I Survived: Snorkeling with Seals

I would like to preface this post by saying that I survived... obviously. But leading up to it I wasn't so sure what the outcome would be.

So it was Anna's birthday and being the swimmer that she is, she decided that she would like to go snorkeling with seals. At first thought, this sounds great and happy and fun. Seals are cute, right?

The week leading up to our adventure, I wasn't so sure about participating since it was supposed to be cold and rainy... but most importantly because sharks like seals. And being in a wetsuit, me and a seal would be pretty difficult to tell apart. I voiced my fears, but was made fun of and was signed up with the company before I even said yes. A few days later, this picture was taken, easing my fears of becoming shark bait.

Fast forward to Friday afternoon (we were scheduled to snorkel on Sat) when I told my boss what we were planning on doing for the weekend, and his first response was, "You know someone just got eaten by a shark this morning off the coast, right?" No, no I did not know that. His second response was, "Why would you want to swim with seals? They're mean and they bite you. There's a picture of a lady in Hout Bay with half her face eaten off by seals with a sign that says Seals are Wild Animals, Keep your Distance." Why was I doing this again? Here's the article in case you don't believe me.
Shark Attack: Snorkeller killed in South Africa

Saturday morning came too quickly, and during breakfast our house decided to celebrate the day we may die with a soundtrack mimicking our emotions. Songs on the playlist included, "It's a Great Day to be Alive" "My Heart will Go On" "Arms of an Angel"... you get the picture.

We arrived in Hout Bay to a beautiful day, squeezed into our wetsuits, and were ready to face whatever was hiding in the water. Shockingly, it turned out to be so much fun and I didn't think about being lunch for a shark once! There were SO many seals and they swam really close, but not close enough to eat my face. They also have really big eyes underwater and will just stare at you as they swim by. Such cool animals. I guess I'm glad I went...

Yes, I realize how ridiculous and dramatic we were... but come on, how scary does snorkeling with seals sound?

Becoming a Local

Contrary to my blog post title, I'm still very far from actually becoming any where near a local, but these past two weeks were a start.

Heritage Day was a few weeks ago and we had the day off work. I'm not positive exactly what heritage we were celebrating, possibly Zulu, but it happens to coincide with National Braai Day so we concentrated more on that. Added bonus, it was also Chris Barba's, another GRS employee, birthday. A big group of GRSers went over to Kloof and relaxed on their astroturf roof while Jeff cooked us up some delicious braai meat. It was a beautiful day to be outside, eat good food, and sit around with friends. We ended the night playing the South African version of Taboo, which was semi-challenging given the different cultural/political/geographical references I have no idea about, but also funny bc there was a lot of random American pop culture references. Side note: I'm still good.

I got to go out to Khayelitsha to see a SKILLZ Street Holiday camp graduation. As previously mentioned, SKILLZ Street is our female-only intervention that educates about HIV and empowers girls to challenge gender norms . Since it was a holiday week and all schools were on break, GRS did a week-long program ending on Friday. Walking up to the classroom all you could hear was a chorus of voices singing and feet stomping; it was overwhelming happiness. It proceeded with each group of girls and their coach putting on a skit or singing a song they prepared. Some were lighthearted songs, while others showed skits of domestic violence or parents shunning their kids for being HIV positive. As the program went on, girls would spontaneously stand up and share stories about their experience with HIV or gender-based violence, some even burst into tears. While the topics were heavy and the message extremely powerful, the coaches made sure to keep it up-beat with lots and lots of signing and dancing. After a busy week in the office, getting out and seeing something like this puts it all into perspective and makes you realize exactly what we're doing it all for. 

"What if HIV isn't here to kill us, it's here to challenge us"

South Africa played Australia at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town and I got to go!! Yay rugby. I was initially pretending that it was fall in the US and I was getting ready for a football game, but a rugby game in the spring turned out to be a ton of fun.  We journeyed out to Newlands and explored tailgating here in SA.... pretty similar, with lots of braais and drinks. We had standing-room only tickets (they were only $10) and were in this weird section under a huge overhang, but we could see the field just fine and made a few new friends. It was definitely a good time and hopefully next time I'll understand the game a bit better. Here come the Boks! or in Afrikaans, "Hier kom die Bokke!"We started (brunch), and ended (dinner) the day at one of our favorite restaurants, Clarke's. The waiters laughed at us.

Got our game faces on

Not the best photographer... sorry Kat, I think he cut you out

On Sunday we went and saw the wildflowers in West Coast National Park. They were so beautiful and calming. The only slight downside was we rented a tiny car that is intended for 4 people and barely fits 5... and we squeezed in 6 for the hour and a half drive. It was definitely not the safest thing to do but we survived. I either sat on the floor on top of the cup holders, or when we were driving slowly through the park I had my feet out the window to make more room inside. It was that crowded. The flowers were worth it and the good company made the car ride bearable.

Our miniature car

Flamingos!!

...and pretending to be flamingos!!

Just showing off our sweet new socks of the Big 5

My attempt at a heart-shaped rock. Always thinking of you mama T <3

This past weekend we went to the music festival Rocking the Daisies. It was out in the winelands and is kinda like a mini-Coachella. Four interns from other sites drove out for it so it was also like a mini-reunion. It was so good to see them and catch up on all our GRS experiences, they're all so different and unique. Rocking the Daisies was really fun and a lot of great music (Alt-J woo) but it was freezing and super windy which was kinda a bummer. We also squeezed 4 people in a 3 person tent so there was not much sleeping at all. I "slept" with my arms folded bc there was no room to put them by my side. Despite the weather and sleeping situation, it was still a great weekend with great people. (Here's a link to some good South African music I'm listening to now)

Tent city

Part of the crew 

I had a pretty exciting and successful week at work. Since I first got here I've been working on coordinating a visit with the CEO of MAC Cosmetics and two other very important MAC women. MAC AIDS Fund is a big donor to GRS. The visit finally happened this past Friday and it went smoothly and everyone was very satisfied afterward. Julie, the head of BD for GRS, flew in for the meeting and we also had 4 coaches attend and tell their personal stories and then lead an activity for the women to participate in. It was exciting to be a part of but I'm definitely glad it's over. The second exciting thing was that we found out that a grant we submitted got accepted! I got to work a lot on the proposal, so this was especially exciting for me since it's the first one I've ever worked on and submitted. It's not a huge grant, but it's to implement a programme I really like in a new site, Alexandra. I'm pretty happy about it. 

My desk. Julie gave me some treats for a successful MAC visit

Yay it's Friday and the week is almost finally over!

But why are we still at work...

That's all for now! I'll try to make them more frequent and less ramble-y, but we'll see how that goes.

Birthdays and Flat Tires

Well I’ve really sucked at blogging lately, sorry mom and dad. It’s way too much to catch up on everything that’s been going on, but here’s a little snapshot of my new life.

Cape Town is just like the US except sometimes the doorknobs don’t work and the roofs leak.... Maybe that gives you a little snapshot of what it's like here.

My birthday (almost a whole month ago) was so much fun and I got to spend it with some great people. 12 of us rented a bus and went on a wine tour through Stellenbosch, which is an area about an hour outside Cape Town that has a ton of wineries. We went to 5 wineries, spent the night at a hostel and then celebrated another GRS intern, Scott, and his bday on Sunday. I would call it a very successful and shenanigan-filled weekend.

The gang

The damage

Sadly, one of the former interns, Jeff Devereux, left us a few weeks ago so we obviously had to have a going away party/week. We hosted it at Gordon House and Nath cooked us a delicious meal from scratch. Our kitchen isn't quite up to par (the burners choose to work or not work on their own accord) and the food was very labor intensive, so we didn’t end up eating until around 10:00, but it was well worth the wait and we found plenty of ways to occupy ourselves.

The delicious feast

Using the winking self-timer on my camera

Surprising Dev with silly string and kazoos

The weather has kinda started to get nicer here, minus the random hailstorms, so we finally made it out to Camps Bay. This is a beach about 20 minutes from our house and is one of the more ritzy areas of Cape Town (Beckham has a house here). Being on the beach and then looking around at the mountains was one of those, “I actually live here?” moments. It's so beautiful now, I can't imagine what summer is going to be like. We followed the beach day by a girls’ night out watching the sunset with Italian food and wine. Can’t complain.

This past weekend we went to a Whale Watching festival in Hermanus, a city about an hour and a half outside of Cape Town. This trip was a true adventure. We had two cars full of people heading out there, when the first car that left a little before us calls and says they're pulled over on the highway with a flat tire. We found them in the pouring rain and it ended up taking us about 45 min to get the tire changed. Two cop cars pulled over next to us but never got out of the car to help… not sure what was going on with that, maybe they were bored? Anyway, we finally got the tire changed, the cops left, and then we realized that the battery was dead. We obviously didn’t have jumper cables, so we had to try and push-start the car. Again, it’s still pouring rain. This took about another 30 minutes of pushing the car forward and back, but luckily it finally started. If only we had Triple A...

Real-life Little Miss Sunshine

We finally made it to Hermanus and it was worth the trek. Apparently this is when the whales migrate from Antartica and come to South Africa to mate. It was pretty incredible how many whales we saw just standing from the shore. They were so close and were everywhere you looked.

Random people jumping in our pic

Those are some of the big things that have happened, but life in general has been good. There has been a lot of family dinners/parties and even some baking going on. I’m proud to say I brought Slutty Brownies to Africa. Work has been really busy but still great. I’m definitely learning a ton and love getting involved in new projects with different groups of people... And as you can see in the pics below, the office environment is pretty cool.

I think I’m finally starting to realize that I live here and don’t have to be doing something at all moments. These past couple weeks have been nice though just exploring the city or laying in the park in the sun.

Juggling in the office

Ratatat! Everyone dresses up or gets something to make noise with and parades around the office when we have something big to celebrate. This one was to celebrate one of our papers getting into a big conference in SA. Go GRS!

8 of us watching New Girl on my comp...

So what is Grassroot Soccer? Well, let me tell you...

Alright, I think I’ve been putting this off long enough. Finally, it’s here… my Grassroot Soccer post!!! Please read, ask questions, click on links and get excited! I know it’s long and information-heavy, but it’s really cool stuff so try and read it if possible. I’ll include links too incase I suck at explaining things. You’ll finally be able to understand what I’m doing, who I’m working with and why I’m so excited about it all the time.

So Grassroot Soccer (GRS) is a non-profit organization started by four professional soccer players that uses the power of soccer to educate kids about HIV/AIDS. Soccer is a universal language across the world and is something that gets people of all ages excited and interested. Everywhere you go, no matter how rich or poor, you can always find people playing soccer… even if the ball is made of bundled up grocery bags and fishing line (which was the case in Kenya). In the words of the great Michelle Obama, “soccer is the hook.”

GRS facilitates the learning of life skills and HIV knowledge through interactive soccer-based activities. Topics covered in interventions (or “practices”) vary based on the age group and the curriculum being implemented. Our main programs are SKILLZ Core, Generation SKILLZ and SKILLZ Street. SKILLZ Core is our original curriculum that targets kids ages 12-14 and mainly focuses on HIV knowledge and reducing stigmas surrounding the disease. These kids are pretty young still so the program is trying to catch them before they develop risky behavior. Generation SKILLZ is for kids ages 15-19 and addresses the main contributors of the spread of HIV: multiple concurrent partners, intergenerational sex and gender based violence.  In a really cool (for lack of a better word) study conducted in partnership with GRS, we found that 29.1% of grade-nine boys reported having perpetrated rape, while 37.6% reported having committed intimate partner violence. That means almost 30% of 16yr old boys have raped someone. It’s so hard to wrap your head around. Gender norms and GBV are such huge issues that we’re trying to address. This brings me to SKILLZ Street, our all-girls program. SKILLZ Street addresses girls aged 12-16 and focuses on empowering girls with HIV and sexual and reproductive health knowledge. SKILLZ Street lets girls know that their opinion is just as important as a man’s and they have the power to say no. This program is so incredible and important that in 2012 it was named by Women Deliver 50 “one of the most innovative ideas and solutions that is being delivered for girls and women around the globe.” All these programs are facilitated by local youth role models who are trained as GRS coaches. Using people from the community makes the program sustainable and relatable.

Example of a practice activity:
In an activity called Risk Field, participants dribble a soccer ball in between cones representing HIV-related risks - multiple partners, drug/alcohol abuse, etc. If one player hits a cone, he and his teammates must complete 3 pushups, showing how the consequences of one person's risk can not only affect him, but also his friends, family and community. 

We have other programs as well that target different age groups or that have specific outcomes, but I think you all get the idea of what we do and how needed these programs are. Also, GRS is pretty awesome at doing what we do. Let me brag a little, here are some of our awards:

• ·      Charity Navigator Four-Star Rating (highest rating) (2011 and 2012)
• ·      Charity Navigator Top Ten List of Charities Expanding in a Hurry (2011 and 2012)
• ·      CommPro.biz list of “Ten Leading Socially Engaged Nonprofits“, 2012
• ·      GRS South Africa: Finalist, Sport for Health Category, Beyond Sport Awards, 2011
• ·      Winner, Nike/Ashoka Sports for a Better World Collaborative Competition, 2008 (GRS was named one of the three most innovative, effective, and sustainable organizations in the Sports for Development Field, out of 382 organizations entered from 69 countries)

Pretty impressive, right? We also are funded by some amazing organizations including The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Nike, Elton John Aids Foundation, USAID, Barclays, FIFA, M.A.C. AIDS and UNICEF… just to name a few.

Another thing I think is really unique and awesome about GRS is that we have a monitoring and evaluation team and a research and development team who are continually making sure our programs are working. They administer pre and post-tests at every intervention to make sure that the kids are learning and to see if there are any areas we should improve on. This level of data collection is almost unheard of for a non-profit to do and has enabled us to present our findings at conferences around the world.

So as I’ve mentioned before, I’m the Business Development intern and get to have my hands in a lot of different areas. I get to help find cool organizations to give us some $$$ like the ones above, as well as write concept notes and grant proposals about our curriculum. I’m even helping to create new marketing materials and plan events. It’s a lot, but I love it and the work keeps me motivated. As one of the coaches in Khayelitsha told me, “we’re in the business of saving lives.” Damn.

Sorry for rambling on, but I hope you made it this far in the post and maybe learned something new. I realize I should have done this right when I got here, but I know way more know than I did at the beginning... and better late than never right? I'm totally not doing all we do justice either, so I encourage you to go on the website and look around for yourselves.

Here is the link to the website: http://www.grassrootsoccer.org
And hey, check the interns and me out! We're on the website too :) http://www.grassrootsoccer.org/who-we-are/our-team/current-grassroot-soccer-interns/

Eating and Drinking my Way Through Cape Town

Another great week in Cape Town. I’ll try and keep this one short and sweet, because as my parents said, “you know you don’t have to write a novel, right?”

Here are some highlights, and if you can't tell by the title, there was a lot of food and wine this week: 

At work I’ve been working on some exciting projects including writing two grant proposals which will, cross your fingers, get us some money to help implement two awesome projects. Below is a video Ali, another intern/roommate, and I made for a separate grant proposal we submitted. These two girls, Sony and Athi, are from Khayelitsha and spoke about how AIDS was affecting their community and how something needed to be done.  It’s pretty unusual to submit a video with a grant but I think it turned out well and will be really impactful for the foundation to see.

On Tuesday it was a full moon, which I guess are a semi-big deal here? Ali, Susie (a short-term volunteer), and I went on the popular moonlight hike up Lion’s Head. We got made fun of a little at the office for doing something “so touristy,” but it worked out perfectly because it was a little overcast and is still winter here so it really wasn’t too crowded at all. We even brought wine, cheese, crackers and cookies up and had a nighttime picnic at the top. We stayed up for a while enjoying ourselves and ended up being the last ones left, which was both awesome and slightly scary.

Had to use the self-timer since we were the only ones left

Home

Wine and cheese at the summit

It was yet another great weekend here in CT. Friday I ate a burger the size of my head, and I’m not exaggerating. It was one of those super hipster places (everyone loves to hate on hipsters here, it’s funny) that only makes 50 burgers a night and you write your name on a chalkboard wall to order. It was definitely an experience.

I don't think this picture does it justice 

Saturday we went out to Khayelitsha to support another non-profit, Waves for Change, that held the first-ever surf competition there. It’s crazy that there is a beach so close to this gigantic township yet nobody ever goes there or knows how to swim. They’re doing some great work getting these kids involved in a hobby like surfing to keep them away from gangs and the dangers of Khayelitsha.

Khayelitsha beach 

We went straight from there to the great Mzoli’s! This place is kinda hard to explain, I was confused about it until I got there, but I’ll try my best.  Pretty much you go to this tiny butcher shop, tell them the kind of meat you want and how many people you have, and then you go next door to this big tent and drink until your meat is ready. Once it’s done it they serve it on a big metal platter, or in a plastic bucket depending on how many people you have, and then dig in with your fingers. It’s a really cool because it’s one of the few places where you can find any type of person (black, white, colored, local, tourist, expat, student), which is really unusual here. And yes, those are the politically correct terms. Anyway, we drank, ate and danced the day away and made plenty of new friends. If any of you come visit, a Mzoli’s trip might be in your future.

Sunday I was treated to a day in Constantia, part of wine country, by a co-worker of one of our family friends, the Wrights. I was spoiled to breakfast and lunch at two beautiful cellars with a nice walk in between. It was extremely nice of them to bring me along and it made me realize just how much I have yet to see of Cape Town. This is such a beautiful place.

Cellars-Hoenhort

Well this was definitely not short and sweet, so apologies for my novel-length blog posts.  Oops. I’m working on it. I’m also going to start to work on my GRS post (I realize I’ve said this before), I can’t wait to tell you about what I’m actually doing and this awesome organization I get to be a part of. I want to do it justice, which is why I’m taking so long to write about it, but I’ll make it happen “now now.” (In South Africa, “now now” is equivalent to saying, “soon” when there is no definitive time frame or end. As in, “Dad, are we there yet?” “Be quiet, we’ll be there now now.”)

Hope you all had a great week, and special birthday shout-outs to Sara Sutyak and Katie Pope! And happy birthday week to me, woo!