Appreciating Hugs, T-Shirts, Car Batteries, and our Coaches

Mel gives out hugs to graduates as Godfrey and I look on

Back in the safe confines of Lilongwe my position at GRS has steadily picked up as I get more and more into the role.  We had our last graduation of the school break cycle where graduating participants all lined up to receive diplomas and a victory hug from Mel (all greeted with large cheers).  Now with the break over and the school year starting, Godfrey and I have been visiting new schools to introduce them to the Grassroot Soccer program and schedule our interventions. One highlight was having an entire sophomore and senior grade laugh at me (my Chichewa isn’t exactly fluent).

Over the course of this, I’ve come to appreciate how hard our site coordinators and coaches work not to just to educate participants but also to maintain the relationships with the schools.  There is an expectation that when an organization like GRS comes there will be gifts given to headmasters or teachers in schools that agree to help.  Unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to support as many incentives or thank you gifts as schools, community chiefs, and participants sometimes expect or want.  I’ve been amazed at how far something as small as a t-shirt will go with some of our partners inciting both elation and jealousy.  It’s definitely a balancing act that I’ll have to learn more about as I continue.

The Rav-4 broke down on me for the first time...tear

Another thing I’ll definitely learn more about is car mechanics.  I had my first breakdown with our Rav-4 chariot this week shuttling between the Ministry of Education and picking up our finance officer from a meeting.  Just as we were all in the car ready to leave I turned the key to absolute silence.  After trying a couple times Godfrey and I went and looked under the hood.  Where he saw a battery, an engine, a radiator, and sensible connections, wires, and screws I just saw a tangled mess of mechanical stuff.  The situation was worse than we thought and we called in reinforcements (AAA is not an option here).  We got help from one of the drivers for another outreach program.  By the end of the assessment I knew that it wasn’t the radiator or engine and that the central issue was that the battery was out of battery water/acid.  We tried to get the car started by switching batteries with the driver’s car (jumper cables are also rare) and then switching our battery back in while the engine was still running, but we still couldn’t keep it going.  Eventually, Godfrey and the driver had to drive/push the car back to the office while I drove the rest of the crew home in the driver’s pickup.  After a new battery was installed the car is again up and running, but for how long?

Finally, we had a planning session with half our coaches on ways to improve our Volunteer Counseling and Testing (VCT) Soccer tournaments while the other half of the coaches were in the final day of their VCT training to become certified counselors/testers.  The planning session went well and was full of ideas and issues that are both important and tough to address, which, inevitably, we’ll have to address.  The graduation of the other coaches from their training was also great to see, especially because it was a big investment on the part of GRS to provide them with the three week training, while it was also a big time investment on the part of coaches to completely give three weeks of their time.  They all passed the course with flying colors and they’ll now join their colleagues in the field for interventions.

Coaches HIV Testing and Counseling Course Graduation

Alright, bas (enough) for now.  Tsiku la bwino ndi tionana. (Have a good day and see you later).

Understanding Miley Cyrus' "The Climb" and Planet of the Apes

At the peak of the mountain, too high to see the ground below

Lilongwe is a lot of things: capital of Malawi, geographically spread out, sans street names or proper addresses, lacking electricity, not lacking nyama on wheels (street-side hot dog stands), and extremely dark at night.  Another thing about Lilongwe is that it’s close to plenty of great day/weekend trips.  Over the last couple weeks I’ve gone on two of these.  The first was a trip for “hiking” which became more like professional mountain climbing.  The second trip was another excursion to Lake Malawi at a resort with some azungu doctors from the clinic that invited us.

The oncoming fire moving quickly in our direction

The hiking trip was highlighted by passing a group of dog herders (dog herds included), sighting of mountain deer/goat creatures (new species maybe?), avoiding raging forest fires from the west (hearing the crackling of oncoming fire is surprisingly scary), continued development of my climbing skills, and finally stunning views.  Despite many obstacles we all managed to reach the peak, so high you could barely see the ground.

Sunrise in Manguchi on Lake Malawi

The summit of Balancing Rock Mountain, this area was highly guarded by baboons

Returning to Lake Malawi brought with it new dangers, mainly baboons.  The baboons issued their first warning at our arrival breakfast where they snuck in from above and behind to grab food right off our table.  Not surprisingly they showed a particular affinity to bananas and human babies so we used one of the doctor’s children as a decoy to protect our food.  The beach was gorgeous at the resort, but the sand got blazing hot around noon and when I joined in on a local beach soccer game I was nearly brought to tears at the pain before our team thankfully scored to end the game.  The resort had kayaks which Mel and I used to paddle out and have races with fishermen as they laid their nets.  Note: none of them accepted our challenge to race to Mozambique and back.  I then found myself in a familiar bare-footed rock climbing position as Mel and I summated Balancing Rock Mountain.  Unfortunately for us the top is guarded by wild packs of baboons and we were surrounded by at least 20 of them.  At first it was just cute little baboons wrestling with each other, climbing trees, and fondling themselves.  However, the leaders (and giants) of the group soon emerged and I quickly understood why Planet of the Apes totally made sense.  Luckily all they asked for (in perfect English) was a Grassroot Soccer t-shirt which Mel and I promised to bring them when we returned.

Preparing for aerial dismount to steal food

Beach Soccer

Leaving the resort we were not out of danger yet though.  Gas (both diesel and petrol) remains in extremely short supply and about three hours into a four-and-a-half hour ride back our fuel light went on just as the sun was setting.  We’d passed two gas stations in the last hour and neither had petrol for the car.  Things were getting desperate.  Ally, our driver/MD, had already been taken by stress and handed me the wheel, unable to cope with the falling gas meter.  Now on empty, with kilometers passing between anything resembling a town all our knuckles were white with worry.  Our manager, Meagan, was on call to rush to our rescue with the jerry can of Petrol stored in our laundry room and Mel had even stopped making bad jokes.  Luckily Mike, MD/Zoolander hair, spotted a station hidden behind a pub off the side of the road.  We approached fearing the worst but luckily our luck had turned and we filled up just in time.  Unfortunately, the sun still set before we reached Lilongwe and since the roads are all lightless, single-lane, and only like 75% of the cars use lights there were a couple scares while passing vehicles as Ally had to give herself a dose of morphine after screaming bloody murder when I briefly put us on course for a head-on collision with a motorcycle (totally had it under control).

When in Malawi...

The hiking and lake crew from L to R (Mike, Mel, Ally, Laura, Me)

Lake Malawi: Monkey Bay and AWA

Went from Lilongwe (red circle on left) to Monkey Bay (red circle on right)

My first Lake Malawi trip was arranged by our boss/Malawi tour guide Meagan.  On a Friday afternoon we piled into an oversized land cruiser and headed for Monkey Bay on the southern part of the lake.  We saw a lot of the country side on our drive and the sun setting behind the mountains provided some particularly stunning views, but these views came at a cost.  The enlarged land rover we were using was of course without functioning headlights.  Now, if Malawian roads had any lights this may not have been too big of a problem, but that not being the case we were quite literally in a race against the solar clock.  With 20 kilometers to go, we hit absolute darkness and pretty much just blasted our horn the entire way with the emergency lights flashing so that people and other cars could get out of our way.  Moving through the town at a crawling speed, we still missed the turn off for the Mufasa Inn where we were to stay.

Our expertly constructed tent

After finally arriving, we had to construct our tent.  With headlamps on, and thick swarms of bugs making it difficult to breathe and see, we assembled the tent in a prime spot right off the water.  We hung out for a bit, listening to the music on the beach around the bonfire and then hit the tent for the night.

A view from Mufasa Inn beach out to the bay

The next morning we all started with a nice swim.  It was a hot day so it felt nice.  The bay was beautiful and we'd been assured that the hippo and crocodile were on the other side of the bay.  We swam out to an island and scaled the rocks where I had my first foray into barefoot rock climbing (or any rock climbing for that matter).  I pushed through the fear (and repeated scrapes against the rocks) to make it to the top where we were rewarded with a stunning view of the bay.  After managing to make it down and avoiding the giant snake in the rocks we swam back for a nice, relaxing day on the beach.  Later we made the big return swim to the island and completed the climb so we could get our sunset view from atop the peak.

View from the mountain - to the left is where the hippo hung out, to the right was our camp

Sunset on the mountain from left to right: Mike, Meagan, Me, Mel

That night there was a big party and we met a bunch of people (peace corps, engineers without borders, Malawians, etc).  There was a live band and it was a fun, late night. The next morning we were all tired and went for a refreshing swim.  My body was still sore from all the swimming the day before but the water was cool and nice.  After a breakfast of PB&J’s and a lot of reading, Mike and I realized that Mel had been out swimming for a long time and was so far out that no one could see her.  We went out swimming to look for her and 200 meters out from shore we were able to climb some rocks and spot her off in the distance out past the bay at the far end where the land opens back up to the full lake.  I knew my body was drained from the swimming today and yesterday but I’m out in Africa to challenge myself I thought.  We finally caught up to her and decided we might as well climb the only mountain we hadn't yet conquered which required yet more grueling swimming.  


The following is an excerpt from Mike: "the swim over was a rough one.  Once out of the bay, you are exposed to the two foot swells that throw giant gulps of water right down your throat at the most opportune moment. adding that to the fear that we were no longer in 20 foot deep water but now close to 50 feet, and had been warned by Godfrey of the GRS Malawi team "not to go deep" when swimming in Lake Malawi (he would not be more specific than that, which confirmed my beliefs of the mythical Lake Malawi river monster). The three of us finally made it to the base of the mountain, and began to scale the vertical face. Matt was making great progress in his first weekend of bouldering, and before long we had climbed higher than the fish eagle nests. looking out over the vast lake, unable to see across to Mozambique, we realized one thing: we were leaving soon. It was now 12:15 and we were over a kilometer swim from shore, and our transport was leaving exactly at 1. "

Our problems started when we tried to reach that far shore in the distance

It's at this point that the real problems started.  After rock diving back into the rough waters I realized there was no way my body was going to make the swim.  Being knocked by the swells I gave Mike a look and he knew.  I got myself back to the rocks just as my leg cramped up fully and I pulled myself to a brief but vital safety still a kilometer from our camp.  From here I had to fend off the local baboon who’s territory I’d encroached on and avoid snakes in the breaks between the rocks.  The coast was practically impossible to traverse as I slowly made my way around a small bay climbing up, down, between, and around giant boulders and rocks.  Finally, after a punishing 400 meters of climbing, Mike reappeared with a small paddle boat.  The lake was stubborn though and he couldn't get close enough to shore to get me without the boat being smashed into the rocks.  I'd have to make it out.  I carefully got myself out to the edge and waited for the right tide before diving in and avoiding the swells to reach the boat.  We pulled ourselves on board and paddled back just in time to make our ride back.

AWA (Africa Wins Again) we all agreed before we sped back to Lilongwe managing to arrive before another headlight issue derailed our return.  It was a good weekend.

Graduations, Home-Cooked Nsima, and Tournaments

Kawale Graduates with their Diplomas

Last week I got the chance to attend a graduation for the Kawale area of Lilongwe.  It was an awesome experience, much bigger than either of the other graduations I've been to because in Kawale all of the interventions have their graduation together (around 4 are generally happening simultaneously).  The area of Kawale is managed by the extremely able site coordinator Cossam (pictured on the left).

From Left to Right: Cossam (Site Coordinator), Mel, Shadreck (Coach and Kuche Kuche teammate), Me

The graduation is an awesome experience for both graduating participants and coaches and staff because it's more than just a celebration and recognition of the work they've done, it's actually another GRS session to continue to reinforce what they've learned.  During the graduation, GRS coaches lead discussions with all the participants on what they've learned, songs and poems are performed, some of the activities from the curriculum are led by participants, and in this case there was even a great skit (pictured below) where participants acted out the scenario of their parent's disapproval of participating in the GRS course and them explaining why it was so important and helpful to have gone through it even though they didn't get any money.

Awesome skit performed at Kawale graduation

It was yet another eye-opening experience.

After the graduation though came a time for a more stomach oriented experience.  Godfrey, our terrific program coordinator, invited Mel and I over for a home cooked lunch, which we eagerly agreed to.  After nearly destroying the simple egg preparations, I moved aside to let Godfrey teach us the ancient art of nsima (pronounced see-ma) cooking.

Godfrey and I eating nsima

Mel mis-eating nsima

Altogether we had a wonderful lunch of nsima, chicken, and eggs with vegetables.  I preferred to eat with my Malawian manners (taking chunks of nsima and rolling it into balls with your hands before dipping in eggs and vegetables).  Mel, as you can see, had other ideas though completely disregarding any sort of cultural standards by stuffing wads of nsima into her face.  Godfrey and I agreed that she should be left out next time.

Kawale VCT Tournament in Area 23 - testing took place in the buildings at the back

Later in the week was the Kawale VCT soccer tournament, also led by Cossam.  The tournament was a great success, the coaches were extremely organized, especially our designated MC, Andrew, and the morning pre-test counselor, Mtendere, who engaged all the participants in interactive discussions and information sharing sessions on HIV/AIDS.  The counseling sessions were a great success as evidenced by the large percentage of participants that went straight from the counseling to test.  All in all we had 156 people test at the tournament.  Unfortunately, 5 did test positive for HIV.  Any person who tests positive is immediately referred to our treatment partners, Tingathe, or to the nearest clinic.  Additionally, if this is the first time they have tested positive and depending on how young they are, a coach/counselor will escort the person home to explain the situation to their family and make sure they are ok.  I once again refereed the final and once again there was controversy (in my defense judging what's too high to count as a goal is not easy when we're only using cones).  Regulation time ended in a draw and the match had to finish in pks.  The tournament was awesome and as well as all of our staff performed, I think the highlight may have been three youths that circulated the event riling up the crowd with energy and also went out into the community to get more people to come out.  The magic?  These three were actually GRS participants that had just graduated a couple days earlier!  It showed the true power of the program as they went around sharing the energy and information that they'd just graduated with around the community.  All in all it was a great week.

Godfrey and I with the 3 GRS graduates who were the life of the tournament: gathering people from the community, sharing information, and recommending people to test