Back From the Dead

                What to mention, what to discuss, what names to drop, what themes to elaborate, etc.  These are my questions writing this blog post while in the back of a car driving from Durban to Johannesburg. I've finally dedicated some time (yes this six hour car ride) to completing the daunting task of updating my blog after two months of inactivity. It's not that I don't enjoy writing, or explaining my life on the internet machine, but rather that I'm a hell of a procrastinator.  That being said, I've always enjoyed the argument "well, my best work comes from being under pressure". Ha.

                But I digress (isn't that a fun way to sound witty?). The last two months have been full of work, travel, orphans, and cats.  So in order to sufficiently explain what has happened I figure I should touch base on each of these.

                Work has been up and down. As I've mentioned before I've been tasked with running the ReCYCLE program at Kick4Life and much of the month of November was down. Early in the month we discovered a bit of a cash flow issue, which in the world of non-profit work is a complete bitch.  Most often there IS money available; however, since it is money in the form of grants from a donor it is very restricted to specific, targeted aspects of the non-profit work (i.e. when a donor gives money to us, we rarely have free-reign to spend as we wish).  Of course any donation, designated or not, is highly appreciated, but, at the same time, it does limit the abilities of what it can be used for. In a way, in short, without exposing too many sensitive details, this is what happened in my program. Because of this, the month of November was a grind. Our participants were, understandably, frustrated, and even question Kick4Life's ethics. It sucked. But, as my grandfather always said "I don't have problems, only opportunities." And surely enough an opportunity presented itself.

                One Thursday night, while playing poker with some fellow ex-pats, one of my friends, who works for the US Embassy in Maseru and is in charge of grants (name-dropping, told you I'd do it) mentioned a grant that is available through PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Some--brief--background info.: PEPFAR was actually established by president George W. Bush and is certainly, in numerous opinions, his greatest success. It's an extraordinary grant program, which you, the tax-payers, support. Any who, this grant is available to programs that either A) provide HIV/AIDS medical support to the community, or B) supports OVCs in the form of small business start-ups. BOOM. The ReCYCLE program is exactly option B. This grant was tailored for us.  Didn't I mention something in a post before about not believing in coincidences?  So we applied for it.

                The application process was strenuous, but the reward would be well worth it--the grant would be worth anywhere from R5000 to R50000 ($500-$5000), depending on what your program required.  The next day my friend sent me the application, which was due on November 14th. That day was November 9th. In order to complete the application we would have to get two to three quotations from vendors for each and every expense we planned to incur with the grant, and submit them with the application. Therefore Monday and Tuesday we spent running around Maseru looking for quotations for equipment, advertising, parts, etc; anything we could use for the program. And when we couldn't find them in Maseru we made the trek across the border and into Bloemfontein, SA, which is the closest South African city, about 1.5 hours away. One of my favorite quotations we collected was for a washing machine. Finally by the 13th we had the application completed, and all that was left was to print out all of the documents and bring them to the embassy on the 14th. Of course the printer crapped the bed on the 14th. Luckily my friend said that we could scan and e-mail all of the documents to him in a soft copy. So finally, by 8 PM on the 14th, the application was submitted.

                The days and weeks of November came and went, and slowly but surely the headache of the cash flow problem dissipated. Time works wonders. Finally in December I received an e-mail from my friend, congratulating us on being accepted and approved to receive the PEPFAR grant, approximately R45000 in total! I wanted to shout, dance, and kiss every co-worker in the room, but I quickly realized that this was only one step. As I mentioned before, donors are very specific and results-driven. Over the next year I will have to monitor, record, document, and evaluate every purchase that we make and the results we achieve with the money. But, for now, we have a huge source of money we can rely on, and breathe a little easier...

                Since my last post I have traveled to Cape Town (twice), Kimberley, Semonkong (twice), and Marakabei. My first trip to Cape Town was for a music festival called Rocking the Daisies. Eight of us rented a mini bus and road tripped the entire twelve hours there and back. I'd love to go into details about the road trip, and the festival itself, but those are probably better reserved for a different audience... For Halloween my roommate and I met up with fellow GRS interns in Kimberley, which is about 3 hours away from us. Good times, good people, good atmosphere, but again I won't go into all of the--mildly--inappropriate details... Semonkong is a tiny village high in the Maluti mountains of Lesotho and is far and away my favorite place I've had the privilege of venturing to since arriving in Africa. But I'll talk about this in more detail in the next paragraph... Marakabei is a village, also in the Maluti Mountains, situated between the Mohale and Katse dams. Sorry to disappoint, again, but I'll talk about this in my next blog post because technically it is part of my holiday travel, which I'm currently engaged in.

                So what is left to talk about? Ahh yes, the second road trip to Cape Town over Thanksgiving. Originally our group of interns decided that we would meet in Port Elizabeth to celebrate the greatest holiday EVER, which isn't up for debate, but soon we were told we couldn't do this. Now that may sound like a disappointment, but it wasn't.  GRS told us that we would have to go to Cape Town, where global headquarters is, for an intern reunion/seminar over Thanksgiving. Ha, we HAVE to go to the best city in SA over Turkey break, paid for by GRS. Easy to say that no one (except for the P.E. interns) objected to this. If it's free, it's for me.

                So again my roommate and I met up with our fellow interns in Kimberley (Kimterns) and made the 12 hour trip to Cape Town. In a Toyota Corolla. For a second time we got very close: physically, emotionally, and I would even say spiritually. There's only so much you can do in a twelve hour car ride with five people in close quarters...

                Eventually we arrived in CT. The week was full of different events, some work-related, some not-so work-related. Thursday and Friday were work-related, and extremely rewarding.  We spent Thursday in our different intern groups (Monitoring and Evaluation, Finance, Curriculum, Programs) discussing our experiences thus far, frustrations, successes, and practices we felt worked best. It was fantastic to hear that other interns were in the same boat that I was with frustrations, and to also hear how they dealt with them. To say this session was highly rewarding was an understatement. Unfortunately we only had two hours dedicated to these group discussions. We could have filled an entire work day.

                For me, however, the most rewarding part of the seminar was to hear from our intern coordinator extraordinaire, David Harrison, and former interns who are now a part of the GRS staff, fully employed. David gave a simple but effective speech on the emotions and experiences of an intern in their first three months of living in Africa. First is the honeymoon stage where everything is new and exciting and nothing can go wrong. Check. Then comes  the lull where you get stuck in a day-to-day routine, frustrations are more apparent, and motivation hits a low. Check. For me, this was the entire month of November. I had 100% hit a lull and wasn't as happy, for reasons mentioned before, but also because I felt secluded from the rest of the GRS interns, since I was now effectively a K4L intern.  In many ways the GRS orientation I had in August, although incredible, was useless. I wasn't doing the same things as the other interns, and wasn't experiencing the GRS culture that I had come to love. Hearing David explain that this is normal was comforting. But what was really comforting was hearing former interns tell their stories,  including their low points, why they were frustrated, and what they did to turn things around. From this discussion I felt a moving energy, and was re-motivated to improve my life at Kick4Life. Don't misunderstand me, I LOVE working with the orphans and that was a wonderful surprise I never thought I would get to do. From running the ReCYCLE program I've been able to develop some very personal relationships with a handful of the participants and OVCs, something I know my fellow interns have not been able to do.  Furthermore, I've come to learn that I love working with kids; they are simply the most worthwhile part of my job thus far. After the seminar  I realized that in actuality I want to work with the HIV curriculum. So from one set of problems and frustrations came another opportunity:  fortunately, we are developing and piloting a new curriculum at K4L in 2013. Sign me up.

                Other than informational and work-related meetings, we were allowed ample free-time in Cape Town to do what we wanted. For me this included playing some football at the Khayelitsha FFH centre, going to an Ajax Cape Town VS Chippas United football match, eating copious amounts of food I can't get in Lesotho (never trust seafood in a landlocked country), enjoying breakfast with fellow interns at the COO's home (so far we've had meals with the CEO's family and now the COO's family), riding around the city on the back of a scooter (with my arms wrapped around my man-friend, Chris Barba), going to the beach, hiking Lion's Head, and enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with GRS staff.  (Side note, we didn't have Turkey on Thanksgiving, to my outrage. But it was made up for because we ate "Smiley", which is sheep's head. First and last time I will ever have sheep's head, but hey, TIA)... After Thanksgiving dinner a group of us decided to drive to Lion's Head, one of three mountain tops overlooking CT, and make the climb to the top... at midnight. It wasn't a highly challenging hike, nor was it easy. There are numerous parts where you have to climb ladders or scale (minor) walls to reach the top, and a headlamp is necessary. But once we made it to the top it was surreal. On one side of the peak you can see the ocean, and the moon shining over it. To the other side is the city lit up like the eyes of Allah (thank you Team America: World Police). We were all quite giddy when we reached the top: secluded, tired, full of Smiley, and only slightly inebriated. But in an instant it went from constant chatter to dead silence. It seemed everyone had found their place to sit and lose themselves in their thoughts. It's amazing how quiet it was. No wind (CT has hurricane winds 24/7), no annoying travelers, no chaos of the city. Just moonlight, city light, and a handful of Americans lost in their own heads.  For me it was the best hike I've ever been on, but that will surely  be outdone by Mt. Kilimanjaro in about a week's time...

                December 1st is known as World AIDS day, to celebrate how far we've come in the fight against HIV/AIDS, but to also recognize and acknowledge how very far we still have to go. For many NGO's in the public health sector, it's a day to hold events and raise further awareness. GRS had many HCT's (HIV counseling and testing tournaments) across their sites in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. Kick4Life, however, did something slightly different...

                Semonkong, as I mentioned before, is a small village situated in the Maluti Mountains, with one road in and one road out. The road is made of dirt, rocks, and crushed dreams. To get to Semonkong from Maseru is straight forward (hence the whole one road thing) and is only about 160 kilometers, which should take about an hour and a half on a normal road. But cause it is such a steep climb on such terrible terrain, it takes 3+ hours. So for World AIDS day Kick4Life decided to have a team-building weekend in Semonkong at the Semonkong Children's Centre, an orphanage dedicated to serving HIV positive and HIV afflicted children. We planned to leave after work on Friday at 2:00 PM, but since it's Africa we didn't leave until 4:30 PM. I was tasked with driving our mini-van, packed full of staff, to the orphanage. Oh and did I mention it had been raining all day? Awesome.

                It was smooth sailing until about an hour into the trip, when we met the diabolical, demonic, dirt road (I had to fit some alliteration in somewhere in this post). But thankfully one of our staff  members in my car was very familiar with the road, and coached me on how to drive it.  And by coach I mean he told me to stay in first gear the entire way, follow the path of previous cars, stay away from the edges (no guard-rails), and to "give the car some lovin'". Well I hate the mini-van, so the thought of giving it any sort of lovin' didn't sit well with me. So I swallowed my pride and purred with the engine as we crawled up the mountain tops. Once we made the first climb, the mountain pass opens up and you are surrounded by green mountain tops that you would NEVER guess existed in Africa. Words cannot describe its majesty; breathtaking is underwhelming; stunning is too generic; jaw-dropping sounds weird. I guess you could describe it as "Scotland in Africa" (shout out to Hubby).  This was our setting for the next two hours, and I took turns between watching the road and staring at my surroundings. Well, more of the latter, actually. Oops. When in Rome? Does that work here?

                Eventually by nightfall we made it to the Children's Centre, where we would be sleeping in an abandoned hospital. This was abandoned in nearly every sense of the word (it still had running electricity, and the management of the orphanage still used it for accommodation for team-building events such as ours). There were holes in the ceiling, insulation falling through, gurneys still in patient rooms, wheelchairs in corridors, prayers and biblical passages etched on the walls, and bathrooms that say "DO NOT USE". I was pumped; others not so much.

                To ease the tension some of our staff started playing music through our speaker system (I swear to god we bring that thing anywhere Kick4Life goes) and dancing.  Again, dancing with Africans is addicting. They are far more accomplished and adept, but that doesn't matter. What does matter is energy, and as long as you have some no one cares how uncoordinated or stupid you look. Eventually the dance party turned into what I like to call the "Kick4Life Christmas Party". It was our own version of your typical office Christmas party, filled with the same awkwardness, discomfort, angst, and hilarity. Eventually we made our way to our beds: forgotten mattresses on rickety gurneys.

                Our team woke up early to get to work on the orphanage. We were split into teams and our tasks were either painting the boys' dormitories, moving furniture, or cleaning buildings. Unfortunately we didn't have much interaction with the orphans, but that didn't stifle their curiosity. Often times I would look behind me to find a group of toddlers peeking around a corner to stare at this mysteriously tall white guy, only for them to vanish when I caught their gaze. Gotta love kids. Once our work was finished it was time to head back to Maseru.  A storm was coming in the afternoon  and many of us were worried that some cars would get stuck in the mud. Prior to leaving we drove another 15 minutes down the road to Maletsunyane Falls, which is the Guinness World Record holder for highest commercial abseil (204 meters). The name Semonkong literally means "place of smoke" and it gets its name from the mist generated at the bottom of these falls. Rad.

            For me Semoknong is the most remote place I've ever ventured, and the most interesting. In summer the morning air is always chilled from the previous day's storms, mist covers the valley, and clouds cover the mountain tops. The afternoons heat up and sun shines throughout the valleys and peaks. It is silent and still minus the sound of cowbells from grazing livestock and herd boys singing what I can only imagine is Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance". Herd boys are 21st century cowboys. They wear wool blankets, large rubber boots, knit caps that cover their face (picture IRA soldiers), ride horses,  carry a wooden staff and whip to keep their animals in line, drink "Jawala", a local beer brewed from sugar, water, and yeast, and they're always smoking hand-rolled cigarettes. These guys add to the realness of the experience. Semonkong is, as my friend The Chef put it, "National Geographic caliber, lost in the mountains."  I was captivated by its' uniqueness and simplicity; getting lost in a place like this someday would be a gift...

                Oh and my roommate and I adopted a cat from an ex-pat couple who is leaving Lesotho. His name is Bandit. Meow.

 

The Pursuit of Happiness (formerly Maseru, I Love you, Part Deux)

            After re-reading my last post, saying, “much has happened” in Lesotho is a grand understatement.  I often find it hard to comprehend where I am, what I’m doing, and who I’ve become.  As cliché as it may sound sometimes I feel I should pinch myself to be sure I’m not dreaming. It’s unfortunate, but I simply cannot describe every single detail that has happened since I’ve arrived, not only in this blog but also even to myself. Maybe many years later I’ll understand this crazy experience I now call life…

            But, as promised, here is the (long-awaited) sequel of my third blog post: Maseru I love you, Part Deux, now re-named The Pursuit of Happiness. It will be a countdown of my three favorite days so far out of the month and some change that I’ve been in Southern Africa.

           

3. Team-Building Day

            The second week of work, on a Friday, I was fortunate enough to be invited to a team-building day for all of the Kick4Life coaches. First, a little background information: Kick4Life coaches are not actual soccer coaches, well of course some of them are, but that’s not what I’m referring to. What we define as a coach is a Basotho youth, usually between the ages of 18 and 25 who will go to different schools in Lesotho and deliver our HIV curriculum. The reason we use the term coach and not teacher is because teacher has a boring and, sometimes, negative connotation, especially in Africa.  Schooling here is very much memorization and recital; teachers are allowed to hit students and also have the authority to expel students for issues as ridiculous as not having proper dress shoes for school.  We have about 50 coaches in total at Kick4Life and they teach at different schools across three different districts: Maseru, Barea, and Leribe.

            Now back to my story… The team-building event for the coaches was held in Barea at a youth center. All of the Maseru coaches, curriculum staff, a German volunteer named Sophie, and myself met at the Kick4Life office at 8:00 AM with the intention of departing for Barea by 8:30 AM (Barea is about half an hour away, and the event started at 9:30 AM).  But typical of African nature, we didn’t depart until 9:30 AM. The coaches took a taxi to the site, which is actually more like a chromed out mini bus with decals, vuvuzelas, (remember the loud noise from the World Cup two years ago?), and blacked out windows. The rest of the staff, unfortunately, had to ride in a van that has no stereo, which shortly turned out to be a benefit, at least in my opinion.  Along the way we picked up four other female K4L coaches at a bus stop and we were finally on our way to Barea.  This had been the first time I got to travel outside of Maseru and see the Lesotho countryside. It’s breathtaking; very much like the southwest of the States.  Shortly after our hitchhiker coaches realized we had no radio they began singing gospel hymns and traditional Lesotho songs (side note: Catholicism has a strong presence in Lesotho).  It was beautiful.   I’ve never been one for gospel music, or religion for that matter, but the harmony and rhythm of these girls was blissful.  This was a moment to pinch myself…

            We arrived at the youth center a tad bit late and the activities had already begun. Sophie and I, keeping in mind we were the only Caucasians in attendance, were immediately thrown into a huge circle of coaches who were playing different singing and dancing games.  As any westerner should in this situation, we both hopped in to the delight of all the coaches. After playing these games for about half an hour it was on to more signing and dancing.  Although this time it was a bit more organized and familiar—at least it was more familiar for me, Sophie still had no clue what was happening. We formed three long, horizontal lines parallel to each other to do a dance. The first dance was to R. Kelly’s World’s Greatest, where all of the coaches did interpretive movements to the lyrics of the Chorus. I’m not a fan of R. Kelly, and I used to find the song lame, but the coaches loved it and really got into it.  It felt as though they deeply believed they were the world’s greatest, and I was convinced as well.  Now whenever I here that song, instead of changing it, I’ll turn the volume to max, sing along, and remember that day when I felt I was the world’s greatest as well…  The second song we danced to was DJ Casper’s Cha Cha Slide, an old favorite of mine from high school homecoming (shout out to Camp Hill High School Class of ’07)! Many of the coaches were less familiar with this song, and I seized the opportunity to show them how it’s done, a nice swap of roles. Eventually everyone caught on and the dance was organized again. I mean it’s not a tough song to dance to, the lyrics literally tell you what to do. Except when it came to “Charlie Brown”: apparently his dance from the Peanuts cartoon hadn’t caught on like Soulja Boy had in Lesotho…

            After dancing around for a while it was on to more team-building events, and Sophie and I became casual observers, helping out where we could.  One activity that I got to help a lot in was a metaphorical interpretation of the Coach’s hopes and dreams (sorry, didn’t quite remember the name for this activity).  The coaches were split into different groups and each group was given an egg, which represented their dreams.  The idea was to love the egg by making up an impromptu dance and song for it, and then to cushion it in any way possible by wrapping it in some protection (e.g. clothing items, grass, bags, etc.).  My main mission was to climb a tree and become the metaphorical destroyer of dreams.  Awesome. Here I am, white guy, surrounded by Basotho I had just met, and my job was to throw, not drop, the eggs (their hopes and dreams) from the top of the tree with the intention of crushing them. Well, that seemed counterproductive to why I came to Africa.  But the activity went great.  The groups would dance and sing their way up to the tree where I was (remember, all of these dances and songs were made up on the spot and they were INCREDIBLE), hand their enveloped egg to me, ask me kindly to be gentle, and I would heave them downwards.  I had an inspirational performance and successfully crushed 5 out of 7 eggs.  At the end of the activity, I was forever nicknamed “egg-crusher” (originality at it’s best).

            Earlier in the day I had met a local boy, aged 5, at the center named Saleem, who had to be the cutest kid I’d ever seen. Of course I say that about all African kids, because ask anyone who’s been here; they ARE the cutest kids you’ll ever see. I met him while he was unsuccessfully trying to play basketball on a regulation-sized hoop. In between activities where I wasn’t needed I would help Saleem dunk on the hoop, and then destroy him repeatedly in one-on-one (sorry buddy, you mess with the bull and you get the horns).  Saleem, regardless of our one-sided basketball game, became something like a younger brother to me for the day. When I was crushing eggs, he climbed the tree with me, just to hang out. He even volunteered his torn and tattered sweater to further protect one group’s egg.  At other activities, he was never far away, smiling, giggling, and asking me if he could lend a (tiny) hand. This kid made the day truly special for me. Not because he looked up to me, or because he would let me kill him in basketball, but because he was the definition of happiness.

 Later in the evening we had a huge braai for all of the coaches, and Saleem tagged along so I gave him a plate to eat, then my plate, and also a third. It was about this time I started to think he probably hadn’t eaten in quite a while.  A few of his friends, all probably street kids as well, came running over once they saw me give him food. I gave them each a plate, but unfortunately there wasn’t any more food to go around. All of the kids then walked over to the trashcans and starting eating other people’s leftovers, or putting them in dirty bags to save for later. Then it was confirmed: none of them had any idea where their next meal would come from. It was a very crushing feeling for me to witness, but I wasn’t saddened. All of these kids were happy, at least for a day, and never stopped smiling, especially Saleem…

After the braai we had a dance party, and even the kids joined in to everyone’s delight. Sadly after this it was time to go home. I said my goodbyes to Saleem and his friends. I told Saleem that if he’s ever in Maseru to come see me at the Kick4Life headquarters, but I know I’ll probably never see him again. It doesn’t make me sad, but only grateful to have met him and witnessed what true happiness is, even when you can’t do something as simple as eat…

2. Move-In Day

            The next Friday was the longest, but most rewarding workday I’ve had thus far.  As I explained in a previous post, the participants in our ReCYCLE program can use their money to either pay for school tuition, driving school tuition, food, or shelter. I say shelter and not housing because shelter is basic: it’s a necessity and not a luxury, which is a lesson I came to appreciate at the end of this day....

            One of my ReCYCLE boys, Boithabiso, had been living on the streets for a while but dedicated himself to finding a home.  He would show up every day that we collect recycling, a success in itself, and also came on days when he wouldn’t earn points just to help out and hang.  Eventually he ended up saving around R2000.00, which is an amazing accomplishment considering the maximum they can earn every week is R70.00. Do the math. That’s about 28 weeks of work, at least 7 months of living on the street…

            Finally the week had come that he could rent a home for 3 months, buy a few household necessities, and spend whatever he had left on food.  In the days leading up to that Friday, one of my co-workers, Lollipop, which is a nickname not an actual name, dedicated much of her time to finding him a home to rent. I wanted to help as much as possible, but not speaking Sesotho fluently is a dilemma, especially when negotiating the costs of rent; so I let Lollipop take the reins and I lent myself wherever possible.

On Tuesday of that week we thought we had finally found him a home, in a village about ten minutes outside of Maseru. Lollipop, Boithabiso, a few of the other recycling boys, and myself (relegated to van driver), ventured off early Tuesday afternoon to go and pay the rent for three months and retrieve the key to his home. When we arrived the landlord informed us that he had already rented the place to someone else. A simple informative phone call would’ve been nice, but then again, TIA.  We didn’t leave just yet.  Luckily, Lollipop had worked her magic and was already in contact with two other landlords about potential homes to rent within the same village. We arrived at the second home, and the landlord informed us that the home was still up for rent.  Woo! Everyone was elated, until we saw the condition of the home. The floor was littered with ants, the ceiling had multiple cracks, and the window was shattered, but still had the metal caging intact. However, none of these dilemmas constituted a reason to not rent the home. The reason we couldn’t rent the home was because there was no door. It was literally just an opening in a wall that was the entry/exit into the home. This couldn’t jive because Boithabiso would 1) Freeze at night and 2) be robbed immediately. Two homes down, one to go. We jetted over to the third home and were met with similar disappointment. The landlord of this home informed us that she would not rent to Boithabiso because the previous tenants had robbed her and her family. We were 0/3 in one day, and back to square one.

            The next day at the office a different co-worker of mine, who is the head of our OVC (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) program informed us that she had been in contact with Boithabiso’s family, and he would be moving back in with them. (Just a side-note: technically the ReCYCLE program is a Social Enterprise project, but it does fall under the OVC program as well since most of my boys are OVCs.  Part of the OVC program is to help kids get back in touch with their families and help them move back home and off of the street).  Boithabiso isn’t necessarily a child though.  He’s 22, an adult, and hasn’t lived at home for months. But if it meant having shelter over his head he would obviously agree to try it out. The program director told him to be at the K4L office at 9:00 AM on Thursday, and she would bring him home. Boithabiso showed up at 8:45 AM. Eventually 4:00 PM rolled around, one hour before quitting time, and the OVC director informed him he would not be going home that day because it’s too late in the work day. Bullshit! Lollipop explained to me that Boithabiso was, rightfully so, very upset with K4L and had lost trust in us.  She said he was inconsolable and wouldn’t talk to anyone. He had worked his ass off for 7 months so that he could sleep somewhere with an actual roof, and four separate times in two days he’d been let down.  On top of this, he still had to spend his nights on the street.  Immediately we started looking for a home somewhere, anywhere that he could rent. But, regrettably, we found nothing.

            The next day, now Friday, one of my recycling boys, Mpho, a close friend of Boithabiso, came and found Lollipop early in the morning and informed him that he found a home for Boithabiso. Mpho made a verbal agreement with the landlord that we would be there Friday by end of day, or she could rent the house to someone else. This was all we needed to hear, and early that afternoon, Lollipop and I took Boithabiso around Maseru to the grocery store for basic food supplies, a gas primer stove to cook his food, and very basic house-hold necessities (blanket, comforter, and sleeping pad).  My supervisor had already given some of his own old silverware, pots, and pans, thank god, because all of his money had been spent minus what we saved to pay for rent.  We had placed all of our chips down on this hand.  We had to. It had to work, or else Boithabiso would take all of his new belongings back on the street where he’d be mugged for them.  Around 6 PM we finished buying necessities and were heading off to the village outside of Maseru. The sun was going down, and not one of us, Lollipop, Boithabiso, or myself knew how to get to the landlord’s home. The only one who knew where the landlord stayed was Mpho, whom we hoped we could collect at his house in order to show us where to go.  To me, a westerner, who is used to having an iPhone with Google maps, this seemed desperate and unlikely to work.  There are no addresses in Lesotho, only landmarks. The odds of us finding Mpho’s home, in this village that none of us were familiar with, in the dark, without street signs or streets for that matter, seemed very long.  Also, it isn’t wise to travel around villages at night, especially in a car with valuables. But I had a tough time showing any negativity, when Boithabiso, crammed in the back of the van with his new luxuries, could only show positivity.

We turned up a hill that we believed led to the village, and, truly miraculously, we found Mpho walking down the side of the road with a friend. I can’t say it enough: one should never believe in coincidences.  We slammed on the breaks, whistled him down, and he hopped in the van to show us where to go.  After about another fifteen minutes of driving down dirt “roads” we found the home, paid the landlord, retrieved the key, and unloaded the van.  By now it was about 9 PM. After days and days of failing, in a matter of minutes, we succeeded. The home was a one-room place with concrete floors, concrete walls, and one window. There was no electricity, no toilet, no shower, and no furnishings.  It was smaller than my college dorm-room.  But it was a home none-the-less (with a door as well), and Boithabiso couldn’t hide his elation. He had a place to sleep, to make food, and most importantly, a place to call his.

I couldn’t hide my happiness either. Like a disease, happiness is contagious.  But unlike a disease it doesn’t result from poverty, violence, or desperation.  It comes from the soul and true happiness can’t be killed. It can only be spread.

1. Happiness Found

As much as I loved both of these days at work, as I said in part I of this post,

it’s always better to relax. The first time I got to truly relax was also my first time I got to do some traveling around South Africa.  A few of my fellow GRS interns and I decided it was high time we had a semi-reunion, so we all jetted from our respective homes to Johannesburg (Jozi) for a weekend, and, specifically, a Kaiser Chiefs game.  The Kaiser Chiefs are one of the professional soccer teams in Jozi, and are similar in popularity (amongst South Africans) to a team like Manchester United. I left work on a Friday afternoon (hmm, every one of these days have been a Friday, but alas there are never any coincidences) around 1:00 PM and walked down to the Lesotho/South African border. Maseru resides directly on the border, and my house is only a ten minute walk to the border.  My plan was to grab a taxi (chromed out, tinted, vuvuzella bearing mini-bus) from the border of Lesotho to Bloemfontein, where I was to meet two other GRS interns who drove a car from Kimberly. Taxi service from city to city is quite hilarious. It costs about R80 ($10.00) and basically you show up whenever you want, because there are no set times for the taxi to leave.  The only downside to this is that no taxi will leave until the entire cabin is full.  So you can be the first on the taxi, grab shotgun and have to wait five hours to leave, or you can be the last on the taxi, get thrown in the trunk and leave immediately.  Fortunately I only had to wait about 2 hours for the taxi to fill to capacity, I landed a pretty decent seat, and was now off to Bloem.  Once in Bloem, I quickly realized my mobile phone no longer worked and so there was no way to contact my fellow interns. Eventually a nice man let me use his phone for 2 Rand, and I called my friends, who were about two hours away. Well by now it was getting dark, and I didn’t want to be a westerner on the streets of Bloem with a huge backpacker’s pack full of valuables.  So naturally I ducked into a bar to wait and enjoyed a few drinks with some local company.  Eventually I met up with my friends and we were off on the 4-hour drive to Jozi.  The drive there was a typical road trip, except better.  There is literally NO light pollution across the countryside, so it makes for an incredible view of the stars, which was definitely a highlight of the drive.

            Finally we touched down in Jozi and the reunion amongst interns began. It was myself, the Kimberly interns, the Jozi interns, and a handful of the Cape Town interns.  It felt like seeing old family I hadn’t for years, except we all had only known each other for about four days from our orientation a month ago (again credit to GRS for the family atmosphere). We spent the night in the Jozi intern apartment since the next night we would be attending the Kaiser Chiefs game at Soccer City Stadium, the World Cup Finals stadium from two years ago…

            We packed into two cars like true South Africans and made the uncomfortable, but highly enjoyable, trek to the stadium. Once we arrived we immediately started tail gaiting with the locals. Unfortunately we lost track of time, as twenty-something-year-olds will do while tailgating, and missed the first fifteen minutes of the game.  Outside of the stadium we were attempting to scalp tickets for our large group, but weren’t having any success until a tall man in a security outfit came forward.  He claimed, to which 100% of us called bullshit, that he could get us all into the stadium for R30 each ($4.00) without having to give us tickets.  After arguing for a bit, and telling him we thought he was a full of it, he agreed to only accept payment once we were in our seats. Well now not one of us has ever met a scalper who would agree to these terms, and most likely will never meet another, so we took the chance.  Sure as rain he delivered.  He walked every single one of us through the gates and to “our” seats, which were about ten rows up from the field. UNREAL. We kindly paid the man.

            The game was already 20 minutes in by this point, Kaiser Chiefs were up 2-0, and the home fans were going NUTS. The culture of the vuvuzella hasn’t yet died, and I’m positive it never will. People were dancing, shouting, celebrating, etc. We all joined in and even some of the other interns left our seats to go wild with the hardcore supporters group.

 After about ten minutes, something very peculiar happened. All of the supporters led a mass exodus from the seats and into the corridors of the stadium.  Initially we had no idea what was happening. Is it a fan celebration? Did something horrible happen in another section? Is it the apocalypse? Well it turned out to be something more like the apocalypse.  All of a sudden the sky opened up, and rain started pouring down so we all ran into the corridors as well. Then the lightning and thunder followed, and eventually a massive hailstorm joined the party. The balls of Hail were about the size of peas, and immediately covered the field.  The players left the pitch and returned to their locker rooms for a brief intermission while the inclement weather passed. 

But it never passed.  Some of us were pretty upset that we would miss the game, despite only paying R30 for it.  But as we were told we would have to do at our GRS orientation a month before, we expected the unexpected and adapted.  We ALL rushed the field.  There were already two or three fans running around on the hail covered grass trying to evade security, but soon security would have to deal with about 200 fans doing the same.  Rushing the field felt like something you’ve always wanted to do but never had the balls to actually do it.  Running down the steps and hopping the barrier was such an adrenaline rush in itself that we just had to keep running.  So we did:  all around the field and amongst all of the Kaiser Chiefs supporters.  We were yelling, dancing, singing, laughing, and falling.  Then a snowball fight broke out (the pieces of hail combined with the rain made it easy to pack).  It was like something out of a movie.   Here we were, all from half a world away, seeing each other for the first time in a month, running around on the WORLD CUP FINALS FIELD.  It was such an uplifting and amazing feeling, and one I will never forget.  It’s very hard to put into words how happy we all were, running around like idiots in a hail and lightning storm in the middle of a professional soccer match in South Africa.  But I think the best moments in life are the ones you can’t describe.  All you can do is smile.  Maybe it was the feeling of freedom, or the feeling of compassion and contentment amongst complete strangers.  I don’t know.  But what I do know is that for 15 minutes I shared something very special, something few experience, not only with my close friends, but also with every single person on that field.

Watch this space next week for an entire blog entry dedicated solely to pictures I’ve taken thus far.

Sharp,

Shane

Photo Courtesy of Barrett Martin (http://bareinafrica.revotheory.com/)

Maseru, I love you. (Part 1)

Lumela, all!

First I should begin by saying “mea culpa” for two things. Numero Uno: (disclaimer) I am colorblind.. Well color deficient to be politically correct I guess.. Many people have suggested I change the colors of my blog, and after short analysis I can see their point of view. The red:light gray color scheme of my background:font seems to be challenging, annoying, and painful for those other than myself. Again, mea culpa. I once had to restart an entire art project because I painted the entire ocean half of a sunset purple. I was twelve. So now, at twenty-three, I get to laugh at myself because it still gets me, in equally funny ways. (All my colorblind readers—zero—understand my dilemma).

            Numero dos: I want to apologize for not updating this blog sooner. I have very much to say on my time spent in Maseru, Lesotho so far. As I was warned, and quickly discovered for myself, Internet access here is in-and-out, and quite slower than in the states when it does work. However, I do consider myself lucky because I have wifi at my job. As promised, I will update this blog twice a month, with the intention of more frequent posts than that. A LOT has happened since I’ve been here, but I will try to spare every last unnecessary detail. Thus I will separate this post into two parts: the first part will be my “day to day” so far in Maseru (i.e. my work life and social life on any given day). Part deux will be about my three favorite days so far…

            So since the last time I wrote on this blog I was stuck in Joburg, counting down the time until I could finally fly to Maseru. Waking up after about two hours of sleep (jet-lag you win), I decided to stay awake and get to my terminal about three hours early just to be safe. There was no way I was going to miss another chance to get to Maseru. I figured I would just sleep another two hours at my gate. Wrong, didn’t sleep again until 12 PM that night (jet-lag 2, Shane 0).  Eventually I boarded my plane and was in the sky towards Moshoeshoe International Airport. While coasting towards the tarmac I was looking all around for a large airport, but after I looked again at my surroundings I realized my stupidity. There was nothing but tiny houses in villages scattered amongst the surrounding mountains. Moshoeshoe International airport has an international terminal the size of one of my elementary school classrooms. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that is the only terminal, and gate, in the airport. Customs consisted of one older Basotho woman, who checked and stamped everyone’s passport, and a few guards, who clearly did not care that we just landed in their country. Their disinterest was not meant in a bad way at all. More in a way of, “Hey, welcome to Lesotho. We would check your things, but we know that no one has ever heard of Lesotho, so how could you really have anything bad in your luggage?”

After going through customs, I was picked up by my new housemates, both of whom are former Kick4Life (K4L) interns, and brought to my new home for the year in a development known as Florida. I use housemates loosely because one of them was moving back to Canada in two days, and the other back to the states in two weeks. And I use the word development loosely because it is nothing like a development in the U.S. There is a guard at the entrance to the dirt road that leads to Florida (ironic because there are no oceans in Lesotho) and all of the houses have fences or walls lined with barbed wire, as to prevent robberies and such. Our compound (a one-bedroom house, a two-bedroom house, and a three-bedroom house) is guarded at night by a very sweet, older man we simply refer to as “Tate”, short for “ntate”, which means “sir” in Sesotho. There aren’t any cul-de-sacs, any 4-way stop signs, and there certainly aren’t any ice-cream trucks. But there are still kids playing games in the road, a nice constant I’ve come to appreciate.

I was driven to the K4L office after taking a nice long shower, and introduced to all of my co-workers. It turned into a marathon of being introduced to one Basotho man or woman after another, hearing their names, attempting to repeat them properly, being laughed at, and then forgetting them as quickly as I messed them up. I warned everyone that I am terrible with names, especially Sesotho names apparently, and asked for their patience. They of course smiled and said “Sharp, sharp”. Sharp is a term used in Southern Africa and seems to be used for any situation where something is good, okay, understood, awesome, happy, etc. I’ve never heard anyone use sharp in a negative way, and rarely is any other word used for one of the above feelings. Everyone says it, all the time, which makes me wonder what one would say if he or she wasn’t feeling “sharp” … Anyway, after being introduced to my co-workers, supervisor, and the country director of K4L, I spent the next few days in Maseru buying necessities, fighting jet-lag, meeting other expats, discovering the city, getting lost in the city, learning conversational Sesotho from my housemate’s boyfriend, etc. Basically “stuff” any new person in a new country would do. It was awesome.

My work at K4L started slow, which was to be expected. By slow I mean I didn’t have anything to do for the first few days. At all. So I would spend my hours playing soccer with the street kids on our 5-a-side pitch (see picture attached below). On my first day of errands I was brought to a part of town where most of the street kids live, which is an over-sized ditch/land hole off of a street in downtown Maseru. It’s filled with trash, lean-twos, covered with ratty paper and cloth, and kids aged 5-18 playing dice for cash, sleeping, socializing, and searching the trash for left-over braai. Braai, which is short for the Afrikaner term braaivleis, meaning “grilled-meat” (braai is essentially the same idea as BBQ food, but we will get to that later) is a common dish in Lesotho.  The biggest difference I’ve noticed in poverty between the States and Lesotho is the age of the homeless. Most homeless in the States are adults; most in Lesotho are children. They are commonly referred to as street kids, or at K4L as OVCs (Orphans and Vulnerable Children)… After meeting one particular gang of younger boys (I called them the “Rude Rabbits”, no one got it) I spent the next few days hanging out with them and playing soccer at the Kick4Life office on our 5-a-side pitch.  It was a pretty easy few days, but fun none-the-less. The kids were very talented individually, which is shocking considering they’ve never had any formal coaching. But they were terrible when it came to tactics and a sense of team, which is not at all shocking considering they’ve never had any formal coaching.  These first few days went by slow, which was fine with me.

My first few nights in Lesotho were more exciting and very comforting because I felt like I was immediately welcomed into a new, friendly, weird family: the expats.  Each night of the week it seems you can find a group of expats doing something together. Tuesday nights are cheap movie ticket night at the theater. (Seriously, no matter where you go in the world, Tuesday night is always cheap movie ticket night).  Wednesday nights there is a knitting club known as “Stitch and Bitch”.  “Stitch and Bitch” was started by my supervisor’s wife actually—name dropper, I know—and the hats and scarves made are donated to the street kids. Luckily for them winter seems to be ending, the nights are now getting warmer, and the days are quite hot.  I was taught how to knit by a 50-something-year-old Irish expat who had been knitting since she was but a wee lass. She taught me some crazy rhyme about a bunny going around a tree, which coincides with the steps of the knitting pattern. It’s safe to say my bunny had too much Sangria because my pattern was not straight and had lots of gaps. I’m not sure you could even refer to my knitting as having a pattern, and I ended up doing more bitching than stitching. But whether you knit successfully or not, it’s always a good night because of the company. It rotates from house to house every week, each host making dinner for the group (I can feel myself becoming more and more African: if there’s food provided, I’ll be there)… Thursday nights are even more fun because it’s poker night. Same concept, rotating host who provides food, but infinitely more fun, because I’m okay at poker; I’m horrible at knitting. The usual poker group consists of a few Americans, an Indian, a Mexican, a Scot, an Australian, a Norwegian (I think), and an Englishmen. Now when you play poker with a lot of guys late at night, there is naturally going to be trash talk. Now imagine that same trash talk, intensified by national pride. Awesome. No one EVER misses an opportunity to make a comment about someone’s country, or culture, but it’s all in good fun and no one ever takes offense… On other nights of the week you can usually find a group of expats having a braai.

Braai, like a said before, is a term similar to “barbeque” in the States: it’s the actual act of grilling food, and it’s also the name of the food you eat. It usually consists of a piece of meat (chicken or pork), papa, which is the base of any Basotho dish and is made of corn meal with a similar consistency to that of mashed potatoes, diced veggies, and chakalaka, which is a mix of beans, spices, and veggies, in a tomato-soup-ish sauce. Braai has become my new favorite food for three reasons: one, the plates are always packed full of food; two, it is the cheapest food I’ve ever eaten (twenty rand, about $2.50 per plate); three, the street outside of the K4L office is lined with about 5 different braai cooks to select from. Oh, and four. How could I forget the fourth reason? Four: you eat it with your hands, not utensils. I know it sounds a tad unsanitary, but there is something so unbelievably satisfying of eating an entire meal with your hands as an adult… So now that it’s culturally acceptable, I do it all the time.

My first weekend was focused on catching up on sleep, relaxing, and discovering the city. Maseru is not a city in the sense that a westerner may picture a city, but there is still  a state library, courthouse, royal palace, parliament, hospital, mall, gym (frequented by King Letsie III himself... there I go name-dropping again), grocery store, KFC, movie theater, which still has yet to show the new Batman, and a handful of bars.  For all of the poverty in Maseru there are still some things that are, sometimes, shockingly nicer than their U.S. counterpart. The gym is beautiful, and similar to an L.A. Fitness; the mall is comparable in size to the old Camp Hill mall, circa 1994; the government officials drive brand new Mercedes Benz’s or Range Rover’s; there is one digital billboard as you enter downtown, or as some Basotho like to refer to it, Time’s Square.  The only similarity to Time’s Square that downtown Maseru has, other than one digital billboard, is the taxi service. Taxis are everywhere here, and their drivers are even more inept. A three-point turn in the middle of an intersection is quite normal as is stopping in the middle of the road to try and flag down customers. Turn signals are never used, and speed limits are more like speed suggestions. To my surprise I have yet to witness any significant road rage…

After settling in for the first few days and a relaxing weekend I was briefed on what my job would entail. K4L, as well as teach youth using GRS’ HIV curriculum, does a lot of work focused on the community. We have different programs such as HIV testing and counseling, OVC (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) care, and an entire social enterprises initiative. The social enterprises work is focused on raising money in-house through different programs such as our recycling program, ReCYCLE, a soccer league for the community on our brand new five-a-side pitch, and, coming soon, a restaurant and catering business. The idea behind social enterprises is to raise our own funds so that we don’t have to be as dependent on donors. The money we make goes directly back into our HIV programs, as well as the OVC program, or to our ReCYCLE participants. The employees are strictly Basotho, with the aim of capacity building so that eventually they can manage the programs independently. It’s also a great way for many of the older street-kids to find work when they are no longer enrolled in school (either because of tuition costs, or being expelled). My main responsibility will be heading ReCYCLE, and, secondly, working with the HIV curriculum. The ReCYCLE program is actually a fairly revolutionary idea in this country. There isn’t much of a concept of recycling in Lesotho, let alone any idea of “going green”. The participants ride bicycles around the city collecting recyclables from different homes and business. They then bring the recyclables to a new recycling plant, where they receive points based on the type of material and weight. And we also charge the customers a monthly rate for the service. The points are then converted into money, with which the participants can use to either pay for school, driving school, food, or a home. Sadly, we can never give money directly to the street kids because it may get spent on drugs, alcohol, or gambled away. I believe fully in this program and have already directly experienced its benefits. This past Friday I spent the entire day helping one of our participants move into a new home (one room, no lights, no furniture, no appliances, no running water), after weeks of searching for his own place. He’s twenty-two, has lived on the streets for a long time, and couldn’t have been happier just to have a roof over his head. But, sadly, I must save more on this story for part two of this post… The first two weeks of my job were spent trying to organize and consolidate the ReCYCLE program, as well as help teach our new HIV intervention curriculum to our coaches. I went from having nothing to do, to having a very full plate every day. I spent my mornings working with the ReCYCLE program, attempting to decipher old excel sheets, match receipts to payments, consolidate our collections list, etc. In short, the materials I was left with were very disorganized, and not much matched up.  Eventually, now two weeks later, I’ve almost completely revised all of the excel sheets and chased down customers for payments…

 Aside from the ReCYCLE program, I spent my afternoons/evenings helping teach our new HIV follow-up curriculum to our Kick4Life coaches. While the original interventions that are used in schools now by K4L are great and extremely beneficial, there was a serious lack of follow-up education. Basically many kids were learning the information, but were slowly forgetting it as months went by. You can get away with this type of forgetfulness in the states, but when the education is focused on HIV/AIDS the results of forgotten knowledge can be life threatening. So from the necessity for a follow-up came our new HIV curriculum, “Club Talk”.  It was developed by a woman at K4L named Leila, and a guy by the name of Lou, who helped construct the original GRS curriculum. (Yes, unfortunately I don’t know their last names). Peer-educators, which is the name we give to original intervention graduates, had to write an essay on why they wanted to be in the club. Once in the club the main theme is openness, where peer-educators would discuss—in groups—topics such as HIV/AIDS, sex, gender, risks, relationships, and friendship. Luckily I got to tag along and help out wherever needed at the ToC (Teaching of Coaches).  The ToC is something like an overnight camp or retreat for the coaches.  According to Leila, having everyone spend the night at the retreat, for the entire week, is the only way to make sure everyone is there, every day, on time. In Africa, there is this sense of slowness known simply as “Africa time”. In the Caribbean they refer to it as “Island time”. Basically it means there is a decided time for something to start, and then there is the time something actually does start (e.g. if you’re meeting someone, add about 30 minutes to the meeting time; if there is a time for an event to begin, add at least an hour). People are always late to everything, and nothing starts on time. It’s not a good thing, nor is it a bad thing. It’s simply Africa time.  And anyone who knows me well, especially my friends, will realize that Africa Time is perfect for me. I like to take my time doing things, hate deadlines, and am often late to meet people. Others may refer to it as “procrastination”; I like to think of it as “a relaxed approach to an increased attention to detail”… Because of this everyone has to stay the night for the week so everyone is there, every day. The way they get everyone to start on time is they have a meal before each session begins. I’ve quickly learned that if you need a large group of Basotho to show up on time, say, “there will be food for all.” They will all be there pretty damn close to on time... The first few days of the ToC were spent with us teaching the curriculum, the club concepts, and the games to the coaches. We would role play as the coaches and run the sessions as if we were facilitating an actual session to the students, played by the coaches. For the last two days the coaches taught back the curriculum, facilitating it to each other. Aside from minor issues, the ToC was a great success, and I was blown away by how well the coaches could facilitate a session. They were timely, knowledgeable, fun, engaging, entertaining and hysterical. Naturally they excelled at any games that involved signing or dancing. Any Basotho can dance—very well—and most can sing too. Basically anything that involves rhythm, they excel. On the other hand, they love to watch me, a tall white man, dance like an idiot… Although I was incredibly busy my first week of work it was nice to settle in, but as always, it was much better to relax…

TO BE CONTINUED…

-Shane

Arrival! ... Kind of...

Touchdown in the motherland! After two months of completing applications, two months of waiting to hear the result of my applications, five months of counting down the days, four days of orientation, and three days of traveling, a grand total of 227 days, I have finally made it to my destination: Africa.. Kind of.. Currently I'm in a hotel room next to the Johannesburg airport where I will have to wait another fifteen hours until I can say I'm finally in Maseru, Lesotho. But I am stoked to be on the continent. I was supposed to arrive in the Mountain Kingdom Capital this morning (10:00 AM local time, which is 6 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time), but the travel gods, and more specifically British Airways, had other plans.. I will get to that story in a minute, but first I have much to say about the GRS orientation.

Orientation began on Wednesday, August 8th in Etna, New Hampshire at the most amazing bed and breakfast: Pierce's Inn. This place was incredible, an old ski lodge turned Inn with crazy good food (and an infinite supply of it), enough beds for 25+ people, a pool, a fire pit, and owned by the nicest family in the world. But of course, as only GRS would, we didn't get to spend time there until day three of our orientation. We spent the first two nights at a place called Harris cabin, deep in the woods, with no electricity or running water... We had to carry all food and supplies down a trail to the cabin which took about fifteen minutes of struggle, quite a workout considering my post-soccer endurance is poor. Eventually we made it to the cabin and learned that all twenty-two of us interns would be bunking together in one large room. Now imagine twenty-two, 22-30 year olds, spending two nights in one room, with the nearest shower about 15 miles away. Needless to say by night two people had branched off and started sleeping outside! Of course, I forgot my sleeping bag back at the Inn... But luckily I was quick to learn that the other interns are the most generous group of people I've ever had the pleasure of being around, and I was given a cashmere blanket by my new friend Katie. It may as well have been made from unicorn hair... Time at the cabin was spent between hiking, playing games (similar to games GRS coach's play with the African youth), swimming in a pond that clearly has not support life for years, eating, and plenty of deep, deep discussions on what each intern wished to accomplish, both personally and in regards to the HIV epidemic... I have to stop here and mention our intern coordinators Leah, Elise, Austin, and Hooter. These four have so much energy and love for what they do that each intern couldn't help but feel excited and inspired 24/7, which is extremely exhausting! I wish I could go in depth on each one of them and how much they mean to me and the other interns after only four days, but that would require an entire blog on its own. Without these four I know that the entire 2012-2013 intern class would not have become the family we are, in such a short amount of time. After two nights of roughing it in the woods, everyone was desperate for a shower and new sleeping quarters.

We returned to Pierce's Inn for the remaining two days. While at Pierce's Inn our days were spent learning anything and everything about HIV, GRS, and its role in the fight against the epidemic. As interesting as these lectures were, it was hard for all of us to always remain attentive and awake; besides, we are all still college kids at heart. But of course the intern coordinators had ways to keep us awake: whenever someone would feel the need to wake up, we would all stop what we were doing and do an "energizer". Now as corny as an energizer sounds, the actual act is addicting. An energizer could be any sort of physical movement (clapping, stomping, running, jumping) supplemented with a chant or song (usually a native African melody). By the time we were in Logan international airport, we would all bust out random energizers like a "kilo", which is 6 rhythmic claps followed by a loud "WOOO!" while pointing to the sky. I even feel like doing one right now, alone...

Nights at Pierce's Inn were spent eating huge buffets of incredible food and drinking beer and wine with various GRS affiliates, staff members, partners, former interns, and even the CEO and founder of GRS, Tommy Clark. This wasn't the first time we all met Tommy, he actually brought his family to Harris Cabin to have dinner with us on night one. Now he and his family were having dinner with us, again, two nights later. I think if I had to sum up the incredible sense of family within GRS it would be by saying this: how many interns have two dinners in three nights with their organization/company's CEO/founder? I can't think of any. Most interns are lucky if they meet a branch president in passing. We got to know his family and share stories not once, but twice before our internship even officially started. Tommy is an unbelievable person with an extraodinary vision; I strongly encourage everyone to read more about him here: http://www.grassrootsoccer.org/who-we-are/global-board-of-directors/ . His is the fourth bio from the top.

Come Sunday it was sadly time for us interns to leave Pierce's Inn for Logan International Airport in Boston, MA. Nearly all of us were booked on the same first flight from Boston to London, and we took full advantage of it sitting in groups on the plane, performing kilo's, watching movies, being a nuisance,  etc. We arrived in London early Monday morning and had a 10 hour lay-over to look forward to. But luckily the Olympics had just ended so the terminals were packed with different teams such as Brazil, Argentina, Poland, South Africa, etc. Very exciting to see all the athletes in person. Also, a group of us  wanted to venture into the city, which would be my first time ever in London. For those of you that haven't been there, it's very different from a U.S. city: it's built horizontally, spreading out forever, whereas cities like New York seem to rise infinitely vertically. We spent a few hours walking around and had a chance to see Buckingham Palace which was a very pleasant surprise.

 We took a train back to Heathrow and boarded our plane, scheduled to take off at 5:30 PM, by 5:00 PM. I guess we cut it close. But by 6:30 PM the captain of the British Airlines flight finally let us know that we weren't moving because there were "technical difficulties" within the plane. Turns out the engineers couldn't fix a pipe linked to the plumbing of the front two toilets. Awesome. By 7:30 PM the pilot let us know that the pipe was unfixalbe (I felt bad for the engineers who spent two hours fumbling with pipes holding traveler's feces) and we would be boarding another plane at 8:30 PM,  scheduled to leave at 9:00 PM. Of course this didn't happen. We didn't board the new plane until 10:00 PM and finally departed at 10:30 PM. Now the flight from London to Johannesburg is 11 hours and my connecting flight from Joburg to Maseru was at 9:45 AM local time, which is another hour ahead of London time. Needless to say I missed my connecting flight and so did every other intern flying to Joburg. Upon arrival, the three of us still flying internationally went to the British Airlines kiosk in the international exchange corridor asking for help. They told us they were incapable of helping and we'd have to call the British Airlines office within Joburg airport to sort everything out. Welp, that did nothing. The phone was busy almost the entire time, and once we finally reached an agent, after about an hour, which caused me to miss the only other flight to Maseru that day, she was only able to help two of us before being overwhelmed. I must say I did feel bad for her. We could hear the entire BA Airlines office going crazy (apparently we weren't the only ones unhappy) through the phone, and clearly she wasn't the one who clogged the toilet on our original flight. Basically since my flight from Joburg to Maseru was through South African airlines and not British Airlines they claimed they would not be responsible for the missed flight and would not comp me for anything. Therefore I would have to spend another 3,000 Ran, which is about $375.00, for a new ticket to Maseru. Not happening. I decided I'd find a rental car and drive the four hours from Joburg to Maseru. Of course while I was rushing to the rental car terminal, I left my folder of ALL my documents necessary for entry into Lesotho, back in customs, which I would normally have to go through security again to get. No time for that, and by that time I'm convinced I would never see the folder again. Fortunately South African people are some of the sweetest and most helpful people I've met. I ran back to customs, explained my situation, and a lady was more than happy to escort me back to the desk where I had left it all. It was still there. Bullet dodged, embarrassment saved.

I went back to the car rental terminal, all while dragging around 100 lbs in luggage, mind you. Well no rental car companies were able help me out with a one-way car since I did not reserve one prior to my flight. Understandable, but frustrating. Back to square one. I took my argument to South African airlines, who could not have been more helpful. They promptly informed me that British airlines weren't going to budge (apparently this is an M.O.), but SA Airlines would only charge me the difference between my pre-paid ticket and the new ticket (about $40.00). Score. Now I'm in the hotel adjacent to the airport, waiting for a 6:40 AM flight to finally, hopefully, get to Maseru.

So what have I learned throughout all of this?

1. For everything British Airways does wrong, they do one, phenomenal thing right: free, unlimited wine, which comes in handy on an eleven hour flight..
2. South African's speak quietly and slowly. It does NOT mean they are disinterested, but rather they are attempting to soothe your frustration. And it works.
3. Being kind and polite will get you many places and things you otherwise could not on your own. SA airlines did me a solid, not only with the ticket, but also with letting me "sneak" back into customs to retrieve my necessary documents. When you are nice and courteous to people, more often than not they are the same to you. In the great words of Brian Fantana from Anchorman:  "60% of the time, it works every time."
4. "Be where your feet are". This is a quote that another intern, Casey, told all of us to live by. It's cliche, but I like the way it portrays the age old message: don't stress over the past, it's done; don't worry about the future, it isn't here; be attentive to the present and find something worthwhile in every moment.
5. "The word adventure has gotten overused. For me, when everything goes wrong - that's when the adventure starts." This is a quote by a man named Yvon Chouinard, who is the founder of Patagonia clothing company, from a documentary called 180 Degrees South: Conquerers of the Useless. It's a brilliant movie, and I highly recommend it. Given my situation it seems self-explanatory why I included it. To be honest, the most disappointing part of these last few days of travel was not being able to rent a car...not being able to drive four hours from a city I've never been to, across a country I've never seen, and into a country I only just recently found out existed...

-Shane

24 Days and Counting!

Hello all!
First I would like to thank those of you that have donated to Grassroot Soccer in my name to help me during my trip! I'm extremely grateful for your contributions, and cannot thank you enough. If you haven't donated, and would like to help, please visit this link to make a donation: http://www.grassrootsoccer.org/what-you-can-do/donate/ .. If you would like to make a donation in my name, just be sure to state "On behalf of Shane Curran-Hays' internship".. Again, every donation goes directly toward my work in Lesotho. Regardless, I appreciate everyone taking the time to check out my blog!
Now.. I've never had a blog before, let alone ever written about my life in a journal so this should be a fun experiment! I plan on discussing anything and everything Grassroot Soccer (GRS) and Kick4Life (K4L), my travels, and experiences over the course of the next year in Maseru, Lesotho. So far I find it hard fully expressing my excitement, among other emotions, that arises at the thought of a year in Africa, but I will certainly try!
Until now my summer has been focused on fundraising, insurance, travel arrangements, medications, passports, backpacks, sleeping bags, etc. All of the (not so) fun part of preparing for a year away from the States. But through every preparation I've made I've realized two things: I have all the necessities I need, and I have no idea what I'm getting myself into! I've been told multiple times not to have any expectations, but it's very hard not to.. "Daydreaming" has taken on a new meaning for me, and now I am playing the waiting game, attempting to ease my anxiousness.
It's only 24 days until I leave for Hanover, New Hampshire on August 8th where all of the GRS interns will have an orientation. And then on the 12th I finally fly from Boston, to London, to Johannesburg, and, finally, my destination of Maseru. I'm enjoying the rest of my summer with friends and family, but find myself constantly distracted by thoughts of lions, elephants, and, of course, soccer!
I can't express how happy and grateful I am to work for a foundation like GRS and, more specifically, K4L. I believe fully in these foundations and realize that they are on the "front line" (for lack of a better term) in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS. I'm humbled by their initiative, and overly excited to help in any way I can. If you want more information on these two foundations, check out these links: http://www.grassrootsoccer.org/ , http://kick4life.org/ ... OR, if you like awesome youtube videos, check out this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyplef2Hi6Y ... Although I won't be in Lusaka, Zambia this is an awesome video that will give you an accurate depiction of who GRS is and what they do!
I will do my best to post on this blog at least once a month, with a goal of multiple times a month (depending on internet access)! Check back often to see what GRS and K4L are up to, and my role in helping both. I hope you all enjoy my reading blog as much as I will enjoy my time in Africa! And, of course, if  anyone has any suggestions on how to improve my blog please let me know!

-Shane