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