Winner Winner Chicken Dinner...

How does one celebrate the Official FIFA Football for Hope Centre Opening?  Why by slaughtering chickens of course… No, I’m not kidding…

Ever since my first day at Kick4Life there has been non-stop work for the Centre Opening.  Like I stated in earlier posts, K4L was selected by FIFA to be a Football for Hope Centre in their campaign of “20 centres by 2010” from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.  Saturday was the big day.  It went amazing—smooth, on time (which never happens here in Africa), and fun.  We celebrated with a football tournament on our new 5v5 turf pitch where local schools came to play for orphanages around Lesotho, our curriculum going on in the background, and celebrity guests (former South African professional football players) that I didn’t know who the heck they were, but hey, everyone was going crazy.  All in all, it was a success.

Doug, a former intern, left on Monday, but did want to leave Africa until he felt he had the whole African experience.  He talked for a while with the staff how he wanted to kill a chicken and then eat it, I thought it was just going to be one of his crazy talk that never happens…I was wrong.  On Saturday, a staff member, Stango, came to the opening with a box of two chickens.  After the opening, (and before the after party) I witnessed a murder.  Now, I’m not a vegetarian, on the contrary, I love meat, so how can I justify that they are evil for killing chickens, when I ate them.  They have to die somehow; I just don’t want to do the killing.  I half watched, half covered my eyes, but still managed to document the event.  It was insane!  Everyone sort of knows that they move when you cut their head off, but I didn’t know they moved that much!  After the beheading, I looked away for one second, then BOOM all of a sudden, the chicken was running under the bowl!  I started freaking out; it’s probably the weirdest thing I have ever seen.  We ate them on Sunday night, and boy were they delicious.  It was like Whole Foods organic, free-roam chickens, but with a little aftertaste of Lord of the Flies brutality.

My co-workers keep telling me I’m going to kill one before I leave, I say heck to the no.  I have no problem with someone doing the killing, I just don’t think I have the heart to take a life, even if it’s only a chicken.

TTFN:

Peace, Love, and Did I mention the boys named them Emma and Meg? Rude.

Johannesburg!!! (in a nutshell)

This past weekend, I made the trek up to Johannesburg to meet up with some of other Grassroot Soccer interns, and all stay with the interns placed in Joburg.  We went to a huge football match against two rival teams based in Johannesburg at Soccer City (the bean-looking stadium that was built for the 2010 World Cup).  What an AMAZING weekend!  So many memories I will keep with me forever; things that can only happen in Africa, but I’ll try to keep this simple and sweet.  I could go on and on.

From Maseru to Joburg is only a 4.5-hour car ride, well, in a normal car.  At the office we have half-day Fridays, so Haz and I wanted to leave at 1pm to hopefully get a taxi-bus to Joburg by 3pm.  The border is only a 3min car ride from our house, but we didn’t end up having a car to get home until about 3pm.  Also, here in Africa, when you want to get on a bus, you have to wait until the bus is completely full to leave—we didn’t end up leaving until 4:45pm—shock!  So there I am, second weekend in a row, squished in the back of a van on a trip that took 6 hours!! All I kept thinking was, “I’m never doing this again, I’m never doing this again, I’m never doing this again.”  It’s something that only a 22 year-old living in Africa will want to experience, and once is just fine with me.  When we finally got to Joburg, I was greeted by the friendly faces of the other interns.  I have only hung out with them at our orientation, but it seems like I’ve known them longer.  We went out Friday night, and it is like another world.  When we were dinner, I was shocked how many white people there were—ha!  Going to Johannesburg was like going back to civilization—big city with big freeways, nice restaurants, and cute cafes and shops.

Saturday was the big game.  It started at 3pm, so our whole day was pretty much planned around it.  We woke up early so the boys could catch the South African rugby game (the World Cup of Rugby is going on), so us girls got to catch up and talk about our experiences over a couple cups of delicious Kenyan coffee.  We all bought jerseys on our way to the stadium, chiefs are bright yellow and black so of course I would cheer for the Chiefs!  The game was INSANE!  We had the best seats right behind the goal, and there are no strict stadium rules so we were able to walk down and stand front row with the cheering section.  We were all standing on our seats, and the game was nonstop singing, dancing, and cheering!  There were so many of those loud trumpet wazoos going on, my ears were still buzzing after the game!  I can’t even begin to explain that experience!  It was a once in a lifetime perfect moment surrounded by great friends, a game I love, and an energy by the crowd that makes any other fans around the world seem like you’re watching golf. 

The pirates and chiefs play again in March, and there is no doubt that there will be reunion round 2!  It’s also a perfect getaway for the weekend if I want to just get away from Maseru, you know, go back to a more Westernized city.  Don’t get me wrong, I love Maseru, but there’s nothing like a chicken pesto sandwich with a baguette at a French café with a latte in hand.

We tried to get home on Sunday, but things didn’t really work out, we ended up leaving the next day.  We got to the taxi station, and no one else was signed up to go back to Maseru--typical.  (Remember that they don’t leave until they have a full car)  So they told us that they would leave at 9pm, I’m like “are you kidding? NO!”  Every common sense in my body was telling me not to go, I was not going to wait in the taxi/bus station in downtown Joburg after dark.  No way.  I would take a day off over jeopardizing my safety anyday.  So I had a little freakout in my mind at the bus station, thinking I was stranded in Joburg.  Luckily, I remembered there was a guy from work picking up an All-Star group at the airport in Joburg to bring them back to Maseru the next day.  There happened to be extra room to hop aboard and get a free, comfortable, ride back to Maseru.  Everything always seems to work out in the end, and lets just say, next time, I’m renting a car!

TTFN: 

Peace, Love, and the African experience!

Our seats, no big deal

Chiefs!!!

Test Your Team!!

Want to know what it’s like to be on a 5-hour bus trip with 20 Africans?  I just have one word…noisy.

If there’s no “house music”, (the local music here, kind of like a mix between reggae and techno) there’s yelling, singing, or just flat out noise.  Now don’t get me wrong, I love these people, they are just born with natural caffeine injected into their bloodstream.  After 3 hours of sleep on Sunday morning they are STILL dancing at breakfast, I’m like “how do you have this energy?!?”  They replied, “it’s in our blood.”

Good enough.

This weekend I traveled to Bobete, Lesotho with a group of co-workers and coaches for our Test Your Team Event.  Bobete was tucked away high in the mountains of Lesotho, out in the middle of nowhere.  They said it would take 3 hours to get there, really? I think they mean 5 ½, going 10 mph uphill.  There were parts of the journey where I seriously questioned whether the van was going to make it, and also my sanity with the blasting of the music the whole way.   A couple times the driver literally asked everyone to get out of the van and walk up the hill because it was too heavy. Haha, only in Africa.  The roads, more like dirt paths, were long and windy up and down the mountainside; it was best not to look out the window.  A couple Hail Mary’s were whispered under my breath haha, but really.

The Test Your Team Event (in a nutshell) is a soccer tournament where Kick4Life invites local schools/teams to participate in the tournament, while also being able to participate in our HIV curriculum and have the option to get tested for HIV.  So needless to say, there was a lot going on.  I was running around all day taking pictures, refereeing, and on snack patrol. 

To describe the landscape will not do it justice, hopefully the pictures will speak for themselves.  To check out more of my pictures, visit the Kick4Life Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/kick4life. (And make sure to “like” us!!!) The landscape consisted of overlapping mountains, and blooming peace trees with delicate pink flowers—it was beautiful.  Throughout the drive we passed village after village, and I could not stop noticing all the yellow and turquoise hut doors, or colorful Besotho blankets hanging on clotheslines.  People here always seem to incorporate color in a world of desolation, it matches well with their friendly and warm disposition.

The Football Pitch

Dancing, always incorporated!

"AYOBA"-We are together

duckings :)

"Find the Ball"--one of the our HIV Curriculum activities

Game Winning Celebration

The Gang!!

The Long and Winding Road

Sorry this is so long...

TTFN: 

Peace, Love, and  Color!!

Pure Awesomeness...

Here is a list of awesomeness that I can’t quite find a way to tie all together, other than being awesome of course…

1.  "Hakuna Matata” was used in a conversation with one of my co-workers.  We were sweeping this storage space for like an hour (I have blisters to prove it!) and I accidently swept all the dust into his face haha.  He was like “hakuna matata, it means no problem.”  I was like, “you don’t have to tell ME what it means!” For all those who know me…my life is complete.
2. African Dance parties = Awesomeness.  Dancing is a part of life here; everywhere you go, a circle is formed and the dancing begins!  I always have the sudden urge to jump into the middle and get down with my bad self.  I was told I was a “flexible” dancer, which means I’m a good dancer.  Again, awesomeness.
3. Last Friday, we had a Community Centre Opening Event, which was to invite the community out to say that the centre is officially open and explain some of our projects we’re currently offering.  Over 50 kids showed up to demonstrate our curriculum, and at the end, they all lined up to dance to “I’m the World’s Greatest.”  Cutest. Thing. Ever.  (The pictures explain the awesomeness)
4.  I’ve been here a month, and before today, I had yet to find a mirror.  I’ve been hunting every weekend, going into stores and asking, searching, for a mirror.  Today was the day.  Not only did I find a mirror, but I found something I’ve been yearning for since I got here: a diet pepsi.  Hey, It’s no diet coke, and it’s definitely no Starbucks, but all they have here is coke zero (yuck), and I found both today.  What a day.  Needless to say, I sat in front of my mirror and drank my diet pepsi.  It was pure awesomeness.
5. My knee has been giving me no problems!  I’m so relieved.  There was a moment I never thought I was going to kick a soccer ball normally with my left leg again.  I’ve been playing soccer as much as I can, and I’m no doctor, but I think all the playing has made my knee feel better!  Maybe it’s in my head, maybe it’s Lesotho, but whatever it is, it’s awesome!
6. I went on a run today around town.  The other intern, Doug, told me it was a good 2-3 mile run up a “hill” that loops around back to our office.  Hmm, he said “hill,” but I’m pretty sure he meant MOUNTAIN.  I got to the bottom of the mountain, and was like “ut-oh.”  I did my best to jog up that beast of a “hill,” but I got halfway and my calves were screaming at me.  For everyone that’s played soccer with me, you know that I have no calf muscles; it’s all butt and thighs for me.  So lets just say, I’m going to be a little sore tomorrow.   But once I finally trucked my way to the top of the mountain, I was rewarded by the beautiful, African sunset….Awesome.
7. Have to give a shout out to my Rice Soccer Girls!  Clearly, Rice Soccer = Awesomeness!  Beating TCU AND LSU back-to-back!! Damn!  I am just so proud of them, and miss them so much!! Wish I was there to cheer you guys on!! (I’m sure you all miss me screaming at you!  Haha)  FBGM!!

 TTFN:

Peace, Love, and Awesomeness!