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).