Utshintsho

In my first few days at the GRS Port Elizabeth office, I kept hearing the word “ocheencho” over and over again.  The staff members just kept rattling it back and forth during conversations, and I had zero idea what it was.  Eventually, I began putting together the pieces.

I had seen something labeled “Utshintsho” in the office, and I had no idea how to pronounce it.  I struggled as I sounded it out phonetically.  “Oot-sha-neet-show?”  For some reason, I added an extra vowel it there because my English-wired mind thought the word needed some more syllables.  Eventually, I figured out that the word I was hearing over and over again, “ocheencho,” was actually “utshintsho.”

Utshintsho is a Xhosa word that means “change” and it is the name of a pilot program happening within Grassroot Soccer in only two sites, here in PE and in Khayelitsha in Cape Town.  Utshintsho is a follow-up of the Generation Skillz program, a curriculum for high school aged participants that targets the four key drivers of the HIV epidemic in South Africa: multiple concurrent partners, drug and alcohol abuse, intergenerational and transactional sex, and gender based violence.  Utshintsho was developed for a randomized control trial that GRS is doing, and it is based on survey results taken at the end of Generation Skillz.  The new curriculum is delivered to those who have already participated in the standard Generation Skillz program, and it focuses on the areas in which the learners needed clarification.  The Utshintsho program heavily stresses gender inequality, and the participants are grouped in split-sex practices, each with their own lessons and emphases.  At the end of the program, GRS will analyze the results to see how effective the programs have been in educating participants and inspiring change in these communities.

This idea of utshintsho, or change, keeps resonating in my mind.  I even love the sound of the word.  It has a lot of power.  And now, at this beginning stage of my move to South Africa, nothing else explains it better than utshintsho.

Being transplanted into a new environment means a lot of feeling around and trying to get comfortable in a new space.  Within the new surroundings, you have to adapt and learn how to thrive.  It’s been an interesting transition so far, and it’s only been a little more than a week.  There are already things that I’ve had to get used to, some that are more difficult than others.  The cumbersome adapters you have to use to plug anything into the wall (did I tell you that South African plugs are MASSIVE?).  Don't even get me started with the whole driving on other side of the road business.  But what’s most refreshing, however, is to find similarities because that’s what puts you at ease.  Seeing some of your favorite comfort foods at the Spar (the local supermarket)?  A total win.  Paying for it with your ridiculous handful of rand coins?  A total hassle.

Transplantation is all about being flexible.  In the thick of everything, you have to be able to change yourself to fit into the system.  The challenge, really, is to not lose yourself in the process.  It really is a give-and-take when you are put in situations like this.

I’m glad that Utshintsho has become a motto for me, and I think it will guide me for the rest of my year here.  Acknowledging change makes you figure out what hasn’t changed at all.  It’s gonna be interesting to think about myself a year from now and being able to reflect on how I’ve changed and how I’ve grown, but I can only imagine how much of myself I will have retained.  You can take the kid out of New York, but you can never take New York out of the kid.