Shangri-La

I love a good road trip.

That's why when GRS asked me to drive 10 hours to our central city location of Bloemfontein to deliver some supplies to our program I jumped on it. The other benefit of this little task was that the following day I would get to join the 3 interns in Bloem on a trip to Lesotho – a tiny little country entirely surrounded by South Africa, high in the mountains (the ‘low-lands’ are still 1000m above sea level).

With only 2 days notice, I packed a rental car full of soccer balls and jerseys for the trainers and set off from Cape Town. The drive was spectacular and I wasn’t bored for a minute, thanks to a random assortment of South Africa CD’s and Ryan’s audio book J Even without those I would have been fine as the scenery was unbelievable. Let me recount a few memories:

-some kind of large baboon-like monkey crossing my path then perching on the side of the road overlooking some mountains (wish I could’ve stopped for a picture!)
-road kill was not the usual porcupine or skunk but a massive 3ft lizard
-beautiful weather the entire day with only an hour’s interruption for a massively entertaining lightning storm
-the first Hobo I ever saw; not a hitchhiker - this guy was scraggly and just walking in the middle of nowhere… as I recently learned Hobo stands for “homeward bound” and I can say with great certainty that this guy was IT.
-missing by about 20 mins some kind of explosion of container trucks – I saw the skeletons of 2 Macks on the side of the road, possibly hit by lightning

Ok so the last one was a bit freaky, but as you can see, it wasn’t your usual Sunday drive.

I arrived in Bloem at 7:30 pm and was immediately off to a soccer game. 10 000 people in the stadium for a local Pro team – Celtics vs Sundowns.

The fans were manic. The quality of soccer…meh, not so good. But so enjoyable anyway. A little hectic in the crowd, had to keep your wits about you with so many people. Usually they play in the township and that's even more unruly but regardless we left a bit early to ensure safe passage out.

LESOTHO ("Le-soo-too")
The next morning we set off the Lesotho which was all the more incredible. As soon as we passed over the border from SA, we could immediately tell we were in another country. The landscape, the people, the clothes - all had their own flair. All along the country side shepherds tended sheep and there was an immediate sense of calm and well being. As though the word ‘war’ had never been uttered in this place, and the concept of hate would simply not be understood. Just as another gorgeous day was coming to a close, we were greeted with another storm; this time huge pellets of hail. It was practically a whiteout!

The people in our car to Lesotho were each from a different country!

This pic is from the border crossing.
Passports from the USA, France, Canada, SA and Botswana.

We soon arrived at the field for the tournament and helped set up tents for the next day. The tournament was soccer based but the main purpose was really to promote testing of HIV status. We had 14 tents for counselors to test individuals between soccer games. Seems very unorthodox to those of us from North America, but events like this work wonders for a community where HIV is found in every third person and there can be serious consequences to openly living with HIV.

The next day took off in a fury of kids arriving in 15 seat mini-buses, blaring music and ready for action! School teams (just a random assortment of students really) had a packed day of playing soccer and participating in GRS games which taught them about HIV. The thought of living with a disease as detrimental as AIDS is enough to overwhelm even the most grounded of people. Imagine throwing it into a family where a) sex is simply not discussed, b) promiscuity, though common, is absolutely abhorred and c) because of poor knowledge, an HIV positive status causes most people to assume you engage frequently in drugs, alcohol and sex with the wrong people. These factors bring a shame to your family unlike anything we could appreciate in western society. Living communally, as the great majority of people do in Sub-Saharan Africa, means you can be shunned from everyone in your life, left to deal with inevitably failing health on your own.

This is why we do what we do. We carry messages like ‘With help, you can live a long and healthy life with HIV!” and “We must support our loved ones through no matter what”. We break down misconceptions about how HIV is transmitted, and let people know that those who are positive are not ‘bad’ people. The games we played at the tournament explained concepts like the Immune System and how treatment medication (ARVs) work. Find the Ball explained that you can only know your status by having a blood test (readily available on that day!) and also let the children know where else they can be tested and receive counseling.

We Were Treated Like Royalty… Till Royalty Showed Up.

Between playing soccer, our activities and just getting together with other schools (events like this rarely happen) the kids had an amazing time. I can personally attest for this as I ran the feedback sessions at the end of the day :) All the students thanked us (the facilitators) and fought again and again for pictures of everyone to be taken together. Then, a special surprise came when a helicopter suddenly swept across the open valley, circled a few times and landed a few hundred meters away. The King of Lesotho? Well, I heard Lesotho’s Prince was there I am slightly embarrassed to say I remain unsure if he was or not. It was all drowned out when England’s Prince Harry approached the field. Some of you may know he spent some time as a volunteer in Lesotho himself and his charity had links to the event. Nice of him to drop by J

There is so much more to say as the weekend didn’t end there. In fact, that was only Friday! The other interns and I backpacked toward the center of Lesotho and stayed in mud-huts for 2 nights. Hiked to waterfalls, saw a local soccer match and generally had an amazing time! All to come soon… till then I hope this finds you all happy and healthy!

Hlala kakule – stay well (Xhosa)

What are you doing over there?

Beautiful isn't it?

This was taken from a township called Khayelitsha, about 30 mins from Cape Town.I suppose I really should explain what the townships are like. In other countries, like Zambia, they are sometimes called "compounds". They look like areas you see on TV when some B List celebrity shuffles through a community speaking about the Foster Parents Plan. In South Africa, historically they are the areas where either the 'blacks' or the 'coloureds'* were relegated to in the days of Apartheid (the '60's and '70's up until a mere 15 years ago). Khayelitsha is one of the more dangerous places in South Africa. Don't quite get that feeling from the picture though huh?
*(the term “coloured” is not offensive in SA and it refers to either a lighter-skinned black person or a person of other ethnicity such as Malaysian)

A book was recently published (by Penguin) called Khayelitsha - told by a white man who either lived there or spent a lot of time there. It would definitely be an interesting read for anyone wanting to know a real experience.

This is a good time to checkout my other blog at www.grassrootsoccer.org (see link in top right hand side of this page. I’ve just put in an entry with some good pictures and a pretty thorough explanation of what’s going on at this site.

Basically (as that blog says), things started off slow here with work. I did as much as I could, tried to think of jobs that would take us further, but with a lack of infrastructure, I kept hitting walls.

Saved
Thankfully though, and somewhat miraculously, Dr. Paul Roux found me and asked if I would be interested in working with him at the paediatric ward of the Groote Schuur public hospital in the city. Well, he ‘found me’ in his own house – I am staying with him and his family.

But the amazing thing is I was not meant to be living here in the first place. A series of fortunate events brought me here through other connections. It all worked out very well! I hadn’t even met him in my first weeks of staying here; he was away at a conference. On his first night back we spoke about our backgrounds and within minutes it was established that I would be perfect to help out at the hospital with a few projects.

My other job
Basically I go in with him a few days a week and work with either Ludwig – a German med student in his residency who is doing a retrospective study on HIV and tuberculosis or Kate, a former Math Professor at UCT who retired early to dedicate her life to public health. She runs a beadwork project called BeadsPositive which provides about 150 HIV+ mothers, who otherwise have no source of income, a chance to make enough to feed their children and pay for their medication.

Paul (Dr. Roux) is the co-founder of an amazing non-profit called KidzPositive which provides care for HIV Positive children and their families. He is also the co-founder of PATA – Paediatric AIDS Treatment for Africa – which brings together top researchers, physicians, counselors, nurses and pharmacists into a critical network.

Journalist extraordinaire
I have been invited to PATA's annual conference in Swaziland at the end of November, not only to observe, but to actually take part! I will summarize the proceedings of each day into a newspaper format to be given to participants the following morning (I can see a few late nights ahead…). Grassroot Soccer had already been asked to speak and we planned to send Tumie (our local co-coordinator from Port Elizabeth). Now that I am also going, Tumie and I may work together for a more interactive presentation!

I still am heavily involved with GRS Cape Town (which is why you must read my other blog…!). Hopefully this gives you a better idea of how my life changes every day and why I can never seem to easily sum it up!

World Cup Champions: Amabokoboko!

St Denis, France was the site of the 2007 Rugby World Cup Finals this year but you would never know it wasn't Cape Town! Cars were tearing around the city with flags (and passengers!) hanging out the windows, blaring horns every moment between shifting gears.

It was another big moment for South African sport however nothing will ever top their crowning achievement in rugby - winning the World Cup in 1995 after recently being invited back into world competition upon ending years of Apartheid. That year South Africa hosted the World Cup, Nelson Mandela, newly freed, was in the crowd, and the Boks beat the always powerful All Blacks in the final minutes of the match. It was a momentous occasion for the "new South Africa".

It also fanned the fire of a bizarre debate. Since the walls of Apartheid came down in the beginning of the '90's, many parts of "old South Africa" were done away with: the portraits of apartheid-era leaders in the halls of Parliament were taken down, the African national anthem, "Nkosi Sikeleli' Afrika" ("God Save Africa"), was conjoined to the old national anthem "Die Stem" ("The Call") and all the other sports teams changed their Springbok mascot. However, as SA was going to be hosting the World Cup, they claimed they had already ordered so much paraphernalia emblazoned with boks for the games, they requested they be allowed to keep the name for the tournament. Of course when they won, they were ever more reluctant to part with the name when the crowd for weeks afterward would cheer "Amabokoboko!" (our boks) through the streets. But truly, the rugby players felt they had united a nation... anyway, how could a deer-like creature ever instill feelings of hatred?


It split the National Sports Council along racial lines. One group failed to see how it could be offensive and the other remembers that white politicians once said "no black would ever be a Springbok". Some even remember the doors of their houses being kicked in by infantrymen who had a springbok on their badges. Obviously something they'd rather forget.

Some saw keeping it as a conciliatory gesture to Afrikaners, a small token they could keep since the amount of Afrikaans spoken on television has been cut sharply and Afrikaans schools are under pressure to include more black students and instruction in English.

It's all a very similar argument to that of the American First Nation people and the Atlanta Braves. I guess it just comes down to how seriously you link sport and the symbols representing it. If you really wanted to properly illustrate rugby, something should be chosen that portrays the broken bones, blood and concussions rather than the grace of a gazelle bounding across the open plain.

Cold Canadian in Africa

It is spring and it is 8 degrees and windy in South Africa.

When I told people in the townships I was from Canada, they always replied: "Oooooo! So COLD there!" to which I replied "Not always, in fact, the weather is usually about the same temperature as it is here now". This nearly always yielded a response of astonishment of such utter disbelief I can only compare it to the scene in Borat when the American man in driving Borat says that women have the right to say no to sex and Borat says "WHHAAAAATT?!?!"

Suffice it to say, people think Canada is always cold.

Anywho, the low temp is not taking away from my enjoyment of this experience. Here are some random pictures and for some more substantial info on my job, please see my posting at www.grassrootsoccer.org

RANDOM PICTURES!!!

the countdown is on....

a mere 996 days till World Cup kickoff in South Africa.

Well that was the day I arrived so more like only 975 now!

These giant Dooms-Day-esque countdown devices can be seen at all airports in South Africa. I believe them to be slightly altered 1976 Microsoft throw-backs generously donated by the Gates Foundation.




Me with Ryan's little boy, Jamie, first thing in the morning, hanging out in the Janks' home.








This is ithe Seapoint/Clifton area of Cape Town where I go running.







Note: the wind is not blowing here. It is just usually so windy that the trees have given up all hope and simply grown sideways.

This is Siya (center), a head trainer in Port Elizabeth, facilitating an information session with our Trainers in Training

Here, our new Trainers are learning "Find the Ball." A Key Message of this game is that you cannot tell who has HIV/AIDS by a person's appearance, just as in the game you cannot tell by looking who has the ball.

Siya with the new trainers on the field outside the school in the township of Zwide (pronounced 'Zwee-day') our primary site.

Trainers playing "HIVAttacks!" where we explain how the immune works, how HIV compromises it and what role ARVs (anti-retroviral drugs) play in suppressing the virus.

2 Trainers: Mesta and 'Afro' (our poet) whom I wrote about in the 'Graduation' post

ark

Graduation

Today was the graduation of the Port Elizabeth trainers. I wish to God that my camera hadn't run out of battery power (or that I had the foresight to bring the charger from Cape Town) because we had some amazing speeches and performances at the 'ceremony'. One participant, Mlandeli Mpapa (aka "Afro") recited an incredible poem that blew us all away. Two other girls, Ntsikie and N'tosh casually sauntered up to sing for us (unrehearsed) and when N'tosh opened her mouth it was like being in the room with Aretha Franklin.

One of the other girls gave her Coach's Story (something we do with the kids to bond and explain why we're with GRS) about her cousin dying of HIV/AIDS. What was especially brave was that she admitted to having shunned her cousin when she got sick even though they had been best friends. This was just back in 1998, not even 10 years ago, when HIV was denied to exist in South Africa. They didn't speak for months and we she finally got the right information about how the disease can spread, she discovered her cousin had died the day before.

aside: One thing I want to say here is that I will probably share many of these stories over the next year. But I encourage absolutely everyone to read 28 Stories of AIDS in Africa by Stephanie Nolen. It's unbelievable. They only thing more powerful is to hear similar stories spoken first hand.

Back to the Coach's Story. One thing I learned: although I knew that much misinformation about HIV was spread through word of mouth and by the government etc, I didn't realize there have been active campaigns to ostracize those with the virus. She told us a man came to her high school to tell the students that if they saw anyone at all with symptoms of AIDS (rapid weight loss, lesions, hair thinning etc) to stay away from them and not to help them. I suppose this was the only way some people could think of to stop the spread but the thought of such callousness is appalling.

This was one of the moments (of which there have already been many) that I know what we are doing is helping to change this country. We target strigma and encourage children to build support systems of family and friends. We give them the information to make positive decisions and ask them to go out and spread this in the communities. We have already reached 100 000 people in nearly 5 years in Africa. Such a small organization can do so much.

It's All Fun and Games Until...

That's right, until someone loses an eye. Well I nearly lost my eye. I got 2-3 fingers directly in the eye-ball during a demo of a handball game we play with the kids. This week we were doing a Training of Trainers but it's full on participation and people get really into the games. Let me choose now to underline the fact that we're not all soccer players at Grassroot Soccer nor are we all as coordinated as others. I love everyone for being different but at some moments I love some less than others. Like when I'm doubled over on a dusty footy field with mental visions of scratched corneas and various bacteria seeping into the lesion. Too much? Yeah ok well i guess it wasn't that bad, but until my insurance goes through I can be as worried as I want. Anyway, I had a right to be concerned as the bathroom we were all using was a far cry worse than what I'd seen in Asia (and believe me, i've peed in some places you wouldn't throw your trash).

But I digress.

I am in fact fine now... it was very hard to look around with all the refocusing and whatnot the last couple of days but I am very very happy to report my vision seems to be ok. Very happy. I know these things happen and it should just serve as a reminder that life doesn't take it easy on you just because you've travelled around the world to help others. It still kicks you hard when you're not looking and makes you appreciated what little you may have. Like arms and legs and your 5 senses.

Cape Breton vs Cape Town

This is the view up the street from the house I am staying in at the moment. I believe the peak of the mountain is called Lion's Head... but it's hard to tell what you're looking at through the mass of wires (including the gates and electric fence as pictured at the bottom). I wasn't actually able to leave the property at this time to take a proper picture. There were some builders sitting across the street who may have been very friendly or who may have tried to swipe my camera (so I was warned). Best to stay behind bars sometimes. Seems like a lifetime ago I was in Cape Breton, not even needing to lock the door at night!

The night after a party in C.B.? No! The alternative to a barbed wire fence in C.T. Location: Top of wall outside my bedroom window.



OK, so I haven't seen too much of the city yet, but I'm not being held captive inside the house! I go with Ryan (the doctor I mentioned before who is the director of Grassroot Soccer for the country) to the office and on errand runs. I am able to go jogging by myself on the promenade just down the street which runs along the coast as long as there's daylight. The scenery really is incredible - it's sort of like Rio de Janeiro with the city sprawling up the mountain away from the beach. The whole place is so beautiful, it's hard to believe that it has such a history of violence and hate...

Having said that, even this quiet, relatively peaceful area is surrounded by walls. Every house has a wall, a gate, an electric fence. But you quickly become immune to it, because everyone else is. It's just a natural part of life. All the walls are cement and painted in pretty colors. They coordinate with the neighbours' walls like hedges do in the suburbs back home. On the inside people have trampolines and well-kept gardens. The only difference is it's VERY clear that this is MY trampoline and these are MY gardens! But this is a product of what has come before and I don't see a closed off or snobbish attitude in the people I've met. On the contrary, Ryan and Dani are extremely generous and welcoming. They practically share their whole home with the family that stays in their guesthouse (this family's house recently burnt down in their hometown).

Next entry I'll have a bit more about what GRS does around the country. I'm still just getting my bearings and getting over jet lag. I'm also determined to find out what sort of creature woke me up at 4am last night. All I know was that I couldn't get back to sleep for an hour. I'm pretty much convinced it was an owl. Did mention I'm still getting over the the jet lag?

South African Spotted Eagle Owl


Cape Breton Grey Owl

I have arrived...

Well I'm sure we all felt it would never happen..but here I am in South Africa!

Cape Town is beautiful - I have always wanted to be surrounded by water and mountains. However, I was hoping for the ability to come and go as I please but you can't have everything. My neighbourhood is relatively safe in the day but nowhere really is after dark.

If you haven't seen a picture of Cape Town before, you must. And here, I'll make it easier for you,

http://www.tropicalisland.de/south_africa_cape_town.html

Google “Cape Town Picture” you’ll find some more great aerial views.

I haven’t had a chance to sight-see so far. Got in midnight yesterday after 25 hours of flying (brief stops in Dakar and Johannesburg) and slept till noon today. My host family is a young doctor (Ryan Janks) from J’burg, his wife and their 2 year old son Jamie who had his face glued to a show called ‘Wiggles’.** ^{see below}

Ryan (also director of the Grassroot Soccer program in Cape Town) took me to the office today to get familiar with the layout. That took 0.5 seconds as it is a small rented room about 10 feet by 6. At least there’s none of that bothersome excess “space” for things to get lost in. I helped out with some admin before going out to purchase a cell phone and test out my BMO ATM card. It worked. Very, very good.

Other than that I had dinner with Ryan and Dani (his wife) this evening. We had falafels and no, mom, falafels are not South African, they are a middle-eastern food. I’m sure I will taste the finer delicacies of this area soon.

So that’s it for 24 hours in “the Dark Continent”. Disappointed? You shan’t be soon; I will have much to write about in coming days including my trip to Port Elizabeth this weekend to see the Grassroot Soccer program in full swing.

More to come…

**First thing learned in South Africa: ‘Wiggles’ is a bizarre song-and-dance group from Australia comprised of 4 men, all an estimated 40 years of age in goony outfits with oddly exaggerated facial expressions. It is wildly (and inexplicably) popular in Oz and apparently sells out to stadiums of people. Said foursome previously made many attempts (and I’m assuming this was some time ago) to become a “boy-band”, eventually foregoing these dreams by deciding to put on some goofy suits, come up with a silly dance and renounce their dignity forever. And thus they were henceforth known as “Wiggles”. At this point, you may be thinking that the children’s program ‘Teletubbies’ was perhaps more peculiar than these four fellows, and you would be correct. However, the career choice of these men and their subsequent stardom surely rivals the incoherent prattle and tripped-out nature of those giant pear-shaped martians in terms of absolute weirdness.

I didn’t say first thing learned of South Africa…