I can finally buy Milk

It is funny how the simple pleasures in life, like having a glass of milk in the morning can make a person (myself) so happy. I actually have half of a shelf in the refrigerator at our new house and am enjoying the ability to buy vegetables. Last Wednesday, all 8 interns that are living in a house together moved from Sea Point to the Gardens. The Gardens is an area in Cape Town where we are closer to the downtown area and work. Even though we had to move away from the 2 minute walk to beach and the larger house, it is nice to not live in a place full of cockroaches. The new house is a lot smaller but it is a lot nicer. It allows us to do things like play card games and hang out in a living room type area. It feels so much more like a “home” and there is fridge space for everyone!!

The new house is also closer to work. Therefore, I walk to and from work every day. It only takes about 20 minutes each way and it is amazingly beautiful walk. I get to walk through the Company Gardens that has a path that is lined on either side by trees that creates an archway for you to walk under. It has a lot of beautiful flowers and different types of birds and squirrels. Additionally, the buildings on either side have amazing architecture, it is a great way to start the day.

Aside from moving and navigating through a new area of Cape Town I have been really busy at work. One thing that has been really challenging for me so far has been finding a “role” or my “place” in the office. Everyone in the office is so busy and no one was really expecting me to be here, so it has been hard for them to find work for me to do. For the most part, I have just been trying to help out in any capacity that I can. Lately, it has been formatting curriculum, giving people rides to the airport, or helping with administrative work. Even thought formatting curriculum is really tedious and time consuming, I am becoming very efficient with Microsoft Word and all of its different functions. This is something that I never would have taken the time to learn but it is really helpful and helps to simplify things a lot. With many of these tasks there is not a lot of job satisfaction, I have tried to make the best of every opportunity and learn what I can from the experience. I am really excited because things are coming together and for the next couple weeks in Cape Town I will have a lot of stuff to do.

One of the things I have been working on is helping our coaches with their graduations. Grassroot Soccer has different types of interventions. One type is to go into schools and work with teachers and teach the GRS curriculum in the classrooms. At the end of 8 practices every kid that attended 6 of them receives a certificate at a graduation. My job is to make sure the coaches have the money to buy snacks for the kids, have a sound system and make sure enough certificates get printed. It is actually pretty easy to help with, but the cool part is then I get to go to the graduation and hand out the certificates.

I have 3 different sets of coaches to help out and I have already completed one graduation. The two coaches combined the graduations of the 6^th and 7^th grade classes, so there were over 300 kids at the ceremony. The unique thing about this graduation is the hall we were supposed to use was being used because the school was having a “fashion show”. It was so cute and funny, I got to watch for a little bit and I just kept thinking how different American and African cultures are. I just couldn’t imagine if a school in the US has 3^rd an 4^th graders participating in a modeling competition as an assembly in school.

Because of the modeling/fashion show we had to move the graduation into a small classroom where the 300+ kids and myself and 4 other GRS coaches made for a pretty tight squeeze. My job in the graduation is to represent GRS and give handshakes to all of the kids as they get there certificates. It is sometimes hard to stay energetic for 300+ kids, but it is important to make it special for each child. All of the kids had a great time and are so excited and appreciative of their certificates.

This past weekend was really low-key, no bunji jumping or petting lion cubs, just hanging out at the house. It has rained for the past week, so it was a good weekend to sit around, unpack and get settled in the new place. I was excited because I finally got to go to church. It has been really hard to find a church because of transportation issues and just not knowing where to look. I went to a Presbyterian Church right up the street from our new house. On that day the church was remembering all of their congregation members that had served their country in war. It was pretty interesting because when I think of wars and remembering service men, it is more about the US soldiers, so I got a little bit of a South African history lesson. What was really unique about this service was how the preachers talked about the US and opinions of US churches. It continues to amazing me how the US or opinions of the US are everywhere here in Africa. I have experienced this more with Music, but this past Sunday, I was truly amazed.

One thing that is exciting about this internship is the variety of tasks that you get to take part in. On Tuesday this past week, I got to help plant trees around the Football for Hope Center. It was really fun to get to hang out with some of the other interns and do a little manual labor. We actually got really lucky because one of the groups that donated the tree’s stayed and helped us most of the morning. It was really amazing to get to see the technique and efficiency of the workers and instead of it taking all day, it only took a couple of hours, but it was really fun!!

After we were done planting trees we stopped by the Braai spot. Braai is the South African word for barbecue or cookout, it is really good unhealthy meat!! There is a pretty popular Braai spot on the way back from Khayelitsha to Cape Town. Some interns eat it a couple of times a week but I have only had it twice and I think that might be it for me! It is definitely worth trying, but twice is enough for me. It was just a great way to end the tree planting day.

In the weeks to come I will be planning a VCT tournament (Voluntary Testing Tournament) where we have kids test for HIV, having rehearsals with local artist every Saturday for the Football for Hope Center opening, finalizing the trophies for the FFC opening tournament, completing interviews with 250 school principles and working with the Public Relations specialist on the Football for Hope Center opening.

Not only have thing in Cape Town really picked up for me but it has been planned out that I will return to Namibia the week after I return from Christmas break. I will be headed to Northern Namibia for 6 weeks to help with trainings and provide Technical Assistance to two of GRS’s partners. It is going to continue to be an amazing adventure and it gets more exciting all of the time.

With Love

Sarah