to our coaches each time they have an intervention so that they can get on a minibus to get to their program without having to spend any of their own money to get there. However, it usually doesn’t cost them the entire amount they receive in their transport stipend to get to their location (they may even be able to walk there if is it at a school near by) so they will end up having some extra money of their own. However, in the camp we don’t do this because there is no kind of transportation around camp besides bicycles and footing (walking). However we still do no provide an ‘income’ to those who are trained. This is an issue that always comes up because at the end of the day regardless of how much people want to help others (ex. teaching about HIV/AIDS to youth) they still need to feed themselves and their families. Everyone who wants to be apart of the program knows that this isn’t employment and they aren’t expecting to get paid so instead they ask for some incentives to keep them motivated to continue. This is something that we always try to work with but are often limited by our budget. An example is giving a t-shirt with the project on it (always a necessity!) and the materials needed to run the program. Beyond that though there isn’t always much. So of course this was a topic that came up during our feedback and we were able to hear everyone’s side as well as present our own.

In the end it was a very successful site assessment and we felt that we had all the information that we needed in order to go back to Lusaka and plan for our next trip.

Just two days after returning from Mayukwayukwa we were headed to the North Western Province to go to Meheba. The main town is Solwezi and again the settlement was about a 1.5-2 hours drive from Solwezi. Meheba is a huge huge settlement! It is 720 sq km or 450 sq miles. It is divided into 8 blocks each with its own basic school (elementary school) and one high school for the whole settlement. Just six years ago the population of the settlement was 47,600 people but now it is 16,000 people because many people have repatriated. The current population is about 9000 from Angola, 3000 from Congo, 3000 from Rwanda, and the rest from Burundi, Uganda, Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Namibia, and Zimbabwe. So there are a lot more languages here and we found that the majority of people speak English. We stayed with the only NGO in camp called FORGE which is an American-run NGO that runs different projects within camp. There were two American girls living there running the program. Meheba has no electricity but some people (including the FORGE compound) have solar panels. During the day there is some electricity but at night there was a battery that would charge during the day and would provide some electricity into part of the night. We would have some light for a while but eventually it would run out and we would light some candles and hang out.

Luckily within Meheba there is cell phone network so even though the settlement is so big you are able to reach people by phone if you need to. Our plan and goals for this trip were the same as in Mayukwayukwa. We spent the first day trying to find people as well as recruit some more. Again we met with the Refugee Officer and someone from the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services. I spent one afternoon on the back of a motorcycle (don’t worry, I had a helmet on) traveling around to different blocks trying to find some people who we had heard about to tell them about the program and the meeting that we would be having the next day. It was quite an adventure and I really got to see just how big the settlement is. Just walking from one block to one right next to it could take 1.5 hours! Even on the back of a motorcycle it took a long time. It was really amazing though riding through the bush (and when I say the bush I mean the bush!). Again the next day we held a similar meeting to talk about who we were, why we were there, this new project, and listen to feedback from the previous project. In the end we were able to identify the people who we will be training when we return.

Overall the trips went really well! It was also really nice to just get out of the city of Lusaka because I never leave Lusaka. I know this city so well because we have to travel all over it for our programs but the minute you leave city limits I am in unknown territory (and Zambia is a big country!). The bus rides were long but also a great chance to see the country side and pass through other towns and cities. We are now back in Lusaka planning for our training workshops which we will run in each camp within the next few weeks. We have to make sure that we are 100% prepared for the workshop (or as close as possible) because once we’re in camp we’re in for good. There’s no checking your email or making photocopies etc.

On another note, we have a huge event coming up in Lusaka next weekend called a VCT Tournament. So while my colleague Lazarous and I have been away at the camps, the rest of our Zambia team has been working hard to prepare for this big event. I may have explained this once before in a previous email but basically a VCT Tournament is a full day soccer tournament with local youth teams playing soccer games and participating in some Grassroot Soccer activities. There is also going to be VCT available (Voluntary Counseling and Testing)to players (if they are over 16 years old or are with a guardian…Zambian law says you must be over 16 years old to go for VCT without guardian) as well as community members who come to watch. It is a big event with local musicians performing all day, a dance and drama group performing, some speeches by local dignitaries, and some big sponsors with their names everywhere. It is a week from today and we are all very excited about it because everyone’s been working really hard to put it together. I’ll make sure to send out an email about it after to let everyone know how it goes.

Well, wow, that was a looooong email. Thanks for finishing (if you were able to make it all the way through)! Hope you are all doing well and hope to hear some updates from your side soon!!

usale bwino (stay well),

Lena
aka Tikambenji
aka Alpha 1
aka da Refugee