Remembering September

I know that I’ve been writing more about my thoughts, feelings, and observations more than about the things I’ve actually done, so here’s a brief recap of some of the things that have happened in the past month in rough chronological order:

-I ran in the first Color Run on the African continent.

When driving down in Summerstrand one day, I had seen a sign in passing for the Color Run, so I looked it up to find that it was happening in a week’s time (it was on September 1).  I had gotten really excited about the possibility of doing it, but when I went to register online, it had already sold out.  I signed up for their mailing list, hoping that another one would happen some time within the year.  To my delight, I had gotten an e-mail the next day saying at extra spots were added to the current run.  Claire and I, after a little struggle with frozen bank accounts, were able to register, and along with Kelly (one of the previously mentioned American Fulbrighters), and Lebo, a friend and soccer teammate of both Kelly and Claire, we headed to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University campus to run the 5K.

It was a whole bunch of fun, and even though it was incredibly packed, it felt really cool to be part of the first Color Run in Africa.  And now I have a whole bunch of cool photos to show for it.  Of course, Port Elizabeth is the Windy City, so it definitely made for a more interesting run.  I now have the Color Run shirt hung up on my wall, much like I used to have my Holi shirt from the time I illegally did that while on board Semester at Sea.  Good freakin’ times.

-I got to attend two Skillz Street Graduations.

This past quarter, the PE site has been working hard to promote Skillz Street, our all-girls intervention.  We’ve had a lot of interest and large number of participants, and early this month, we had a few Skillz Street graduations.  I really wanted to see these first-hand and experience how our coaches celebrate the completion of the curriculum with their participants.

The graduations were raucous occasions, beginning with a review of material and followed by a very fun set of presentations.  The girls were put into teams for the duration of the program, and those teams are tasked with presenting something to the rest of the participants, whether that be a song, a dance, or a skit.    Girls are also encouraged to recite poems or write their own about the experience of being a girl and the empowerment they have gained through being part of the curriculum.  The graduation shows such a wide range of talent from the girls, and I was inspired and in awe of all of them.

We then presented them with certificates and gifts (in the form of nicer-than-usual snacks) and took a lot of photos.  The girls all seemed so happy, and many of them hugged their coaches (and some of them hugged me, too) and didn’t want them/us to leave.  It was nice to see how well received GRS is by the participants themselves.  They clearly enjoyed having the coaches, learning about life skills, and most importantly, having fun.

-There have been two semi-successful poitjie attempts at the Mandela Bay Mansion.

Our South African friend Kyle suggested one day that we have a poitjie at our house.  Poitjie is Afrikaans for “little pot,” and it’s the counterpart to the traditional braai.  Pronounced “POY-kee,” since the “tj” combination produces a hard-C sound, a poitjie is a stew prepared in a cast-iron pot that is placed on an open fire and allowed to slow cook for hours.  People sit around the fire, drink, and enjoy each other’s company as the poitjie is left to cook.

Our first attempt was a failure as we had no real concept of the amount of time the poitjie takes to cook, and we ended up being hungry, restless, cold, and watching Pretty Little Liars, which has now become a trend at the MBM amongst Claire and the Fulbright girls.  The second time around was more successful in that two poitjies were made (one of lamb, and one that was vegetarian so Claire and I could actually eat it), and we invited over three more American girls, Southerners who are here studying abroad/student teaching at a primary school.  Pretty Little Liars was a common thread amongst all the girls yet again, so that left me alone with Kyle around the fire conversing about politics, homophobia, racism, and how horrible Pretty Little Liars is.  The resulting poitjie was well received, as it took even longer than expected, but it was pretty darn delicious.

-I pet baby lions and cheetahs.

Along with the other Fulbrighter Ashley, Claire and I went to Seaview Animal Park, a short drive away from the city.  It is a small reserve where we were able to get our first look at animals here in Africa, including zebra and giraffe.  However, the main draw to Seaview is the lions and cheetahs.  There are some enclosures with older cats, but in a smaller facility, there are younger lions and cheetahs that visitors are allowed to pet.  Of course, we took the leap and pet some young lions and a cheetah that were only a few weeks old.  No need to delve very deep into the story, but Seaview is definitely more of a touristy, zoo-like establishment, and so it seemed very inauthentic and unwelcoming, but for a first time seeing animals and having the chance to pet a few, it was still pretty great.

-We held a successful Fun Day with San Miguel in Addo.

Our biggest project for the PE office since I’ve been here was planning for a Fun Day in Addo.  If you refer to a previous blog post, GRS PE has partnered with a citrus company called San Miguel to train some of its employees as coaches, deliver interventions to area youth, and to provide this Fun Day, an event at the end of the citrus harvest that is a combination of Grassroot Soccer’s typical HIV Counseling and Testing Tournament and San Miguel’s end of year celebration for their employees.  We hosted a soccer and netball tournament, set up fun games and activities like sack races and water balloon tosses, and provided free HIV counseling and testing.  San Miguel also had a thank you ceremony where they rewarded their best pickers with goodie baskets and even gave bikes to their most exceptional employees.

We have been planning the event for weeks, and even though we had just arrived, Claire and I were put in charge with a lot of the planning and preparation.  Though there were some hiccups leading up to the day and a good amount of frustration, the event was incredibly successful.  We had many of the employees come out to the event and participate in the tournament and other activities.  Our biggest success of the day, though, was the amount of people who tested for HIV.  Leading up to the event, we were expecting only around 50 or so of the adult employees to test because we were told that there was a huge stigma and fear around testing, especially for adults.  However, we far exceeded that expectation and ended up testing around half of the over 300 participants.  That was the day’s biggest win.  The event was also supposed to act as a corporate fundraiser for the Port Elizabeth office, and through our work and the services we provided, we were able to secure almost 13,000 Rand in unrestricted funding from the company, so that’s pretty great, too.  San Miguel highly appreciated our efforts, and I commend the entire PE team for a job well done.

-I witnessed an herd of elephants a few yards away from me.

I had started to research places to visit the second I learned that I was going to be placed in Port Elizabeth, and Addo Elephant Park was always on the top of any list you could find online.  Since Claire and I help run an intervention on Saturdays in Addo, we are always only a few miles away from the park, but we have never actually been able to go.  There have been many plans with our staff that have fallen through multiple times, so we finally decided to go on Heritage Day, a South African public holiday, meaning we had no work.

Ashley joined us again for this animal excursion, but we also took along Casey and Rachel, two of the three American girls who are here student teaching.  After a great brunch at Vovo Telo, still our favorite place to eat in PE, we drive an hour to Addo.  We had no expectations since it’s a huge National Park, and you can’t control when you see any of the reserve’s animals.  Almost immediately, we had spotted some zebra in the distance and a warthog bathing in mud.  However, the true jackpot was seeing a massive herd of elephant around a watering hole.

I would say a good 50 or so elephants, ranging from tiny babies to huge older ones, were congregated around a pool of water, and after bathing, they eventually started to move together in a seemingly well-calculated line.  Watching all of them moving together was incredibly majestic.  We just stared in awe, being so close to these enormous creatures and seeing them interact with each other.  It was unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

We continued through the park, running into the same group of elephants, and seeing a whole bunch of other animals like kudu and a bunch of birds, crossing them off the list that came with the park map.  It was such a beautiful day, and I’m so glad that we finally had the chance to visit Addo.

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Other than those, getting acquainted with PE has been great.  We’ve gone out to eat a lot, and I’m happy to say that this city has a lot of amazing food.  We’ve also done some other excursions like going to Jeffrey’s Bay, a quaint beach town not too far away to relax on the sand.  Work wise, we’ve gotten to get a lot closer to the coaches, did a whole bunch of arts and crafts throughout the office (including a fantastic family tree) and I was even able to facilitate a coach development session on the risk of tuberculosis amongst those who are HIV-positive.

Soon enough, I’ll be adding even more to this list of fun stuff since Claire and I are heading out this weekend for a little more than a week to go to Cape Town!  We are driving along the Garden Route and stopping along the way to do a whole bunch of different excursions.  And we’re obviously going to reunite with our intern pals, so that’s gonna be AWESOME.  Can’t wait!