Final Thoughts: Malawi, GRS, ndi Anzanga

I've been back in the U.S. for a month now and I think one of the most frequent questions I've gotten since returning has been, "do you think you're experiencing culture shock?"  I've found it difficult to answer this question because frankly I haven't felt shocked by anything since I've been back.  If anything I'm surprised by how much everything seems to be just like I remember it, as if I went to bed one night and had a yearlong dream where I lived in Malawi and then just woke up and I was right back where I left.

That of course is not what's happened (though it does sound like a pretty compelling movie plot which likely already exists).  I certainly haven't had any breakdowns or freakouts of which I was warned before returning, but in their place I've had a quiet unease in the back of my mind as I realize I don't quite fit into this world as seamlessly as I did before.  There was a time where New York City, New Jersey, my family, my friends, and my work in those places were pretty much all I knew.  However, thanks to the opportunity given to me by Grassroot Soccer, the inspiring staff of GRS in Malawi, the support of my ever-present roommate Mel, and the many anzanga (friends) I made in my time there I realize I am a decidedly different person than the one who boarded a South Africa Airways plane bound to Lilongwe just over a year ago.

The end of my time in Malawi finished in a hectic blur as test kits finally arrived in the country and we worked to fit months of programming into my final two weeks there.  We finished an intervention cycle at schools, launched the first ever Skillz Holiday Camp in Malawi, and held only the second HIV Testing and Counseling Event outside of Lilongwe that the program had ever had.  All of this was combined with development sessions for coaches and final matches and farewells with soccer teams and friends.  It's not an exaggeration to say that my last 3 weeks in Malawi were 3 of the busiest of my life.  Add to that all of the emotions swirling around my mixed up head (I just have a lot of feelings) as I faced a departure from a place and community I'd grown to love, and lets just say I didn't have the calm, thoughtful good bye I might've preferred.  Upon further reflection though it was the perfect farewell; if there's one thing I learned in my time there it's that things never go the way you plan them (or want them to), but they still always manage to come together.

In that time I've changed in ways I'll probably only continue to realize as I assimilate (albeit clumsily) back into life here; all I know is that I'm eternally grateful for the support I've had along the way from both everyone in Malawi and here in America that helped me get through and grow in the many obstacles I faced abroad.  A couple days before leaving I found out something that I knew was a looming possibility for some months, the Grassroot Soccer program in Malawi would be shutting down by the end of 2012.  Unfortunately, as with many growing organizations choices have to be made, and in the case of Malawi, Grassroot Soccer decided this site was not worth the investment to try and secure new funding.  It's a shame too because the caliber of coaches is not something you can just put a number to and the knowledge, attitude, and examples they set in their community are something that cannot just be replicated in other places.  GRS Malawi was the only GRS site in which each coach was also a certified HIV tester and counselor and so they were able to deliver comprehensive education to youth which included completing the GRS Skillz Curriculum as well as delivering home visits where our coaches provided free pre-test Counseling and testing to any participants and family members willing to receive their services.

Although the Malawi Grassroot Soccer site may be closing, the work is never done and there are other organizations with tons of support and focus in Malawi that I hope will continue to carry forward the hope and belief that this country CAN stop the spread of HIV while supporting those that are suffering from it.  The continued improvement in the fight against this disease will only serve to free up resources to improve other areas of need while providing inspiration and strength to a people that are always eager to smile and to help.  My time with Grassroot Soccer in Malawi has ended, but its effect on me and the direction to which this experience will steer my life is only just beginning.

Thanks for reading and for all of your support.

Baylor Lilongwe Staff

Grassroot Soccer Malawi Staff

-Matt (Mateu, Kamwile, Akamwile, Lethal, Martin, and any other nicknames I acquired and have managed to forget)

Top 10 Lists

I've always been a fan of lists and in my second-to-last post I thought I'd take the time to think about my top 10 Favorite and Least Favorite moments from my time in the Warm Heart of Africa.

10 Best

1.       Goals for Girls – Between taking 100 young girls through Grassroot Soccer activities, to showcasing women’s ability to play football even against men, to testing and counseling almost 400 people this even held near Lake Malawi, about an hour and a half outside of Lilongwe, went spectacularly well and was all the more rewarding after the immense efforts to organize it in the weeks leading up and the incredible work done by the staff on the day of the event.

Chisomo and Linda giving their keynote speeches at Goals 4 Girls

William giving knowledge to the masses at Goals 4 Girls

2.       Skillz Holiday Camp – The first Skillz Holiday Camp in Malawi was a great success as we recruited over 200 youth across two sites to go through an accelerated Grassroot Soccer Curriculum.  Organizing logistics for this first-time effort was at times (most of the times) hectic, but everything managed to work out great.

Me giving the closing speech at the Skillz Holiday Camp at the Biwi Site

Owen's (Red Shirt) Skillz Holiday Graduates

3.       Climbing Mulanje – I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more beautiful, serene, and impressive place in my life than Mount Mulanje, a mountain massif in the southern region of Malawi.  Trekking through the paths of this majestic “island in the sky” all the problems from miles below melted away for me as I lost myself in the views and the energy of the place.  At less than one tenth the price of Kilimanjaro this also had maybe the best value of any trip I took.

One of the many majestic views from Mulanje

Me taking a bike taxi by the tea plantations at the base of Mulanje

4.      Victoria Falls – From the 20 hour road trip across the Zambian countryside to the Sunset Cruise on into the Class 5 white water kayaking and then the Devil’s Pool all culminating in a terrifying bungee jump I don’t know if I’ve ever pushed myself and my boundaries as much as I did in this terrific 5 day trip.

White water kayaking on the Zambezi river

Along the edge of Victoria Falls

5.      Playing with DD Sunshine – DD Sunshine, named from their founder and head coach David Dube, is the premier women’s football team in Malawi, with many of their players also representing Malawi in the national team.  Since they routinely beat female opposition by margins of more than ten goals they often scrimmage men’s teams.  Luckily because of my friendship with three of the DD Sunshine players as well as the assistant coach I was given the opportunity to both train with them and play alongside them when they faced male teams.  The experience of getting to travel to remote villages on the DD Sunshine Bus to see places I never would’ve known existed in front of crowds of hundreds of villagers was one of the most memorable experiences from my time in the “warm heart of Africa.”  The true character of the team also has to be noted as the players are all committed role models for their community, while the team also dedicates a portion of their winnings for schools fees and housing for players that can’t afford it, in addition to sponsoring one girl not associated with the team to help her complete her schooling.

DD Sunshine Team: 2011-2012, National Champions

6.      Helping Reuben Climb Kilimanjaro – This year one of our outstanding coaches, Reuben Phiri, was given the opportunity to travel to Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro in addition to taking part in various international conferences and workshops all with the aim of ending violence against women.  The climb was organized by the UNiTe campaign and featured representatives from every African country.  I am just proud to have gotten to play a small role in enabling Reuben to take part in this amazing experience as he was deservedly chosen to represent Malawi.  Prior to this Reuben had never left Malawi, had never been on a plane, and had not regularly used email.  After getting through some medical checkup scares, Reuben made everyone proud by reaching the top and proudly hoisting the Malawi flag and Grassroot Soccer T-shirt all while making invaluable international contacts and even having a chance to meet the president of Tanzania!

Reuben on his way to the summit of Kilimanjaro adorning the Malawi flag on his backpack

From L to R: Reuben, Me, Aubrey (Reuben's brother) before he left

7.      Monkey Bay in Lake Malawi – My first trip to Lake Malawi I think still stands as my favorite.  We traveled there in an oversized land rover that lacked basic essentials (most notably any sort of headlights), camped in a tent we set up on the beach at night using our headlamps to guide us, and swam all around the bay (all without realizing that someone had been attacked by a crocodile in that very bay only two weeks earlier).  Add to that sightings of enormous baboons, a ton of rock climbing, and nearly drowning and I think it’s safe to say I had a weekend at the lake I’ll never forget.

View from Monkey Bay beach

View from a mountain (or a small hill) that we climbed

8.      Social Football – Although I didn’t play as much soccer as I thought I would, the occasions I did play were a ton of fun and gave me the chance to meet a lot of great people.  On Sundays I played in a Malawian Social Football League with the team Kuche Kuche (named after the Carlsberg Beer of the same name).  It was full eleven-a-side matches where we’d generally play in the same stadiums used by the Super League.  Baylor, the clinic that Grassroot Soccer is based out of in Malawi and where I worked, also had an informal football team in which we’d scrimmage other organizations, the highlight definitely being when we came from behind to beat UNC!

Kuche Kuche vs Zambian Team

Baylor Social Football Team

9.      Birthday Scavenger Hunt – My 26^th Birthday came with a lot of surprises…and scavenger hunts which I thought were only for children (it’s pretty obvious what people thought about me).  First, on my birthday eve roommates Lizzy and Mel along with Jenn conspired to hide 26 bottles of green joy all around the house.  After a frustrating hour that included searching both inside and outside our home I finally found my 26^th “present.”  The scavenger hunts were not finished though and the next day my coworkers were up to no good as they managed to hide a cake, cookies, drinks, and Mandazi (Malawian donuts) around our relatively small office.  Godfrey took full advantage of the situation by repeatedly yelling out how much time had transpired without me finding things along with relentlessly questioning my competence as a human being.

Lizzy, Mel, and Me with my birthday presents

Godfrey making fun of my inability to find anything hidden in the office

10.   Lesotho – The small country within South Africa is an unknown gem.  Almost entirely in the mountains, my trip there along with Laura, Alice, and led by GRS Lesotho resident Hasmin involved a Donkey Pub Crawl through a small town in the mountains and a gorgeous hike through the rolling hills to a canyon and waterfall.

Future Album Cover

From L to R: Me, Alice, Hasmin, Laura

Also noteworthy were: Bird Watching in Luwawa Forest Reserve, Lake of Stars Music Festival, GRS Coach end of the year Party, Bertha's Night OUT!!

10 Worst
(note: no photos will be posted with these as I'm stil trying to recover from the trauma)

1.      Security Guard at Tingathe Sensitization Event – at this giant event in Area 23 of Lilongwe in October I become one of the many unlucky people responsible for holding hordes of drunk attendees at bay and from rushing the stage to where famous Malawian musicians like Maskal and Dan Lu were performing.  I somehow avoided any actual fighting, but I was more than once called upon to physically push people from the restricted areas.

2.      Unintentionally disrespecting 12 Chiefs – At our last large Testing Event we had gone out to the area, a market town called Msundwe, to make sure everything was arranged for the event.  This included meeting with local chiefs to let them know this would be happening in their communities.  Unfortunately somewhere along the way they interpreted this as an official invitation for which they would also receive food, t-shirts, and money for attending.  When we arrived prepared to give none of those things we faced off with 12 angry village chiefs.  Eventually we provided them drinks and transport money just to get them to leave.

3.      Waiting 30 hours in line for fuel – Fuel was a problem for most of my time in Malawi but one week in particular was especially brutal that involved waiting 5 days in succession for the entirety of the day at different fuel stations hoping to get fuel.  On each of these days either fuel ran out before our car reached the pump or the station never received a shipment of fuel.  It took waking up at 3:30am to park the car right outside the station to get us in the front of the line for the next day’s delivery to break the streak.

4.      Going to the Mechanic – I think every time I went to our mechanic (which was fairly frequent) I just left feeling dumb and incompetent as there was usually a simple remedy for whatever was wrong (ie the window won’t work because it’s locked or the engine light is on because you pushed this button, etc).  Needless to say I’m glad to have returned to a world where I don’t own a car.

5.      Stomach Ailments – I don’t think I ever quite got used to getting stomach sickness although I definitely learned what to expect after my time in Malawi.  The first month was especially brutal but after that I managed to stay relatively healthy outside of a few short bouts here and there.

6.      Long-distance public transportation – You will always get a story out of taking long-distance public transportation in Malawi and that story will only be earned after hours if not days of frustration and a potential loss of sanity.  Whether it’s a bus stopping every 100 meters for ten minutes at a time to drop off passengers, to waiting for 45 minutes at a random village as night quickly descends on you while 10 men try to heave and lift a live cow onto the back of the truck you’re also sitting in the trips will always take twice as long than even your most conservative estimates.

7.      Locking the keys in the car with the car running – Not one of my proudest moments; while we had other interns visiting to go to the Lake of Stars festival I had a colossal lapse in thought as I shut and locked the car doors with the keys still in the ignition and the car still running.  Not only did we not have a spare set of keys, this was also wasting invaluable Petrol.  Luckily the mechanic sent over a couple guys with wire to break into our car and save me from further embarrassment.

8.      Freezing at night on Kilimanjaro – We had been assured that the sleeping bags we rented to climb Kilimanjaro were made specifically for the subzero temperatures we were sure to encounter on the mountain.  Unfortunately, I think they forgot the thermal lining or something because every night I went to bed with multiple layers of clothes on only to repeatedly wake up shivering from the bitter cold.  I’m still convinced that the 4 sleepless night leading up to the summit are what contributed most to my complete sensory loss near the top as my sense of balance and vision completely left me.

9.       Test Kit Shortages – In addition to Malawi’s frequent lack of fuel another equally important resource was often in short supply, HIV Test Kits.  In my year there we went through two 10-week shortages that not only meant many Malawians could not be tested, but also meant I really didn’t have a lot to do.  A significant part of my job there was planning and setting up large-scale HIV testing events, however without any available HIV test kits there were entire weeks where I just found myself in the office trying to find productive things to do.

10.   Saying Good Bye – It was an incredible year, far beyond anything I had a right to expect or hope for.  Saying good bye to so many people I cared about and to a country and culture I grew to love is still something I’m struggling with more than a month after leaving and I don’t think I’ll get over any time soon.