Christmas in Port Elizabeth

So Christmas this year was a tad strange for me.  My housemates either went home or met up with family.  I, too, could have found some fellow interns to meet and spend the holiday with, or travel elsewhere, but partly due to laziness, and partly to interest, I decided to stay in PE.  What followed was an unforgettable Christmas.

First off, it was green.  Christmas in the summer...I will never get used to that.  People were interested to hear if I was homesick, and in truth I was, but the fact that nothing felt like Christmas as I knew it made it a whole lot easier.  I did buy some cocoa so I would drink hot chocolate at night to feel a bit like home.

I woke up on Christmas morning around 9:30.  My parents will tell you that this NEVER happens.  For some reason I am always up by 7:00 every Christmas...habits from childhood I guess, but I still love Christmas morning.  So...late start, I called Chika and she told me she'd give me a call when I should head over.  I saw Theo quickly in the morning and he again invited me to dinner with his family, but I was excited to spend the day with my girl Chika!

I relaxed for a good part of the day, reading, watched a movie, ate lunch...my Christmas package from home has yet to arrive to the day felt like any other.  Chika called around 3 and I went, by her directions, to her aunts house.  They had spent the morning making various salads and were firing up the braai when I arrived. 

We had sausage, beef, and a few different salads - tuna noodle, coleslaw, mixed greens, curry noodle - for dinner.  I was so full I couldn't finish my plate.  It was really tasty and her family was so nice.  The little girls especially were really loving on me.

After a bit of family time we made the rounds to pick up some girls to go to Eyethu.  Eyethu, for those who don't remember, is a club.  "A club?"  you might say….on Christmas?  Yes.  Christmas day is one of the biggest clubbing days in South Africa.  Everyone goes out.  So Chika and I dropped her mom at home before picking up Nelly and going to Bobsy's to get her and Nowie.

At Bobsy's house we parked the car, said hello and were given more plates of food.  The potato salad and meat looked so good we ate again.  With full stomachs we went to Eyethu.  The club was starting to fill as we arrived, but the dance floor was more-or-less vacant, save the few people who just love to dance and never leave the floor.  We bought our drinks and settled in.  Within the next few hours the place got filled to the maximum.  The police shut it down at 1:30 for fire-code violations.  It seems that the front door just takes money and lets people in until its too packed and then, no matter the time, just closes. 

Interesting stories from the night involve two people. 

1. This dude sitting at the table next to us grabbed me at one point and pulled me out on the dance floor and tried to dance with me.  I obliged for a second before pulling away.  Any man wearing a bucket hat (a major fashion trend here) is not really my type.  He later tried to take a picture with me, I told him no as he point to his friend with the camera phone.  Later he kept telling me that he thought he was in love with me...drunky.
2. This woman who tried to hit on me the other night when I was out with Theo and Ashley hit on me again!
1. She introduced me to her girlfriend and then said, "I don't want things to be weird between us just because I have a girlfriend."
2. I was there with Chika and I think she thought we were a couple because she kept saying "Phakama is my friend." (Phakama being Chika's real name).
3. Later, Theo came and I was talking to him and she grabbed me arm and tried to pull me away.

3. Last story of interest involved a bathroom run.  The toilet paper for the bathroom is kept on a line at the bar.  You go and take some if you want and then go to the stall - which has no doors.  I had just pushed my way through the now packed club to the bar to grab some toilet paper and was heading back towards the bathrooms.  Suddenly someone grabbed me from behind.  I just stopped and whirled around ready to slap whoever it was - it wouldn't be my first time.  It was just Theo however.  He was lucky.  Later in the bathroom a rather large woman stood in front of me while I peed so that the guys who might walk through unnecessarily wouldn't see me - also, wouldn't be the first time.

So after Eyethu got closed Theo, Nelly, Chika, Bobsy, and I went to Parliament street and went to a bar for a couple hours.  Exhausted, we went home around 4.  A Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Holiday: Week 1

Friday - Eyethu with the girls.  Lots of dancing, lots of strange looks, lots of people asking me what a white girl was doing there.  One girl had a nice conversation with me…

Her: Are you a lesbian?

Me: No, I'm straight.

Her: What are you doing here with all lesbians?

Me: They're my friends.

Her: So you don't date lesbians…?

Me: No.  I'm straight.

Her: Oh common...we don't have to tell your mom, just listen to yourself.

Friday was a national holiday, nobody works, everyone goes to the beach, everyone parties.  Needless to say, the club was absolutely packed!  It was hard to even move.  Everyone buys their alcohol in bulk from the bar and sets up their little areas and then there is a dance floor in the middle and people walking around those going crazy with their moves.  It was really a crazy scene, but a lot of fun.

Saturday I went back, but only for a bit.  I met up with Knoxie's brothers - Theo and Ashley - and we went out for the night with a friend of theirs to a few places.  Got home at 4:30 am. 

Sunday Shuffle came over and we hung low watching movies and making jambalaya while it thunder-stormed outside.

Monday Chika came over and we watched a movie while Will cooked.  Eventually Bej, VIP, Nowie, and Theo joined us for Wills leaving/birthday dinner.  He made this really good chicken with stuffing that turned into a topping, but it was still awesome.  Will took most people home late that night, but Chika and Shuffle stayed - mainly because Shuffle lives here now that Jess's room is vacant for a while. 

Tuesday we spent the day at the pool.  Chika loves swimming and Shuffle is still trying to learn how.  I think I am a bad teacher. 

Wednesday Theo came back and we went to the beach with Shuffle.  I LOVE going to the beach here because people here LOVE the beach.  Every time it's like being transported back to childhood.  There is so much giggling and just playing in the waves.  We also brought a soccer ball to play around with which, of course, attracted other people so that didn't last too long.  I ended up getting pretty burnt on my stomach and chest...I guess salt water doesn't get along with my sunscreen.

Thursday I just chilled at home and watched some movies.

Friday I went out again with Theo and Ashley and their friend.  It was a hectic night.  Whenever I go out with them we jump from place to place so I get exhausted. 

Today is Christmas Eve and my Christmas package has not arrived...or perhaps it has, but I haven't received a notification yet, nor do I have the tracking number for the post office to check on it.  So, I will have a very strange Christmas with no family, no snow, no reminders of family….it'll be weird, but hopefully Chika's family will be fun.  Theo feels bad for me so he's going to come over and watch the Grinch with me and make dinner.  It's been really nice having him around over the holidays.  He usually lives in Jo-burg, but we get along really well so it's been great having a new friend to be around.  I hope he enjoys the Grinch because it is one of my favorite films of all time.

Eyethu

AMAZING day of work.  Coaches braai with only half the coaches showing up = LOTS of food.  We went to this really cool place in Zwide that is a meat market in front, but around back there is a picnic area with brick ovens and braais so you can cook the meat you buy in the shop.  The food was so good and we sang and danced and hung out.  It was a great way to spend 6 hours of my day. 

After the braai we went down the road to the big club in the townships: Eyethu.  I have always wanted to go, but never have before somehow.  Ended up having a great time.  The place is really big and cool.  There is an indoor area with tables and tvs and a pool table and an outdoor area with tables and a dance floor and a big bar and a nice dj stand.  There are only bathroom stalls without doors though which is a little distressing - oh well...TIA I guess.

Chika beat me in pool, but then I started befriending people and met some cool guys.  It was a good night.

Shuffle Weekend

Hmmm….I think I'll just give quick details of this weekend.  It was busy, but I think I will forever think of it as my Shuffle weekend.  Shuffle, as I have mentioned before, is a coach with GRS (not really anymore), a teammate on City Lads, and one of my good friends here.  She came over Thursday after work and slept over.  We made dinner, watched movies, hung out, and had a good time.

Friday was Danny's birthday so she invited a bunch of the City Lads ladies to her apartment to celebrate.  We braaid, had cake, drank, listened to music, danced, and had a good time.  Danny doesn't have room for everyone to stay though, and being out so late, people couldn't really go all the way back home to the townships, so some people stayed at our house.  Shuffle came back and slept in Jess's room again - or we should start calling it her room.

Saturday we woke up and went to the funeral(s).  Afterwards everyone who was there for GRS came back to Summerstrand and we went to the beach outside Danny's apartment.  Shuffle and I went boogie boarding.  However, Shuffle can't swim and is kinda scared of boogie boarding so it was mostly just me.  I had so much fun in the ocean though!  This was the first time, I think in my life, that I went full on swimming in the ocean - like I couldn't touch or anything.  It was awesome!  The waves were pretty big and I am now looking forward to the rest of my summer here for the beach days.  Shuffle was so funny though because she LOVES water.  She was like a kid at the beach which rubbed off on all of us so we were all just playing around like children on the beach - making sand castles, digging holes, swimming...it was a lot of fun. 

After the beach everyone moved to our house and we got pizzas and played cards and hung out.  It was ok, but it was quite stressful having everyone over.  Two issues:

1. Some people expected us to buy them things - like food and booze.  This was really awkward.  I don't mind making food and offering it to people, like when Shuffle comes over, but when there are 15 people over I don't like that expectation put on me.  People also came here expecting that I would drive them home - some people live about a 1/2 hour away...another thing that I don't mind doing, but I'd like to offer.
2. We approached a very awkward situation when R200 went missing out of Jess's room.  She left me with R500 to put on her internet because there is a special going on during December.  At some point R200 of it went missing.  This resulted in grouping the people who were around when it went missing and putting it out there that we knew, didn't want to put the blame on anyone because we couldn't, and asking whoever did it to return the rest by just leaving it somewhere.  Some people were really upset that it happened to us, others got defensive and didn't want to be called a thief...it was weird.  We tried to just move past it after we put it out there, but the money wasn't returned.  From now on I refuse to have any large group of people over.  I couldn't believe that people who we work with every day and consider our friends pulled something like that.  And now I am left to replace it.  I feel responsible because Jess had left the money with me and I should've hidden it somewhere earlier.  Just a horrifyingly annoying situation.

Anyways, moving on to Sunday: Shuffle stayed over again on Saturday so we woke up Sunday and watched Bridesmaids over pancakes and eggs.  Then we went to the pool and hung out while I tried to give her her first swimming lesson - not super successful.

After enough pool I drove her home to pick up her soccer boots and we went to play pick-up with Warren, Shayne, Soper, Silky, and a bunch of guys.  It was a lot of fun and felt good to play.  It rained a bit in the middle, but this ended quickly and then a nice rainbow came out.

Post-match we showered and then I took Shuffle back for good.  We are sleeping in our house sans-Shuffle for the first time in 3 nights.  It feels lonely! Ha.

My First Xhosa Funeral...And Then My Second: A Note on Funeral Crashing

Mzee is a coach for GRS and his dad had died the day of our HCT.  To show our support and respect we decided to go to the funeral on Saturday.  This plan led to a complete day of chaos.  It was a real test of our knowledge and endurance of Africa Time.

What is Africa Time you ask?  Well, it's this way of measuring time here that is really just a complete lack of measuring time.  As a lovely book on race in South Africa puts it, white people have this conception that time is running out.  We feel that time has an end point and we can never get enough.  However, in the black communities time is just there.  If  today doesn't have enough time, then there is more time tomorrow.  No stress and no rush.

So back to the story - we woke up around 9:30 and got ready.  The bus for people to take from Mzee's house left at 9:30 to go to the church, but funerals last a while so being late wasn't supposed to be an issue.  We ended up leaving around 10:15.  From our house we went to Danny's to help bring some people home that had slept at her house.  This turned into driving all over New Brighton to drop people home, pick others up, stop to get different clothes, etc.  About an hour later we met Danny again in the parking lot of KFC to caravan it to Motherwell.

We have Bej, Nowie, Shuffle, and Chika with us to direct so we find the church pretty easily.  All of us are dressed for the occasion and look quite nice as we walk up to the church.  People are outside to greet us and thank us for coming.  The funeral had already started and people were singing as we entered so we quietly took a pew in the back and slid in.  There were a lot of people inside, including a man in a silver suit.  Chika asked the woman sitting in front of us to see the (I guess I'll call it a…) pamphlet with the schedule and obituary in it.  Opening to the first page there was a large picture of the deceased.  I was sitting next to Chika and got a good look at it and could obviously tell it was a woman in the photo.  Chika closes the pamphlet and starts look at all of us waving her hand across her throat.  We were at the WRONG funeral!  Danny just turned to me and said, "Don't you just hate when that happens?"  We all had to muffle our giggles and sit at this funeral of someone we did not know until everyone started singing again so we could silently slink out the back.

Turns out the funeral we were looking for was down the road at The African Gospel Church of Motherwell.  Some of the other coaches were there as well and we took our seats.  Now this church is pretty much what you may imagine when you read the words "African Gospel Church".  It was fitted with a pastor who screamed a lot, a strong-voiced woman leading the singing who held the mic too close, and congregation that repeated what the pastor was saying, and a dude who got really excited by the pastor and yelled out things and jumped up often.   Chika even commented to me how crazy the pastor was with all his screaming.  I had no idea what was being said, due to the isixhosa, but I stayed awake.

At the end of it all a man in a silver suit packed up the instruments and everyone left.  Mzee's mom thanked us all for coming - she was a very nice woman - and we left and opted to skip out on the cemetery.  I was later told that this was like us not even going to the funeral, but the coaches we came with didn't want to go so we didn't go...oops.

For the reader with the fine eye: you may have noticed that I TWICE mentioned a silver suit.  I would like to note that there were indeed TWO men in silver suits - and not just gray suits with a  sheen to them, but platinum suits that shined like they were indeed made of platinum.  It was quite a look and one I was privileged to see multiple times.

And so was my Saturday morning and early afternoon - I went to two funerals, crashed my first funeral, tested my patience with Africa Time (later learning that it passes through all levels of activities and no matter our lateness, we were still on time), and took in some serious fashion.

Last Program of the Year

We are holding our last interventions of the year.  Skillz Holiday is currently in progress in Uitenhage.  Mr. Mali, the principal of Phaphani High and the pastor of a church, has been extremely helpful, both in recruitment and offering us a venue.  He is such a nice man.  He is the one who told us when we first recruited his school (dedicated readers will remember) "You give us hope and direction." 

Anyways...Skillz holiday...Monday was pretty bad.  I guess the teachers at the schools forgot to remind the kids about the program so a lot of the kids we had recruited to come didn't show up.  No worries however, this just gave us an excuse to do some guerrilla recruitment.  Everyone took to the streets and we just walked around.  When a kid who looked of appropriate age was in site, the coaches pounced.  Mzee and Chika were amazing at this.

As a result, we had over 70 kids come Tuesday - rather than the 6 on Monday.  Will, Ngwenya, and I ran errands for the coaches - food, transport, etc.  We played games with the kids who were too young to do the program, and hung out with everyone.  A great way to spend a work day - especially when it's nearing 80 degrees and is sunny.

Today, however, I was robbed of another day of this.  I had to stay back in the office and re-do my finance report.  When I had my training i was told:

1. You don't have to follow the bank statement.  You can record payments as they are made rather than as the bank processes the payments.

2. Record all the payments, even if the bank hasn't yet so that headquarters doesn't think your site has money that you don't have.

So...for the past couple months this is how I have been doing it.  I got an e-mail Monday that said my end balance didn't match my report.  This was due to me having 2 more transactions in my report than the statement had.  I took them out for the woman at headquarters who wanted me to.  On Tuesday I got another e-mail.  Rather, I was CCed and the e-mail was sent to Pumeza.  I read "Pumeza, can you please assist Martha so that she can get your finance report right."  She then listed issues such as the ending balance (already taken care of), different opening balance (because some of the early transactions were on last months report) and that things were out of order (payment rather than process).   I was so annoyed by this.  She didn't ask me, but sent that condescending e-mail.  Not to mention, the different instructions from different people at headquarters. 

Anyways, I have been at the office today so that I could change this.  Being alone in the office isn't all bad though.  I was able to skype with Robert for a while which always makes me happy.

African Burn

I got my first real African sun burn.  Yesterday was sunny so I went and read by the pool.  In typical PE fashion however, it was really windy so I was cold and didn't even think of putting on sun screen.  My bad.  I ended up with burnt shoulders and, oddly, upper thighs.  The two parts of my body that haven't gotten much sun at work yet.  I am always wearing jeans or soccer shorts and t-shirts for GRS so the tank top and normal shorts were just too little material to save my skin.  It seems that I'll have a funny tan-line though...

And Then There Were Two...

Well, it's December.  Jess and Jim have left for their holiday breaks already back to the US.  Jess left me an advent calendar as a gift though so I sincerely thank her for that.  It's more quiet without them, but I don't feel as bad taking the car which is nice.  I did all our reports and submitted them last Friday and we only have 2 weeks before summer vacation.  This coming week we have a Skillz Holiday so I can spend me days hanging out at those and making sandwiches.  The following week we have NOTHING!  I will have to do our December reports, but for only 2 weeks those won't take so long.  We will have no programs running though and a number of our staff are taking their remaining vacation days so the office will be dead.  We are planning on watching lots of movies and taking naps.  It should be a lot of fun.

SAHARA and Bryan Visits

Wedneday was the SAHARA conference that I have been getting ready for for a few weeks.  Everything went pretty smoothly.  The first 2 hours were just lectures.

1. The coaches got so bored.
2. After working in the environment that I have been for four months, academic research papers are extremely annoying.

These professors and members of UNICEF would get up and tell us numbers from studies and then say, "We need to pay attention to BLANK" or "BLANK is important."  I just was sitting there like, ok...now what do you propose to DO!?  It just all seemed to useless.  The people I work with are actually on the ground helping and doing things.

The best part of the morning session was when this woman gave a lecture on giving more focus to gay and lesbian people and their ability to spread AIDS.  People in the audience had a few comments and questions on this subject.  At one point the speaker told a man that he was weak in his faith.  Another woman half-went into details of her sex life as a lesbian. 

During our morning tea break I was sitting and talking with Lavista and he said to me, "Do you believe in lesbians?"  I was a little taken aback.  I just answered, "what?"

Lavista: Do you believe in lesbians?

Me: You make them sound like fairy tale creatures.  I don't understand.  They exist, so yes I believe in them.  (At this point we are sitting near coaches who are openly in same-sex relationships).

Lavista: I was just asking because I have a cousin and she was a lesbian.  But now she's straight...so I just don't know.

The afternoon was more familiar.  We had 3 sessions to run.  It was youth day so there were some kids as well as some adults from other NGOs and research groups from all over.  We ran risk field where Bej is just a superstar.  He is soooo energetic and engaging.  It made for a great activity.  People really seemed to enjoy it.  Kids were excited, a lot of them knew GRS already which was great to show the adults there, but the adults were also really entertained and intrigued.  Mpumi got an interview with a TV station and I got to sit in the background.

Jess picked me up at the end of the day and I wasn't home too long before the Zambia crew showed up at our house.  Bryan and some other people who work for GRS in Zambia were doing a SA coast tour and were in PE for the night.  It was nice to see Bryan again.  He was so excited to see everyone and he's such a nice guy.  We went out to dinner and then they went out to the casino and hit a few bars.  I was so tired for the day and the casino didn't really get my adrenaline pumping so I went to bed after dinner - it was around 11:00.

Chika

CHIKA GOT OFFERED A JOB FOR THE RCT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  She will be a survey administrator and starting next year will be in the office with us.  I am so excited that she not only has job security, but that I'll get to be around her more.  Chika is so great.  She invited me to spend Christmas with her family and I think I am going to go.

Secret Santa

To celebrate our HCT success we decided to have a staff dinner (also for Christmas party purposes).  We went to Primi Piatti on Tuesday with secret santa gifts.  I had Jim and gave him a snow globe ornament with his name on it that I saw in a store and a gift certificate to a bookstore that has become a bit of a joke for us.  It's called CUM books and is Christian literature.

Pumeza had me and bought me a watch.  I love it, but I wonder if she went over our R100 limit we had set.

Dinner was nice.  Mpumi came and first order of business was ordering everyone tequila shots.  Yuck. 

After dinner I went with Ngwenya to Danny's new apartment.  Some of the other City Lads ladies were there (Tall, Nowie, Chika, and Amy).  Her new place is amazing.  It's right on the beach in Summerstrand.  So cute.  We went back there the other night and just watched TV and hung out.  I miss TV so much!  I just want to go to a hotel for a day and watch TV the whole time.  That's how much I love and miss television!

HCT

Last weekend was our HIV Counseling and Testing soccer tournament.  This was big.  We had been working for two months putting this together and it's a big part of GRS culture - and one of the most different a fun activities we have - in my opinion.  As mentioned before (I think) I was chair of the prizes and media committees.  For media I got us a daily plug on ALGOA fm and an interview with Siya on KQ fm in Zwide + they inserted us into their news feed so any news update on the Thursday and Friday before had a mention of our HCT.

As far as prizes are concerned, we had a lot of Nike gear in our garage which made things easy, but I also got donations from Greenacres, our local mall, and GAME, the Walmart of South Africa.  GAME gave us water bottles, chocolate, Gatorade-type drinks, and mini soccer balls. 

The transfer of garage good was probably the most challenging part.  We had 315 indestructible balls in there so we decided to give one to each kid that participated.     This made for an enjoyable Friday.  We also got to pick up the trophies that we had designed - so beautiful!

The day of was pretty enjoyable.  We had to hand out t-shirts to people who got tested (I got my first HIV test! - negative!), give gifts to our partners who helped us out, choose MVPs, and help coaches out in any way.  Shuffle was my right-hand woman for the morning until the City Lads left for our game.  Couldn't go myself due to my registration issues. 

The Health Department brought a huge truck that unfolded and played music and had a camera on it that attached to a huge TV screen on the top of it - kids LOOOOOVED this last part and kept trying to get on the screen.

The day got really interesting about 2 hours in.  During the day the kids who are in the tournament get to play, go through some of the activities from our curriculum, and have a chance to get tested alongside any member of the community who comes in.  After 2 hours though a woman showed up from the Health Dept. and shut down testing of all people under the age of 18.  Legally in South Africa anyone 14 and up can get tested.  No idea what happened there.  This was the SECOND time this month that our testing had been shut down on the day of!  The Health Dept. needs to get their shit together if you ask me. 

This really upset Siya who had set up the tournament - the point of an HCT is the "counseling" and the "testing".  We carried on though with the soccer which went really well.  Bere and Bora helped me out with getting players names for MVPs - they got free gear during the awards ceremony.  The boys league was really competitive and the final went into a shoot out. 

The food situation was crazy.  There was sooo much chicken.  We got to take a bag home.  And lets not forget the 200 muffins that Jess baked.

At the end of the day we had our awards ceremony.  We had a lot of stuff to give out.  The winners got the best stuff.  The boys got mini soccer balls, turf shoes, medals, and soccer balls.  MVPs for the semis got socks and MVP of the tournament got a tracksuit.  The girls got the same stuff, but they got chocolate and energy drinks instead of mini soccer balls.  All in all I think it went well.

For our de-brief we just had a big singing and dancing celebration.  As Siya put it, "This is how we can measure our success.  And we don't fight success."  Nowie went crazy in the center of everyone - as per usual and everyone was singing so loudly.  I learned some new dances and kids even came in and joined - some also made fun of me trying to do the butt pop from one of the songs. 

Back home I saw just how burnt my neck was and fell asleep.

Exams

Mpumi, our Programs Director in South Africa/my next-door neighbor is doing a masters program at the local university.  The whole month of November is exams month here.  It's kinda crazy how everyone has exams all month.  So many people go into hibernation for so long.  They think it's crazy that the states put everything into a week.  I think they're crazy to spread out that stress so long.

Anyways,  Mpumi was taking some class on teamwork or team building or something.  For his final exam he asked our office to bring in 8 people to participate in his final exam.  I went with Jess, Bej, Ntombie, Vovo, Nowie, Ngwenya, and Bere.  We really had no idea what we'd be doing, but we showed up at NMMU at 8:30 am to be greeted by some people with coffee and scones.  We then moved to a different room where a professor explained to us what would be happening.

We spent the next 2.5 hours participating in a team-building workshop.  We were given a scenario: we were members of some company forced to partake in this.  Mpumi and 2 other women ran the workshop like some consulting firm.  It was pretty interesting - not a bad way to spend the morning.  It was interesting to hear some issues people that I work with have in regards to their work environment.  Afterwards we were calling each other out on coming out of character.  Oops.  Mumpi was glad though that we helped him out and promised us special treatment at his graduation party in April.

Thanksgiving!

THANKSGIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!  This holiday, if you know me, is one of my favorites.  I LOVE the food and the family and the chip dip, and everything.  Being in South Africa was NOT going to deter me from having my Thanksgiving.  Jess was completely with me here and we set out to make this American holiday a South African one.  We took off work, on the excuse that we had to bake the muffins for the HCT (we did this too).  Danny called us early in the morning and said she had found a turkey and asked if we wanted it.  We had searched, but to this point had not found a turkey so were going to good chickens.  We hadn't bought them yet so we said Definitely Yes!

She brought over a huge turkey and a littler one.  We spent a few hours thawing them out In warm water in our sink while Jess started the muffins.  There were few hiccups during the cooking - the only real problem was that the large turkey could only fit on a cookie sheet so the juice started to spill over the side eventually.  This resulted in smoke and all that, so I had to spoon out juice into my gravy pot every 1/2 hour or less.  No worries.

Menu:

Turkey! - came out soooo well.  Crispy, juicy - No idea how I did this my first try

Mashed Potatoes

Gravy

Sweet potatoes and Apples - Sweet potatoes are NOT yams SA

Green Bean Casserole

Macaroni and Cheese Casserole

Stuffing - made with boerevors rather than other sausage = special SA stuffing

Cranberry jelly

Caramelized onions and green beans

Apple Pie

Sweet Potato Pie

Chocolate Roll

BEST PART: It wasn't just out house, but Danny and Evilo came as well as our guy friends.  Warren, Shayne, Silky, Brett, Soper, and Greg were all there.  Some of them got really into it - Shayne had never eaten a turkey and Soper showed up with an American flag and an American flag mug.  It was a very nice Thanksgiving. 

Registration

I think I finally made my way INTO the City Lads.  I don't know what happened, but I had the greatest practice the other day.  We scrimmaged and I think I was involved in every goal my team had.  After practice my coach said to me, "The more I see you play, the more I want you to play for me."  But the best part is that the girls are more on-board with me on the team.  Nwenya said to Jim, "I knew she was good, but she is REALLY good."  Now I want to play in a game so bad!

Too bad that won't happen for a while.  Not only was our game this weekend cancelled, but I don't have my player card...STILL!  Supposedly, there were some cases of fraud on the men's side between foreigners joining teams, or not joining teams, and using their football status to get SA citizenship...or something...Anyways, the SA Football Association (I think that's their title) froze all foreigner applications for registration.  They're waiting for a ruling from the head and Moses, our manager, sent in a letter supporting my registration.  We will see what happens I guess.

Joe and Trey

So, Danny's first sound guy - his name is Joe and he's in Ghana for a month or something before he comes back to PE.  While he was here though we had some good chats because I rode home from practice 3xs a week with him and Danny and he was always at the GRS office and interventions.  So, after Joe leaves PE he facebook friend requests me.  I gladly accept.  To my surprise, when I go to look at his profile, there is a huge picture right up front of him WITH TREY SONGZ!  What?

Game Night

Our intern house has been a bit into games lately.  The other night we played a lively game of the classic Boggle.  Jim beat us...every time. 

This humiliation led us on a quest to find a game that one of us other housemates could win.  We decided to do Scattergories.  The problem was, we don't have Scattergories.  Jess and I didn't see this as too big a speed bump so we planned to make our own.

Cut to: me sitting at the computer at work and Jess yelling categories to me.

With the help of the internet we came up with some good ones and made quite a successful faux-Scattergories, if I do say so myself.  Danny and Ivylo came over and played with us too to make the game a  true success.

Skillz Street Graduation

Last day of Skillz Street = graduation = FOOD!  This could sound good, except that the food is cold hot dogs (or as they say: Viennas).  Jess and I went around before the program started and picked up 500 hot dog rolls and over 500 hot dogs + bottles and bottles of ketchup.  Then we took the supplies to the school that the girls were at and personally made all the hot dogs.

Note, when I say made, I purely mean but the dog and the ketchup on a bun.  NOT that we cooked them. 

Each girl got 2 and somehow we ran out.  500!!!!  We had to drive to the Shoprite down the blow double time and buy more viennas and bread (because, of course, the buns were out) and get the remaining girls their food.  No more hot dogs.

Ever.

Skillz Street Testing Snafu

So, big, crazy day at Skillz Street on testing day.  Jim got a call the morning of and the doctor from the clinic that nurses were going to come from said that he didn't feel that two signed consent forms were enough and that he didn't want to give the girls the results of their tests.  He said he would talk to them about health needs for girls (pregnancy etc.) and he would take blood samples for statistics, but he didn't want to tell the girls if they were HIV positive or negative.

This was a bit of a problem for us so we spent a good chunk of the morning deciding what to do.  First, being able to test, and showing how easy it is to know your status is a huge part of this curriculum, so that was too bad.  Secondly, If one of the tests were to be positive, it's kinda our duty to inform the child .  Thirdly, if we allowed him to give statistics and there were a positive test, would this cause trouble with the girls' mindsets. 

We eventually decided to let him do things his way so at least the girls would see that getting pricked and tested wasn't THAT scary.  Turns out though that the doctor was not done declaring his issues.  I wasn't at the program, but supposedly he was lecturing everyone and started going at Danny for filming the girls (even though she gets everyone's consent) and went on about how parental consent is when the parents look him in the eye and say he can test their child.  Oh, and the kicker: that the white interns there were ruining his country.

Eventful, to say the least.  I almost wish I had been there, but at least no one told me I was destroying a country.

Site Coordinators in PE

All the site coordinators of South Africa were in town for 3 days along with the important headquarters people for their annual meeting.  I was strangely in charge of book the hotel and conference venue.  This meant that someone found the venue, someone else had to pay for it, and I was the random person who got to talk to the inn-keeper on the phone every day while headquarters directed me of multiple changes to our reservations.

The good stuff though is that we got to see everyone and had a staff braai at Mpumi's.  Lots of food + Pumeza's son make for a good night.  Spain's horrible game against Costa Rica was on the TV though and that bummed me out.

Cote D'Ivoire Comes to PE

Cote D'Ivoire was here!!!  I saw Salomon Kalou, 3 inches from me. 

The game tied 1-1 and Kalou only came on as a second half sub, but other than this it was awesome!!!  Met Warren and Greg at a bar down the road from the stadium for some pre-game drinks.  Jess walked over really early with me to watch the warm-ups.  I felt like a little kid.  It was so exciting!

Danny bought tickets for all the City Lads Ladies so they were all there too.  Enjoyed some great soccer (#12 is INSANE) and after the game got up real close to Salomon.  He came up to the stands, but only took one picture with a fan.  So I took a picture of him. 

City Lads

I have not been registered quite yet due to unforeseen issues.  South Africa is one of the most bureaucratic places I've ever seen!  It's crazy.  Trying to get donations for our HCT has been a hassle because no store has the authority to do so - have to go to the regional office.  Now trying to get registered is crazy.  I had to go through all this visa stuff and now I have to get the police to verify that I am residing in the country.  It's crazy.  So until everything gets taken care of I can train and watch games.

The first game of the season was a disaster.  I missed it, being in J-Bay and all, but it sounded bad.  I got to run during the week for it though.  Last weekend was better.  We had a nice home game and won 6-1.  Nice. 

We probably had so much energy because the red bull girls visited our practice on Friday.  They gave us all free red bull (of course) and nice pamphlets telling us that we should be drinking red bull to energize ourselves before sports....jeez. 

Other than this my weekend was a bust!  I was sick with the stomach flu from Friday to Tuesday.  Got 2 days off of work to lay in bed in pain watching movie after movie and season after season of 30 Rock.  I am able to eat food again though which is nice. 

Feeling semi-normal on Saturday morning however allowed me to fulfill my duties as an intern and I woke up nice and early to drive out to Booyens Parks, a super sketchy place that we were advised not to go to on the weekends...but targets call I suppose.  Jim and I went out there to bring food for lunch for everyone and pencils for pre-quizzes.  This didn't take too long and I was soon back home in bed.

And so is the tale of my weekend...

KALOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

BEST NEWS YET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE IVORY COAST IS COMING TO PE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bafana Bafana vs. Ivory Coast Nov 12th at the PE Stadium!

KALOU IS COMING TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Drogba?  Toure?  Gervinho?

This is awesome!

What is they work out at our gym?

Omg omg omg omg!

Chiefs

Last night we went and saw the Kaizer Chiefs play at the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium.  This is one of SA's best club teams (Chiefs vs Pirates is the big rivalry for the title) playing in one of the World Cup stadiums (and a beautiful stadium at that).  The four interns went along with Dani (the filmmaker) and all the coaches on the City Lads.  We had a great time, though the score was 0-0.  I sat with Chika and Shuffle (my loves!) and got to see some people who I had only seen on TV before.  Soo cool.

My fun continued today.  I turned in all my reports yesterday so I took today off - kinda.  Jess and I went to Greenacres Mall for the whole day.  We just walked around and asked stores for donations for our HCT (HIV Counseling and Testing) tournament that we are hosting November 26th.  I am chairing the media and prize committees so I've been going around begging people for goods, money, airtime, ads in the paper, etc.  It's been fun and awkward.

Swimming

Woke up Tuesday morning at 5:00 am and went to the gym.  I think about doing it every day, but I can never actually get up!  Managed somehow though and went for a swim in the pool.  It was so nice and I need to keep doing it.  I felt so good afterwards.  I am really tired today though. 

Locked In

On Tuesday I had to turn in all of our site reports.  This meant that Monday I stayed late at work to work on our financial report because I received our bank statement that morning and needed to make sure the numbers matched and then put everything together.  I ended up staying past building hours on accident though.  Being alone in the office, people had shut out door and the building manager just figured everyone had left.  This meant that as soon as I opened up the gate outside our door the whole building resounded with alarms.  I was locked in the building and ear-piercing alarms were screaming in my ears.   Oops.  Jess called the building manager and the security company showed up.   The security guys thought it was funny and joked around with Jess while they waited for me to get out.  The building manager however was pissed!  He lectured me a bit about his time and how he wasn't getting paid for this.  My bad.

The Return of Lizzy/J-Bay

Last weekend was CRAZY packed with activities.  On Thursday Lizzy, last years Operations Intern came back into town.  She just was appointed the Programs Manager in Malawi and before moving there she made a stop in PE to see everyone.  She stayed at Warren's and we all went out Thursday to celebrate.  She was extremely nice and fun and I'll miss her being around, even if it was only for a couple days.  Friday we went out again and met up at Warren's before going out to a Halloween (not really) themed night at D&Es, that club we went to before that's just a hole in the wall that keeps dropping and going back.  I like this place, but can't stay there too long so we moved onto Castros to end the night.

Saturday morning Audrey and Danielle came in from Cape Town bright and early at 6:00 am for the weekend.  Jim picked them up, but I woke up soon afterwards because we were supposed to drop off some supplies at an intervention that we are running for a few Saturdays.  As soon as we got in the car however, Mendisto called and said that it was cancelled due to rain.  We were all awake though and went out to breakfast at the boardwalk.  When we finished we loaded up the car and drove to Jeffrey's Bay.  J-Bay is the hub of South African surfing.  It's this small town on the Indian Ocean that is just laid back and filled with surfers.  We stayed at Island Vibe hostel and just had a low-key day and night in the town.  Met a lot of people and had a good time.  I would like to go back there when the weather is really warm and bum around.  It's incredible the number of guys there who just have a little job and surf all day and hang out.  It's a weird lifestyle, but perfect for some people I suppose. 

We came back to PE on Sunday and invited the guys over for a braai to hang out and let the Cape Town girls to meet the people we always are talking about.  They were in full-swing entertainment mode and we eventually moved on to Barney's for a drink before going to this bar in the Harbor for a deck-party.  Supposedly the "deck party" is a thing that happened every week before, but the original place closed and it moved every week.  Somehow it was back at the original place though (not really sure how this works) so we went to this bar right on the harbor and had a good night.  A lot of people were tired from 4 nights of Lizzy's-back celebrations and ducked out early, but Shayne and I stayed a little later and hung out outside on the deck before heading home with Warren and Audrey.  Great and very busy weekend.

Proteas

Sunday, the 23rd of October we interns went to St. George's Park and saw South Africa (Sorry Proteas) play Australia in Crickit.  The game somehow wasn't very memorable for me.  We moved around a lot and saw our friends so I didn't pay as much attention to the actual match as I had initially wanted to.  Nice afternoon though.  By the time the sun went down I was too cold to stay in my skirt so we went home.

Mausam

I saw my first Hindi film in theaters here.  I saw my first Hindi film with English subtitles in a theater!  Mausam!  So cute, beautiful people, AMAZING music, but the filmiest ending EVER written!  It almost ruined the film for me.  It kinda did...but the rest of it is so cute.  I liked it and I can't stop listening to the soundtrack.

Umzingisi Must Go DOWN!

Last Friday, post-development session, we didn't have to work because we had a friendly soccer game against Umzingisi - another sport for development non-profit in the area.  We ended up losing 2-4 in the last minutes because everyone was dead.  I got an assist-ish (went up against a goalie on a corner and he dropped it on Jim's foot).  It was a lot of fun seeing people play and hanging out in a new way.

The best part of this story though was that the whole game was filmed.  Dani has moved to Port Elizabeth!  Dani is from Miami Beach and is a film-maker.  She was going to do a documentary on GRS in general, but after a bad experience in Jo-burg last spring she wasn't feeling so good about it.  Then she came to PE and met all of our awesome female coaches and changed the whole idea.  A lot of our coaches play for the City Lads (my soccer club) so Dani is now making a film on the City Lads and GRS and sport and females etc. etc.  She has some big funders AND ESPN has already shown interest in buying rights to it upon completion.  So…..I am going to be in a documentary.  Sick.  Dani is very cool though too.  We had dinner with her the other night and had a good time and she drives me home from training now so the boys don't have to come back to New Brighton to fetch me 3 times a week. 

VIP as VIP

Not Amused

GRS PE Braai

Our coaches  who didn't sign on this January were supposed to have their contracts end in October.  Headquarters approved us keeping them on until December, but we still decided to have a "farewell" braai anyways.  We took Friday off of work (although Ngwenya, Jess, and I were running around all morning buying things) and everyone went to the ocean for a development session/braai.  There were games and candy prizes and everyone got 2 braai packs.  A braai pack involves a vors, a piece of pork on the bone, and a chicken thigh.  This stuff is super tasty and they put spices in the pack for you and everything. Yum yum yum.  This was a bit of a celebration though so people brought booze and blasted music from their cars and danced.  It was a good time.  Mzee showed me some of his work as a graphic designer and after I told him how good it was he offered to do something for me so I gave him a "portrait" like picture of me and he made me this cool little photo.

                                                                               Our coaches are awesome.