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.
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| Chisomo and Linda giving their keynote speeches at Goals 4 Girls |
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| 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.
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| Me giving the closing speech at the Skillz Holiday Camp at the Biwi Site |
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| 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.
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| One of the many majestic views from Mulanje |
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| 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.
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| White water kayaking on the Zambezi river |
.JPG) |
| 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.
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| 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!
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| Reuben on his way to the summit of Kilimanjaro adorning the Malawi flag on his backpack |
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| 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.
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| View from Monkey Bay beach |
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| 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!
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| Kuche Kuche vs Zambian Team |
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| Baylor Social Football Team |
9. Birthday Scavenger Hunt – My 26th
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 26th
“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.
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| Lizzy, Mel, and Me with my birthday presents |
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| 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.
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| Future Album Cover |
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| 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)
(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.
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