And for fun, I can be found...

…hunting jackal, herding sheep on horseback, or reading by candlelight. Because of a major power crisis in South Africa - thanks to poor government planning, scandal, fraud - the country has adopted "load shedding," whereby the power is purposefully and systematically shut off throughout the country. Each city has a different “blackout schedule,” expected to last for at least two to three more years. Here in Richmond, we are plunged into darkness every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 6pm – 9pm. Each day around 5:45, Beth and I prepare the candles, and then spend the next few hours reading by candlelight, watching DVDs until our laptop batteries die, or venturing to the only restaurant in town with a generator, usually accompanied by several other locals waiting it out. Although it sounds amusing, it gets pretty irritating, and I often find myself wanting to scream “Get your shit together South Africa!”

Beth and I have befriended Hannes (or more accurately he has befriended us) a retired, burly Afrikaner who watches out for us. A former farmer and teacher, his children have moved away, and he now spends his days doing the occasional odd job and his nights hunting jackal. Apparently, the jackal is the biggest predator of lamb (adorably cute and defenseless baby sheep) and a major threat to a farmer’s herd, so Hannes is hired by the farmers to do to provide the obvious solution – kill them off. And although I’ve always been an animal lover and staunchly opposed to hunting, I was immediately intrigued by Hannes’ creepy, late night task, and figured the jackal would be killed whether I was there or not. So, I convinced Hannes to take me along. He picked me up after dark in his combination bakkie/hummer, painted camouflage (in browns and reds, though, to blend into the desert landscape), stopping first at the petrol station to get some snacks (he got the snacks, I stayed in the truck to make sure nobody stole his shot gun – seriously). We then drove nearly 45 minutes out and turned off the main dirt road onto a nondescript dirt track, into complete darkness. After driving a while, Hannes stopped and placed a “caller” a few meters away, removed the roof of the truck, and got into a massive, lifted seat in the back, shotgun and spotlight in hand. The caller emits various noises, all loud and high-pitched; there is a male jackal call, a female jackal mating call, three lamb-in-distress calls, and some high pitched cat-sounding noise. And then, we waited in silence. The whole time, Hannes was scanning his light across the landscape, trying to identify the animals surrounding us solely by the reflection of their eyes. And so I sat, in total silence and total darkness, looking at a sky full of stars, the reflection of thousands of eyes and the calls of animals carried by the wind – sheep, springbok, gemsbok, steenbok, cows, tortoises, rock rabbits. A couple hours in, we caught one jackal, which Hannes spotted and shot dead from about 200 meters away. At one point, as we were driving to a new spot, I was confused and surprised to see the lights of a town in the distance ahead, and I asked Hannes what town that was. He laughed in that way people do when I show my colors as an ignorant American city girl, and told me that the lights were not a town, but rather the reflection of thousands of sheep’s eyes. Holy shit, I thought, that’s a lot of sheep.

And to round out my farm girl experience (I need some overalls), Beth and I just came back from a weekend “at the farm.” Since we arrived, one of the local farmers, Hendricks, has been inviting us to his massive sheep farm nearly 70 kilometers outside of Richmond. So, last Friday night, just as the power went off, Beth and I escaped town for the weekend. The farm was lovely, the TV and good food (lamb chops and leg of lamb) even better, but the best part was herding sheep on horseback. In my second attempt atop a horse, this one a white beauty named Lulu, we rode with several farm workers for nearly three hours into the veld, tracking down and herding a group of sheep across the landscape. Once the work was done, we went even further out on horseback and saw a herd of zebras, dozens of impala and gemsbok. I’ve decided, however, that I’m just not a horse person. I never quite feel steady, especially when climbing up and down steep hills of loose rocks, it scared the hell out of me when Lulu started to run (completely ignoring me when I yanked hard on her reins), and my butt always hurts like hell when it’s over (as I write this, I keep shifting positions to alleviate the aching). But, then again, a little pain or terror never killed anyone, and the game viewing and scenery was incredible, and, admittedly, even cooler on horseback.

All work and no play...

…makes Leah a ___ girl. Since the TOT, we have been working non-stop to prepare our trainers to plan, implement, monitor and evaluate the GRS program in Richmond. We’ve chosen two Program Managers; they will spend the next month assisting as we organize the school programs, street league and tournaments, and once we leave, the sustainability of the program will be up to them. One of our Managers, Ova, lit up when we told him about his promotion, giggling to himself saying “I’m a manager, I’m a manager.” Some of his friends have left to continue school or to work (mostly construction or road work), but he has remained behind. While he wants to continue with school he doesn’t want to put the financial burden on his single mother. So, this opportunity is huge: possibly the first time he’s held a job, not to mention a management position, and definitely the first time he will receive a salary.

As a Grassroot Soccer Richmond kick-off event, Beth and I organized a tournament in the township, including small-sided soccer games and two GRS activities, Find The Ball and HIV Attacks. The event was the first opportunity for the new trainers to introduce themselves as peer educators in Richmond and facilitate to kids. We are planning another tournament with a similar model, but which will also incorporate HIV testing for the children and the community. Testing is available in Richmond, but people are reluctant to visit the few nurses or counselors, don’t trust the concept of confidentiality (which to me is implicit in health care), and fear even being seen at the clinic for an HIV test. But, Beth and I recently went to the Richmond Hospital to assess the quality of the local counseling and testing process. When we first requested an HIV test, the nurse cocked his head, and in a tone that could only suggest amusement, said “Are you sure you want to be tested?” To this, I immediately felt one of my overly sarcastic retorts bubbling up, but I held my tongue; people don’t really get sarcasm here. The counselor was very thorough in the pre-counseling session (though admittedly nervous to speak English), and I got the same rapid-response finger prick test as I had in Lesotho, administered by one of the nurses. But the testing itself was not as professional; he drew my blood in the entrance/waiting room, without gloves, insisting they were unnecessary, and he then placed the plastic strip on the desk, with other people standing around. And as we waited for either one line (negative) or two lines (positive) to appear, the nurse was blatantly hitting on Beth and I. Regardless of the fact that I never doubted what the results would be, those five minutes are not easy to sit through, and it didn’t feel quite appropriate for the nurse to be asking what we did to socialize in Richmond, or if I would take him with me to New York.

Our final, and biggest, project, is the school and street league program. We are working with two Grade 7 classes, with 50-something learners in each classroom. A massive amount of kids crowded into rooms probably meant to accommodate 25 students, most of whom have long outgrown their one school uniform. There is a third Grade 7 class, but unfortunately, it is Xhosa-speaking, and none of our trainers speak the language (Beth and I were not prepared for, or perhaps properly informed of, the black-colored issue, so now we have taken on the somewhat awkward task of trying to recruit black, Xhosa-speaking people). We arranged to teach after school, but several teachers expressed concern that the kids may be too hungry to focus by the end of the day. The middle school ran out of money for its feeding scheme, so the kids no longer get lunch, which is for most kids the primary (or only) meal of the day. It didn't seem right to keep the kids after school without giving them something to eat, so I have arranged to provide a small meal before each GRS session. I am now fighting hunger and AIDS…what a hero.

So how is South Africa?

This is a question I get, all the time, once people find out that I’m American. They ask because they have never seen anything outside of this country, and most have never seen anything outside of Richmond. But it’s sort of an awkward question, to which “good” never seems to be sufficient (especially because I have surely had my fair share of doubts about this country). They usually want to know how South Africa compares to the United States, and often, to New York. To this, I reply that New York City is pretty much what it looks like in the movies (the only frame of reference), and therefore it is fairly different from Richmond.

But, if I put the question within the context of my work, I can fairly say that South Africa is good. In fact, “all work and no play” is pretty much my life right now. Since I’m a volunteer I can presumably make my own schedule, but it turns out that starting up an HIV education program, in the middle of nowhere, is fairly time consuming. Beth and I work all the time, and keeping busy in Richmond is probably the only thing that keeps me sane. We’ve made tremendous progress, and with less than a month left in the Karoo, we have a hell of a lot of work to do.

About a month ago, Beth and I planned, organized and executed a week-long Training of Trainers (TOT), training twelve local community members (several of whom are “well-known” soccer players in Richmond). We were assisted by Themxo and Siya, from Bloem and Port Elizabeth, respectively, two of our Master Trainers who have been working for GRS for a while. Throughout the week, Themxo and Siya facilitated the games (Find The Ball, HIV Attacks, etc), and then the new trainers did “teach-backs,” receiving consistent feedback (praise and advice) on their performance. Though it ran smoothly, we faced some major challenges in teaching this sparsely educated, isolated population. First: language. Everyone speaks English (and over the last couple months have gotten more comfortable doing so), but the primary language in Richmond is Afrikaans. Locals speak Afrikaans almost exclusively with each other, and only use English when foreigners like myself are around, which is rare. Second: race, an issue I see and struggle to understand every day. All of our trainers are colored, but the TOT was lead by two black South Africans and two white Americans; while this didn’t affect our interactions, a few trainers voiced discomfort at first being taught by two blacks. Also, Siya confided that this was his first time interacting with the colored community, and never in his life had he spent more than two hours with a colored person (he’s from the Eastern Cape, which is primarily Xhosa). While the township is “integrated,” there are distinct colored and black “sections.” Both populations have been struggling for the same rights, recognition and privileges for years, but they have also been distinctly at odds with each other. Like everything here, it’s an issue I never could have anticipated, but I’m learning, I’m learning…Third: education. Almost everyone graduated high school, but only two trainers have held jobs since. The rest have been unemployed for years since school ended, and it seems in that time that their level of education has either remained static or dropped. It’s hard to pinpoint, and while low education or unemployment is common in townships, the isolation and lack of exposure to anything outside of Richmond seems to be having a unique, destructive affect on the community.

But, in spite of all the unforeseeable issues, and perhaps because of them, TOTs are an incredible experience. Not only are we training peer educators to work with kids, but we are also giving adults the skills and knowledge that they never had. Most trainers had limited or incorrect knowledge about HIV/AIDS, and believed the myths which circulate throughout South Africa. One trainer anonymously asked if “washing” after having unprotected sex with someone who is positive could keep you safe (thanks, Jacob Zuma). Not a single person could identify what “HIV” or “STIs” stand for, but many believed that you could get HIV by hugging, or that you could tell by looking at someone if they are HIV+. The concept of sex as a choice had never really been considered; one guy thought that if you were married, you were required to have sex, and another said “I learned that sex is not something you have to do.”

The night the TOT ended, I waited with Themxo at the petrol station for his bus back to Bloemfontein. As we waited, a bakkie pulled in, driven by a white man, with an empty middle seat, and at least five black men crowded into the back – such a natural scene that it’s not even questioned, except maybe in my head whenever I see it. We sat and watched, a rich white American and a poor black South African, and Themxo leaned over to me and said “You see that? He's in the front, but they have to sit in the back. We let them do that to us.” How does one respond to that? You don’t. And I didn’t…I just sat there. And then Themxo’s cell phone started blaring Alicia Keyes, and he began to dance in the parking lot, moving his hips as if they were completely detached from his body.

For a while I've been keeping track of quotes that have hit me particularly hard, made me smile or given me chills, and here are just a few...“We are all Africans, we know soccer. It’s what we do, it’s who we are”... “I’m so grateful you guys are here. You’ve given me the chance to do something important…otherwise I’d be sitting at home, doing nothing. Now it’s up to me" ... One trainer told his coach’s story of his best friend, who was raped in prison (as he put it: “they did funny things to him, they made him into a woman”) and later died of AIDS. As he finished his story, he told us: “When you keep something inside, it can break you. This is the first time I’ve ever told my story; I feel such relief, I feel I can breathe.”

Farm Life is Awesome

One of the farms surrounding Richmond is the largest merino sheep farm in South Africa (merino wool is the really soft, really expensive stuff). I’ve befriended the farmers who own it, John and Lorette, and they invited me to see the shearing process. City girl that I am, I’ve never seen a sheep being…shorn…except at the Dutchess County Fair in Upstate NY...but that doesn't count. They shear the sheep every 6-8 months, and the process itself is incredible to see. They shear nearly 500 sheep a day in a huge barn with about twelve guys quickly, systematically cutting away at their thick coats. The sheep are baaing, making a racket, and the workers are sweating and muscling them around. Several other farm workers stand for hours sorting for quality (the good quality for clothes, the denser stuff for carpets, etc) – apparently, more than 90% of the wool is exported.

I also got to see the more intimate side of farm life…a system of “practice artificial insemination,” in which they train rams to ejaculate into a fake vagina. They hold an ewe, and bring in one ram at a time to sniff her and eventually mount her; as he is about to ejaculate, farm workers use an artificial vagina to collect semen. It was a long process, with several rams, but only one ewe. What a job. Lorette showed us a small vial of semen, which can apparently inseminate up to 20 ewes, and said “look you can still see the sperm swimming!” I guess farmers are very open about all of this…I thought it was totally awesome.

Hope in Richmond

Grassroot Soccer has partnered with Hope in Richmond, a small non-profit in the States dedicated to developing and improving life conditions by providing health care, employment opportunities and infrastructural improvements. Since arriving, they have built several bathroom facilities, constructing toilets in the township and nearby squatter camps, where previously there were none whatsoever, and renovating the bathrooms in the high school, which were apparently non-functional. They also replaced the septic tanks for the entire town, which will benefit the entire population of Richmond, white, black and colored.

On a recent trip, Hope in Richmond recruited a group of medical and public health professionals to assess the needs of the town; they performed a health assessment survey of the squatter camp, and basic medical training to three AIDS outreach workers who do home visits, weekly medical assessments and counseling sessions. While they have a good sense of the symptoms, conditions and needs of their HIV+ “patients,” they have no training or medical background and may be illiterate. In the next few months, I’m hoping to work with them so that they can better contribute to local health needs.

One of Hope in Richmond’s most crucial projects has been the introduction of a daily feeding scheme, or soup kitchen, to the township and squatter camp. Every day at 3pm, the three AIDS outreach workers serve a basic meal to hundreds of township kids. There is not enough money for a real meal, but the kids usually get bread with butter and jelly and a cup of juice; a crucial meal for most kids, lasting them until the next day’s lunch at school. Every day, children start to appear outside the church, rambunctious at first, but then forming an orderly line to receive a squirt of hand sanitizer and recite the daily prayer (eyes closed, young bodies squirming with impatience and hunger). They then receive their food; and though the kids are filthy, barefoot, in tattered clothes, and probably haven’t eaten all day, their excitement and satisfaction with this simple meal is unmistakable. Nigel is a young boy who is always at the soup kitchen, we think he lives in the squatter camp. He is only seven years old, but somehow speaks nearly perfect English, and has been a great translator between us and the hundreds of other Afrikaans speaking kids.

The final project which seems to be finally coming to fruition is Hope in Richmond’s major, long-term undertaking – the renovation of the local stadium and soccer field into a community center. Currently, there are five families squatting in the concrete rooms underneath the stadium, and Hope in Richmond is the final stages of building homes for these families (very basic, but reliable brick structures). Once they are moved out, the complex will be refurbished to accommodate the soup kitchen, a permanent clinic for the HIV outreach workers, a Grassroot Soccer office, and a library for the township. It will be one of the only community spaces for the people of Richmond, and will be a tremendous resource for health, nutrition and education.

And last, but certainly not least, Hope in Richmond has recruited Grassroot Soccer to provide the first formal, sustained, HIV education program for the tiny, isolated desert town. Apart from a once-yearly government workshop, and a Life Orientation class, which teaches basic life-skills to learners, there is no HIV-education to speak of, a likely explanation for the 35% HIV-infection rate. Beth and I have a lot of work ahead of us, and in the coming months, we will be establishing a GRS school program and weekly street league. While GRS primarily targets middle-school aged children, presumably intervening before they reach high school, several people in Richmond have pinpointed the high school as the most at-risk population. In a meeting with the principal, he told me that the University of Stellenbosch recently completed a survey of Richmond High School, and found that 30% of its students were HIV+. A staggering statistic, which I still find hard to believe, but one which came directly from the mouth of the high school principal. He explained that if the school administration finds out about a learner’s status, they try to support the child without immediately informing his or her parents; it is so common for HIV+ kids to be abused, neglected or kicked out of their homes, and the school tries to protect its learners for as long as possible.

We’ve spent several weeks meeting with community members, black, white and colored, trying to identify bright, committed and engaged individuals to become Grassroot Soccer coaches (including unofficial community leaders, teachers and pastors, local soccer players and coaches, students, and of course, hundreds of unemployed young men and women). Our recruiting effort culminated in a community meeting, during which Beth and I introduced GRS and facilitated Find The Ball – not completely disastrous! The application process is tricky, but exciting; I’m learning that it’s really difficult to get a good sense of personality, intelligence and commitment from a written application, especially when written in a second language. And, it’s no easier to conduct interviews with young people who have never been interviewed, much less by two American women. One major challenge we have faced is determining those actively want to work to better their communities, and those who simply see Americans, and think money. But, from the fairly diverse group of applications (black and colored, male and female, almost all high-school educated and currently unemployed) we selected several people who seemed genuinely committed to helping local youth. In a couple weeks, Beth and I (with the help of two GRS Master Trainers, Themxo and Siya) will be facilitating a week-long TOT workshop for 16-20 new GRS coaches, and we will then officially launch GRS in Richmond.

Land of Ten Thousand Sheep

I never thought it would happen, but I am now, officially, a small town girl. For the last month I have been living in Richmond, a tiny farming village in the middle of the Great Karoo Desert, where we have been working on the initial stages of introducing GRS to the community. We drove the nearly five hours from Port Elizabeth, crossing over from beautiful coastal city into barren desert landscape. The final leg into Richmond took us onto a dirt road, with nothing but sheep and the occasional farm house. In the nearly two hours of driving this road, the only vehicle we passed was a horse-drawn buggy. The following is a little depiction of my home for the next several months…

First, a little perspective as to how much I do, quite literally, live in the middle of the nowhere: if I ride my bike for more than six minutes in any direction, I emerge from town or township, and into the desert…thousands of acres and miles and kilometers of beautiful, sprawling, endless mountains, valleys, flat prickly bush and cactus, and a lot of damn sheep. One of the farmers, Johan Bezuiidenhout, owns 25,000 acres of land and 3,000 sheep, and he is only one of 60 incredibly wealthy farmers who work the land surrounding Richmond. Johan took me on a tour of “the veld” on the back of his bakkie, passing jackal, kudu, hemsbok, springbok, hundred of tortoises, and a hell of a lot of sheep.

The town of Richmond was partially founded as a religious center point for the Afrikaans farmers settled in the area. “Town” itself is composed of two long streets, and a third dirt road; it’s the type of town where you can walk down the middle of the street because there are never any cars. Only on Sundays do cars line the streets, when the white farmers come into town for Church. There is a grocery store and two restaurants in town, one convenience-type store, and the “Chinese store” – the only place in town to buy any clothes (those who enter it are viewed with disdain for supporting a store owned by a Chinese family. Who knows how a Chinese family ended up in Richmond, but they need to make a living, too). A small “stream” (usually a dry riverbed, with occasional water running through it) divides the town and the township, connected by a rickety footbridge.

I live in town, which is incredibly, disarmingly quiet; the only other people I ever see who live in town are the old lady across the street, the pastor and his wife, a loopy, middle-aged self-professed “flower child” who owns an abandoned book store (which has sold 7 books in 7 months), and a few colored people. While the town is almost deserted, right across the stream the township is bustling with thousands of people, a mix of colored and black (Xhosa), most of whom speak Afrikaans. The official-unofficial population is 9,000, three hundred of whom are white and mostly live on the surrounding farms, the rest of whom live in the townships. I am just getting used to using the term “colored” given its distinct racial implications in the States. But here, it’s a commonly accepted term to describe a person whose racial composition may be any combination of white colonial, black African and Indian. During apartheid, the distinction was made between whites, coloreds and blacks, and rights were distributed in that order.

There are almost no job opportunities to speak of in Richmond, except the lucky handful who work in the few shops or become farm workers. Almost everyone is unemployed; young men spend their days walking aimlessly through the township, while women stay closer to home, usually sitting outside their shacks, talking, watching. The widespread unemployment explains the rampant alcoholism in the township, as well as the spread of HIV (there is quite literally nothing to do, so people turn to sex, usually unprotected). Parents often begin drinking as soon as their kids leave for school, in one of the 30+ shebeens (illegal pubs) located behind store fronts or in people’s homes.

The alcoholism strikes me as quite ironic considering the religious foundation of Richmond, with 30 churches meeting regularly in the town and township. My second day in Richmond, I attended St. Matthews Anglican Sunday Mass with a group of visiting Americans; I was the only one who did not stand up to receive communion. The next weekend, Beth and I got invited to the Harvest Time Church, for self-professed born-again Christians. I’ve attended church before, and while I am always respectful, each experience has reinforced my own values about the concept and institution of religion. But this time, I couldn’t not be uncomfortable in the small, cement room, as the congregation sang and prayed, eyes closed and reaching for the sky. Toward the end, several women came to the front, presumably to confess their sins; as the preacher held one woman’s shoulders and powerfully sermonized over, she began to convulse and collapsed to the floor. At that point, I left.

Richmond has three schools - a primary school, middle school and high school - with about 1500 black and colored students; white children of the farmers are sent away from an early age to private boarding schools. There is a youth hostel for the children of farm workers; kids of all ages live in “dorms” and return to the farms on the weekends. It’s primarily high-school aged kids, and given the fact that it is fairly unstructured, poorly resourced and maintained, it has been dubbed “the red zone.” A group of poor, hungry, uneducated teenagers, living together with minimal supervision – strikes me a breeding ground for unsafe, unhealthy behavior.

I recently went to meet with the principal of the middle school, Ikhaya Primary, and I arrived at 10am, just in time for “lunch.” Each school has funds for a feeding scheme to provide one meal per day, and one plastic plate per child. They try to feed the children as early as possible, because for many it’s their only meal of the day. Some may eat breakfast or dinner at home, but most kids will not eat again until the next day. At the beginning of each term, the school tries to provide breakfast for those learners who are really bad off, but that only lasts until the money runs dry. As the food was brought out to a dusty courtyard in massive buckets, the kids formed a long line for one scoop of pasta with fish sauce, and a cup of juice. I almost asked about silverware, and then immediately felt silly and/or completely ignorant when I saw the kids grabbing at the food with their hands.

Off to Richmond...

After sending my parents off I headed straight to Kimberley, a town just west of Bloemfontein, to run a Training of Trainers (TOT). GRS has partnered with De Beers to sponsor a Grassroot Soccer program in Kimberley and in surrounding townships. During the training, which lasts for five long, ten-hour days, we introduce the entire GRS curriculum (20+ activities), basic HIV/AIDS information, facilitation and leadership skills, and monitoring and evaluation of the GRS programs. Lucky for me, I got to do the condom demonstration. One of the older guys, Mutabaruka, has been a youth facilitator for years, and has attended many workshops on health and facilitation; while taking feedback at the end of the first day, he said that our activity-based strategy was the most fun, effective and informative strategy he'd ever worked with. On the last day, we had a big graduation ceremony, with live music, dancing, GRS activities, and several community leaders who came out to learn about and participate with GRS. All in all, we trained 16 new trainers, ready to introduce the GRS program in Kimberley.

One of the more serious activities of the GRS curriculum is Coach's Story, in which each coach tells their "story" of how HIV has affected them and why they got involved with GRS. The stories are meant to encourage everyone to share and trust each other, and to break stigma. One of our trainers, with whom I've become very close, shared her story: She had been estranged from her father for years, until she found out he was "very sick." She refused to see him, until one day in church something convinced her to go see him before he died. The string of women he had been involved with had abandoned him, and he was alone, hungry and incredibly ill, without any medical care. She asked why he was sick, and while everyone else knew, he was somehow oblivious, and said he didn't know. When she told him "you're HIV+", he proceeded to yell at her, denying it, accusing her of lying. He died soon after. She later told me that this was the first time she had shared her story. I know that several of the trainers I work with have lost parents, but they have never discussed whether it was HIV-related (one must just assume). I'm beginning to realize that so many of the people I work with, and those in the townships, have their own HIV-related stories.

On the downside, I did get mugged while in Kimberley. Driving back from the townships, we stopped at a light; Bri was driving, Themby was up front, and I was in the backseat. A tsotsi ran toward the car and jumped more than halfway through the open window. He grabbed my backpack first, but I was able to pull it away from him (it had everything in it - my laptop, ipod, wallet, everything). I was yelling at Bri to drive, and in the commotion he grabbed my phone. We finally pulled away, shaken up, but ok (minus one cell phone). And, of course, in the 27 years that Themby has been living in South Africa, this has never happened to her. But, because she was with two white girls, we were all a target. Needless to say, I now keep my windows closed and doors locked.

On the bright side, I have officially passed along the Bloem project, and today I am moving to a town called Richmond to pilot a new GRS program there. Richmond is a very small farming community in the middle of the Karoo Desert, and GRS will be partnering with an outreach program of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Maryland. Apparently, the town has 70% unemployment and 35% HIV prevalence, and they've gotten involved in several community development projects over the years in Richmond, including a local soup kitchen. They have just recruited GRS to introduce HIV education and awareness to the community, so our first step will be to identify local community members who will participate in a TOT, and join GRS in educating youth. I'm hoping we will be able to collaborate with SPEC and pilot the first sustainable HIV education program in Richmond. Side note: the town is so small, Beth and I are getting bicycles for transport. I think I'll be spending a lot of time at the local pub with Afrikaans farmers.

Yay for Mom and Dad

My parents came to visit in late January, and it was so wonderful to spend time with family, and get out of Bloem, once again. I took them to the GRS office, and one of our trainers, Thabo, gave them a tour of Mangaung. We then flew to Cape Town, which is stunning, probably the most beautiful city I have ever seen. Set against Table Mountain, it has incredible views of both the mountains and the Atlantic and Indian oceans, beautiful architecture, incredible food, and a level of diversity I had not yet seen in South Africa. They say it's "not really Africa," and while that's a tricky statement, I would definitely say it's distinctly unique from any other place on the continent. Liz flew down from Malawi (!) and we spent a week exploring; walked around the famous Waterfront and toured Robben Island, an isolated prison island off the coast where Nelson Mandela, among thousands of other political prisoners, was held for nearly 25 years. Also drove down to the southernmost tip of Africa, to the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. A gorgeous drive around Cape Peninsula, and incredible to climb to the top of these ridges, essentially at the end of the world. On the way north, we drove through Simon's Town, a quaint naval town, with a colony of native African penguins. Adorable and funny, especially when Liz started to chase them and they bit her.

Spent a couple days in wine country (Frankschhoek), driving through vineyards, tasting wines and chocolates. After a final meal of sushi (oh, how I've missed sushi), we flew up to a private game reserve at Kruger National Park. We went out on early morning (think 5am) and late afternoon game drives with a ranger and tracker. By looking at a footprint or animal dropping, they can track what animal it was, how long ago it was there, and which direction it headed. Safari was probably one of the coolest things I've ever done - coming within five feet of a pride of lions, elephants, hyenas, rhinos, water buffalo, zebras, giraffes, leopards, etc. And, we got lucky...on our first drive, we came upon a pride of lions devouring a zebra they had just caught; all that was left to identify it was two striped legs. A pack of hyenas had begun to gather around the periphery of the kill-site, trying to get at the zebra scraps left behind. Resulted in a face-off between the small pack of hyenas and a lioness, trying to protect her pride. On our last drive, we happened upon a leopard just minutes after a kill. It was dragging an impala through the bush, trying to hide among the trees so that it could feast safely. We sat and watched and followed the leopard for almost an hour, and you could hear dozens of impala nearby barking and hissing at the predator. Absolutely unreal. A pride of lions or a leopard itself is something, but seeing the carnage is pretty damn awesome.

Shabbat Dinner in Joburg

Just when I thought my trip was over, I ended up having my first Kosher Orthodox Shabbat dinner in a beautiful Jewish suburb in Johannesburg. While in Zanzibar, Bri and I met Hayley, a sweet girl from Joburg who has been living in Australia for several years. She became our travel companion, snorkeling and partying with us, and she left with the requisite “If you’re ever in Joburg…” On our way back to Bloem, we decided to take a detour through Joburg. We called information, luckily, bizarrely, got her cousin, and managed to track her down.

We got into the city on a Friday afternoon, just in time for Shabbat dinner. As the sun went down, I borrowed “dinner appropriate” clothes from Hayley, we lit the candles, and Hayley’s father said a prayer for Bri and I, surprised that our fathers had never “blessed us” before Shabbat dinner. Even though I’m a proud, educated Jew from the Upper West Side, I have never experienced such strict practices, and I spent the next five days trying to follow the house rules, and not expose my own rather “flexible” version of Judaism. I learned to use separate meat and milk dishes, separate sinks, and to sit in the proper seat around the table. Saturday was tricky; I wasn’t quite sure what was “resting” and what wasn’t, but I know that Hayley’s father had ripped off strips of toilet paper beforehand, so it seemed like anything I did might violate the day of rest.

But once the sun went down, Joburg far surpassed my expectations. Had some great nights out (although all the clubs play house music - which I think is awful and monotonous, but South Africans love it) and drove through several townships, which were not unlike those in Bloem. Many homes have “domestics,” black women who you see every morning and night, coming and going from the townships to the white suburbs. So it wasn’t entirely out of the ordinary that there was a live-in maid, except that she called the father of the house “Master.” When I first heard this, I could not quite believe it. “Master”? The implications, to me anyway, are appalling and unacceptable, but as a relative stranger and guest, it was clearly not my place to say anything. Needless to say, it made me quite uncomfortable.

Finally got back to Bloem, and within 24 hours of being home, my phone rang with an invitation to Shabbat dinner that Friday. Even though Jews only make up less than one percent of the world, apparently, we’re everywhere. This family was as surprised to meet us, two foreign Jewish girls living in Bloemfontein, as we were to meet them. Until that point, I quite literally thought that Bri and I were the Jewish community in Bloem, and had no idea that there were 120+ Jews in town, and even a synagogue! Either way, I’d missed challah and brisket and kugel, and it felt strangely familiar (and immensely ironic) to be caught up in the dinnertime banter of a nice Jewish family.

New Years Eve in Zambia

After finally leaving Zanzibar behind, I spent the last week hanging at the intern house in Lusaka, Zambia. Lusaka is a very urban environment set among sprawling hills and rural farmland. In contrast to South Africa, Lusaka represented much more of what I imagined an African city to look like, both in terms of racial divisions, and the integration of Zambian culture and tradition with urban, semi-modern living. Grassroot Soccer in Zambia has been well established for years now, and I got to see the program at a weekly “KidSafe League” at the local futsal stadium (futsal is essentially small-sided soccer). The GRS trainers have formed a team called PEP FC (Peers Educating Peers Football Club); they play in a weekly league, and after each game deliver Grassroot Soccer activities to other young players.

Very low key end to the trip. On New Years Eve, we intentionally avoided Lusaka’s ex-pat scene, and a bunch of us made a delicious curry dinner and played drinking games. Apparently it’s the most dangerous night of the year to drive (drunk driving is a problem year-round), so we stayed put. Very relaxed and fun night, and Lusaka definitely impressed with the fireworks – coming from all over the city, for hours (and days) before and after New Years Eve.