“Not I—not anyone else, can travel that road for you… You must travel it for yourself” Walt Whitman

I know that I have not posted in a while and I truly regret that, so I am going to do a much more exciting post in the next few weeks about what I have been up to generally. Today thought I would like to write about a day at the FIFA Football For Hope Centre. **

Everything that happened the events, the feelings, the weather, the smells (I will talk about that lateR) were symbolic of what it is like everyday at the Centre. At the same time, parts of that day were unique and special.

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As everyone has experienced at least once in their life, I woke up not looking forward to going to work.

6:00-6:30: I was tired, I have a cold, it was dark out and I did not feel like I had the energy to do my best. The alarm went off 6:01, 6:03, and I did think for a fleeting moment about putting my pillow over my head and calling in sick, but than my body got the best of me and sprung me out of bed to make my 6:30 am gym class.

Every Friday, I go to the FIFA for Hope Centre with Sam and Dylan the two program interns. The FIFA Football for Hope Centre is located in Khayelitsha a township located outside of Cape Town. The centre is a community hub and is the central meeting place for the coaches, site staff and interns who work in the field every day and implement GRS programs. (See my other blogs post for more info on the centre’s interesting history)

The program interns have a special position within GRS and especially as interns. They have to straddle two different worlds each day, Cape Town and Khay, and learn how to navigate both of them as outsiders. No one can really appreciate what it is like to spend every day in a community where you are the outsider, both culturally and linguistically until you have actually experienced it.

Sam and Dylan work so hard and I truly respect them for all the effort they put into their jobs every day. I could not think of two better people, than Sam and Dylan, to be program interns.

8:40 Sam and Dylan picked me up at Engen (it is like a WAWA convenience store/gas station) in the blue intern car called the Avanza..I like to call us the “three musketeers” since I am one of the only interns that gets to go out to site so much (plus I like that name..but I am not sure how much Sam and Dylan like it)…

This has become somewhat of a routine, every Friday hopping into the Avanza and speeding out of Cape Town onto the N2. On our way out, we past table mountain, a grand monument of nature that both defines and dominates the cityscape.

9:00 At this point in the day, I started to get the same exciting uneasy feeling I get every time I drive to Khay. I think it has to do with the fact that you never know what you are going to experience while there.

That is in my view one of the most beautiful and unique, but also frustrating parts of working on site: the unexpected nature of it…. As someone who likes to plan ahead of time, learning to embrace the spontaneous and unexpected has been a challenge for me.

9:30: As we drove into the FIFA For Hope Centre, I had barley put my bag down in the community room, when I heard my name “JUJU” yelled and I was told that Sam, needed help.

10:00: Somehow, I ended up in the front seat of the Avanza next to Sam and we drove off to what I thought was going to be a few errands, but as I should have known, ended up being a lot more..

10:15: We first took one of the CPCs (Community Program Coordinators) to talk toa local principle about our girls only program Skills Streetz. Although, I have written about this before, our female only program is of paramount importance in a country where young females (15-19) are 5x more at risk of HIV than their male counterpart.

I had expected that most schools in Khayelitsha would have been hesitate to allow Grassroot Soccer to implement Skillz Street since talking about HIV/AIDS is so highly stigmatized. Yet, to my surprise and opposite to what I had expected, the first female principles embraced Skillz Street and thanked us for the work we do.

This principle told us about the all-girls soccer team she had started at her school, (it is still very rare for females to take part in organized sports) and how she felt it had improved many of the young girls outlooks on life. That moment, of being surprised by the good people are doing, is what I love about working at site.

Every time I go out there, I meet people who are doing their best to improve their community against many odds.

This got me thinking to how sometimes when an awful event happens in a community, we automatically lump everyone in that area together. We think that everyone is a certain way because of the acts of a few individuals.

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As many of you may be aware, South Africa has been in the news for the recent xenophobic violence . For those who are not aware Xenophobia refers to a deep-rooted, irrational hatred towards foreigners or an unreasonable fear or hatred of those who are different from the dominate group.

In South Africa xenophobic has taken the shape of many locals accusing immigrants of taking jobs and opportunities away from them. Nothing is ever as simple as what is seen on the surface, and many believe that these attacks may stem from the unequal distribution of economic opportunities since the end of apartheid. For an interesting perspective on these events, check out this article. http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-04-15-op-ed-when-the-economy-suffers-xenophobia-thrives/#.VS__xvmUcwA

The egregious acts of those who have killed innocence foreigners may dominate the international news, but every day the South African’s I meet are tolerate and welcoming to many foreigners. This is certainly an issue I will never fully understand, but I felt completed to write about it. Since, the media often shapes our perceptions of the world, it is up to individuals to show an alternative viewpoint that many never been heard.

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Back to my day

12:00:We continued to drive around and started the arduous task of picking up food from a wide arrange of different vendors for the coaches and the Skillz Street HTC happening that Saturday. On the way, we stopped on the side of the road to place our order for chicken and pork for the coaches. The chicken and meat are cooked on these big furnace like stoves that although rusty and I am sure not clean, always get the job done. We also stopped at a local fruit vendor to pick up snacks for Skilz Street.

To some, these may seem like mindless tasks, but I always end up enjoying them. The vibrant energy of Khay, the bustling street corners filled with ubiquitous shops, the children in their school uniforms running through the streets, and the sharp smell of the fires from the outdoor cooking always make me feel more alive and in the moment.

5:00: Finally it had become the end of the day, and that tired feeling had crept up, as it often does at site, and I was feeling both mentally and physical exhausted. I think only program interns can explain the exact tired feeling you get after being on site. For me, it is a mixture of both drained energy and mental fatigue that makes it seem like 10pm instead of 5pm.

5:30: To my surprise, Eric a former program intern who was visting for the week, had arranged for the whole Khay gang to go to Town Two and enjoy some braii. (As the picture of the meat demonstrates, this type of braii is not my cup of tea).

As we rolled up to Town Two, the sun had started to set and the lights from the houses and the road lit up Khay in an almost sleepy calming eay. To some, this may not scream beauty, but for me in that moment, surrounded by the site staff, it certainly did.

6:00: Looking back on it, as we all sat there, Vuyo, Mmpaki, Poppie, Chris, Sam, Dylan, little Vuyo, and Eric, I was completely in the moment—not thinking about the past or the future— and truly enjoying my time in Cape Town, South Africa.

As Buddha said, “ When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.” Which is, in my view certainly true….

I can look back and know that these moments, although they may seem trite to some, have really shaped my experience here.

I think this post may be more for myself as a way to remember those little things that are so important, but are often forgotten when we lump memories together. The feelings, the smells, the colors and the energy of a certain moment can never really be captured in words, but I hope that my blog was able to give a tiny sample of what it is like everyday in Khay.

Here are some other experiences I will always remember:

• Hiking up Big Daddy and Big Mamma with Tuna in Namibia

• Watching the sun set in Namibia with Aina and Arthur

• Hiking in Cedarburg Mountains

• Spending Passover with so many amazing people

• Visiting Stellenbosch with Shelly

• Camping outside

• Sleeping in Caves in the Drakensburg

• hiking with 60 k or about 30 miles in three days with betsy and Karl our guide

• Putting on a newspaper fashion show to show inner beauty at site

• Leading a session about financial literacy during Global Money Week

• Visiting Franschhoek with Laura and Ally

Watching a TOC (Training of Coaches) for the first time

Looking forward to my last three months here.

However, very excited to start my next chapter in my life as the University of Pittsburgh where I will be enrolling in their three year Master of Public Health/Master of Social Work dual degree.

Thank you so much to everyone who helped to make this year possible.