extreme videos

Trevor is awesome at making sweet videos. And although he made these awhile ago, he recently added them to his YouTube channel. So here you have it - two videos depicting, in detail, parts of our adventures in Swakopmund during Christmastime: 

This first video is a trailer he made:

And this one is the real deal:

Hoped you enjoyed that! Make sure to keep checking out Trevor's blog to hear his perspective about what is going on Kim!

it's the little things

Things have been a little rough in Kim these past few days. Between work things going amiss, trouble sleeping and internal fights with myself, it's been hard to see the up side of things.

But today I had a car full of little boys help me get over my slump. I was heading to Skillz Street this afternoon after a particularly arduous few hours in the office and I ended up driving behind a Quantum (a 14-person van). There was this one little boy in the back of the Quantum who was looking back at me and smiling. I couldn't help myself - I waved. He broke out into a huge grin, turned around and must've told the rest of the van that some crazy white person had just waved to him because the next thing I saw were the heads and limbs of at least seven little kids looking back at me and waving.

I spent a good five minutes waving to them, giving them the "thumbs-up" sign and making funny faces before the van finally turned off the road. And as I drove past them I rolled down my window, stuck myself half-way out the car, waved and yelled "Byeeeee!" as loudly as I could. I got more than a few stares from passers-by, but it was totally worth it.

struggle bus

There are thirteen days left in the month of February and I only have R134,45 remaining of my R1000 budget for the month. It’s not quite as bad as it sounds. I bought groceries earlier this week and those should last me another 3 – 4 days, but this experiment is turning out to be harder than I thought it would be.

This is what I have spent so far:

One thing that really zapped my budget was this past weekend - Podge (CT), Katie (Joburg), Ben (Joburg), Meghan (Lesotho), Hasmin (Lesotho) and Jess (Port Elizabeth) all visited Kim! Their visit was totally worth it though; we visited the Big Hole, cooked some fantastic meals and took them to Changes (a night club) for a night of dancing. It was a blast!

Interns at the Big Hole! We all failed to throw rocks into the hole... and
our guide assured us it was impossible to throw a rock into the hole.

But now that the weekend is over, I am really taking a hard look at my budget and one thing I am realizing is the extent to which living off of a meager budget forces one to reclassify things as needs or wants. For example, I am almost out of shampoo, soap and toilet paper and honestly I don’t know if I’m going to restock when I run out. I will probably wait until March (unless things get really bad). But this brings up another point – if I was living off of R1000 every month (and not just February) would I ever buy these hygiene products? I know that most coaches don’t buy toilet paper at home and I wonder what other “necessities” they choose not to buy.

Another thing that I’m having difficulty with are cravings. I just want something chocolate so bad! And I’m realizing that for most of our coaches even the smallest treats – chocolate bars, cookies, going out to eat, going to the movies – are things that they don’t even consider. 

And if they don’t even consider those small luxuries, then there is no way they contemplate bigger things such as a weekend trip to Lesotho, a vacation to Namibia and Botswana or a plane flight across the Atlantic. It’ll be interesting to see what else I discover during the last two weeks of this experiment. 

Picnic we had with the interns when they visited. I'm so glad other interns
visited Kim, but it definitely took a good chunk of my budget.

fact and nonsense

One of my goals this year (before I leave GRS) is to see every Skillz practice. As fun as the office can be (hah!), going to interventions and seeing our Skillz Coaches in action is by far the best part of my job.

So last week I asked Big Eyes if I could attend every practice during one of his Skillz 1.1 interventions and he graciously told me that I could go to any intervention that I chose. So I chose to attend the intervention at West End Primary. I chose this intervention for a few reasons. For one, the coaches working at this school (Nthabi, Poppy, Big Eyes and Isaac) are some of my favorite coaches. For another, this intervention occurs Thursday mornings, which are one of the few times during the week I am not swamped with work. But most of all, I picked this intervention because it is held entirely in English!

Today, after Coach Nthabi and Caoch Poppy introduced me to their class, we began Practice 2 (unfortunately the intervention at West End started last week and I missed the first practice, but I will be able to attend every remaining practice). We started off the day with an energizer to get all the participants moving around and excited.

Coach Poppy telling her coaches story.

After that, Coach Poppy shared her Coach’s Story. In her story, Coach Poppy told participants about her sister who contracted HIV after she was raped at the age of eleven. Her sister found out that she was HIV positive in 2006 when she gave birth to her son. She did not tell anyone that she was HIV positive because she was afraid. A year later, she finally told Coach Poppy she was HIV positive.  Coach Poppy went on to describe a series of bad things that happened (she failed her matric trial, her father died, her step-father emotionally abused her) while she was trying to help her sister. She admitted that at one point she reached a very low point and did not have the desire to live any more. But at this point her story turned and she explained how she found the courage to change her life and help both her sister and herself. Today Coach Poppy is one of our best GRS coaches and her sister is receiving treatment and is living a healthy and happy life with her husband and HIV negative son.

The purpose of the Coach’s Story is to help participants form personal connections with their Skillz coaches and also for coaches to share ways in which they took control of HIV in their life and chose to be resilient. The key message that coaches hope to instill in participants is the importance of being resilient to challenges in life.

Participants are always given the opportunity to ask questions about a Coach’s Story and I was amazed how inquisitive the young girls in this class were! They asked all sorts of questions about Coach Poppy’s sister and family today, about Coach Poppy’s feelings at different moments during her story and about Coach Poppy’s continued resilience.

Coach Nthabi leading Fact/ Nonsense.

When participants were done asking questions, Coach Nthabi led Fact/ Nonsense. During this game, participants were divided into small groups and Coach Nthabi read statements about HIV. After she read each statement the groups were given time to discuss the statement and decide whether it was a fact or whether it was nonsense. Then, when Coach Nthabi counted down to three, groups had to hold up a card that said “Fact” if they agreed with the statement or “Nonsense” if they thought the statement was baloney. Groups then got a chance to explain why they made the decision they did, after which, Coach Nthabi shared the answers with the group.

A group of girls discussing one of the statements.

I’m sure some of you are dying to test your own HIV knowledge (especially if some TWAMPS are reading this right now), so here are the Fact/ Nonsense statements that Coach Nthabi read. Do you think they are fact? Or nonsense? (All answers are at the end of the blog.


1. Washing after sex prevents HIV.
2. HIV is only spread by blood.
3. Unprotected sex is the most common way HIV is spread in South Africa.
4. A person can get HIV by sharing food with someone who has HIV.
5. More teenage girls have HIV than teenage boys.

It was a lot of fun playing this game with participants. The girls got really into discussing each of the statements and at the end of the practice, when Coach Nthabi asked what they had learned, they practically re-stated the guide for us!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Answers to Fact/ Nonsense:


1. Washing after sex prevents HIV.

NONSENSE. Even though Jacob Zuma claimed that he wouldn’t get HIV because he washed after sex, this is nonsense.


2. HIV is only spread by blood.
NONSENSE. There are four fluids that can spread HIV; blood, semen, vaginal fluids and breast milk.


3. Unprotected sex is the most common way HIV is spread in South Africa.
FACT.


4. A person can get HIV be sharing food with someone who has HIV.
NONSENSE. HIV is only spread via the four fluids mentioned above. It is not spread by mosquito bites or everyday contact such as hugging, kissing, shaking hands, sharing utensils, toilet seats, etc.

5. More teenage girls have HIV than teenage boys.

FACT. Teenage girls are three to four times more likely to get HIV than teenage boys. Why? Girls attract older sexual partners who are more likely to have HIV than partners their own age. 

nosh

Today it is our – Trevor and mine – sixth month anniversary! I can barely believe it myself, but we have officially been housemates for six months now. And that means that we have been interning for GRS Kimberley for six months as well. I wanted to give Trevor an “anniversary” present today, but I wasn’t sure what to get him without breaking my budget (I am trying to spend no more than R1000 – what the average coach makes – this month). So I settled on something we have both deprived ourselves of for nine days – a Nosh bar. And this delicious hazelnut nougat and caramel bar covered in chocolate really hit the spot!

Other than that one special treat, today has been business as usual. First thing this morning I worked on some finance stuff. After that I went with Coach Big Eyes to Emmanuel in order to recruit some classes for both Skillz 1.1 and Generation Skillz. And my afternoon was spent mailing things to Cape Town and talking with Thuso about M&E and Kim’s budget.

But I do want to commemorate my halfway point in some way and I think the best way to do that is to remind everyone – and myself – why I am living and working in Kimberley, South Africa. I’m not here so I can travel all across sub-Saharan Africa. I’m not here to play soccer. And I’m not here to have crazy adventures with interns and coaches. I am here to contribute, in what little way I can, to efforts aimed at fighting what most people call the worst public health crisis of our time: the HIV epidemic.

At the end of 2009, 33.3 million people, including 5.6 million South Africans, were living with HIV.  During 2009 alone, 2.6 million people became infected with HIV worldwide, and 1.8 million of these infections were in sub-Saharan Africa. And last year HIV killed more than 260,000 people in South Africa – almost half of all those who died in the country. Since the beginning of the epidemic, nearly 30 million have died.

This map shows the relative population size of countries.

But the real shock regarding the epidemic is that even though people in sub-Saharan Africa make up only 12.3% of the world’s population, they account for 68% of the people living with HIV. In other words, two out of every three people living with HIV lives in sub-Saharan Africa.

this map shows the relative HIV infection "size" of countries.

In the face of these numbers however, there is hope. For starters, knowledge about HIV – how it is contracted and spread, how it can be prevented and how to treat HIV infections – is spreading. In April 2010, 5.38 million South Africans were living with HIV, which is actually an increase from 5.2 million infections in 2008. But this increase has not been attributed to an increase in new infections, but rather to an increase in the number of people that are receiving antiretroviral drugs (ARVs). In South Africa people living with HIV can receive ARVs free from government clinics. In fact, the South African government now runs the world’s largest anti-retroviral program in the world, according to BBC.

But the bottom line is that HIV is preventable. It is even possible for a mother who is born HIV positive to give birth to a child that is not HIV positive. And the task that GRS has taken on – that I have taken on – is to give people information so that they can make healthy decisions and become part of the fight against HIV.  So here’s to another six months during which I will have the chance to educate people, inspire people, and mobilize people to stop the spread of HIV. 

who knew!

Who knew that there was stuff to do in Kimberley! I mean, I’ve visited the Big Hole, I’ve pet baby lions and I’ve gone to the Hospitality House (a hotel that doubles as a bar/ late night hang out for white people… I didn’t like it much). I thought I had done it all.

But I was wrong! A few weeks ago, Trevor and I met David, a Peace Corp Response volunteer who is staying in Kimberley for just three months. We have become fast friends (it is easy when you are the only Americans within hundreds of kilometers) and he has done a good amount of research on the sites of Kimberley. He shared his findings with Trevor and I and this weekend the three of us decided to hit two of the sites on his list: the Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Center and the Nooitgedacht Glacial Pavings.

Just 10km outside of Kimberley we found rock art engravings. The body
of water seen here is called a pan. It fills during the rainy season and is a
necessary source of water for grazing farm animals. 

The Wildebeest Kuil farm is owned by two San groups, the !Xun and the Khwe, who originate from modern day Namibia. During the later half of the twentieth century, they were employees of the South African Defense Force and in 1990 (after Namibia won its independence from South Africa) the SADF decided to move members of these two San groups to Schmidstdrift, a town west of Kimberley. In the early 2000’s however, Tswana farmers who had previously owned the land before the SADF moved the San peoples won the rights to the land and the San were forced to relocate. The two San groups pooled together all of their money and purchased Wildebeest Kuil and some adjoining farms.

This is an eland. 

Today these two groups live in Platfontein, a community that lies just outside of Kimberley. Platfontein is one of the poorest areas near Kimberley and currently has an unemployment rate of 97-percent. We have worked in the Primary School in Platfontein and it was one of the harder schools to work in because the two San groups do not trust each other. In fact, the school acts as the dividing line between the two San groups.  As a result, students feel uncomfortable discussing and sharing stories with the other group.

The rock engravings found at the Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Center are one attempt that elders of the !Xun and the Khwe have made to preserve links to their cultural inheritance. But our guide informed us that it seems as if the Khoi-San culture in Platfontein is doomed to die out; only a few elders still know the oral stories of the San culture and can play traditional Khoi-San instruments and many of the youth are only interested in cultural endeavors if there is money in it. 

According to our guide, rock engravings that only show half of an animal
represent that animal entering or exiting the spirit world. 

After checking out the rock engravings we continued on down the road until we saw this sign:

Sketchy... no?

We had reached the Nooitgedacht Glacial Pavings. These glacial pavings are a geologic feature (yay geology!). About 300 million years ago, there was a volcano located here (most of the rock here and at the Wildebeest Kuil farm was a volcanic rock called andesite).  During an ice age large glaciers moved across the bedrock smoothing it and leaving striations on it. 

To the right of my flip flop is a large rock embedded in the paving. It is
likely that a portion of this rock was shaved off by the glaciers. 

Striations on the glacial pavement. Notice that there are more engravings
here. These engravings are thought to have been made about 1500 years
ago.

To end our day, David graciously treated us to ice cream floats (he knew about our experiment to spend only R1000 in February)! I just ate the ices cream, but it was still a great end to a fun (and very hot) day.

Trevor and I on one of the glacial pavings.

ToC

Team cheer at the ToC.

This week GRS Kimberley had its first ToC – Training of Coaches – in a year and Trevor and I got to help plan and deliver parts of the training. This particular training was for Generation Skillz, the GRS HIV prevention and life skills curriculum designed for South African youth aged 15 – 19. Like our other programs (Skillz 1.1 and Skillz Street), Generation Skillz uses soccer language, metaphors and activities to address behaviors that drive the spread of HIV in southern Africa.

Isaac, Big Eyes, Thembi and Vanessa during an energizer.

I promise to talk more about Generation Skillz in a later blog, but what I really want to delve into right now is the ToC itself. What I liked best about the ToC was that the trainers (Mr. D. and Ali from Cape Town) didn’t just show coaches the new guide and walk them through how to deliver a practice. Although they did that a little bit, they also led a bunch of activities that encouraged coaches to really think about their own behavior as a coach and in the fight against HIV.

Some of the most interesting activities were those that tackled the subject of gender norms. During one such activity, the guys and the girls were each asked (in front of the other gender) what was the best part about being a guy/ girl, what was the hardest part about being a guy/ girl, etc. The responses from the guy coaches were, for the most part, what I expected (the best part of being a guy was that they were stronger, they could go anywhere they wanted without feeling in danger, they could have multiple sexual partners and no one would really judge them). And while the responses given by the girl coaches didn’t surprise me exactly, they did make think about the extent to which I come from a totally different place than our coaches.

Some of the guy coaches - Sonko, Isaac and Bucs - listening
to the girl coaches talk about being a girl.

It all started when Thembi asked our female coaches, “What is the best part about being a girl?” For almost a minute there was silence. I don’t know if this was because the coaches felt uncomfortable sharing in front of the guys or if it was because they really couldn’t think of anything.

Then Sis Debs spoke up, “For me the best thing about being a girl is that I am a mother. And not just for my own child, but all people see me as a mother.” This got the conversation rolling. Everyone wanted to give their two cents about how important it was and how they “so wanted” to be a loving wife and mother.

What struck me about this conversation was how apparent it was that motherhood was not just prized but also the ultimate goal for some of our coaches. I don’t think there is anything wrong with their point of view and I’m sure there are people in the States that feel the same way, but for me this conversation was striking because I want so much (i.e. a stable career, to spend a year in Africa, travel the world, etc) before I even start thinking about motherhood.

Coaches participating in the activity My Suporters.

Another session I really enjoyed was the “safe sex” session that was led by Mr. D. He started it off with the following scenario:

I have lived in the same place all my life and I know that everyday at 3:00 there are no cars in the street. So tomorrow it is safe for me to put on a blindfold and cross the street at 3:00.

Everyone in the room agreed – because there was still a very slight chance that Mr. D. would get hit with a car, he should not cross the street blindfolded. Mr. D. said that “safe sex” worked the same way. You can take as many precautions as you want to (condoms, birth control, one mutually faithful partner) but at the end of the day sex is still a risk. In closing Mr. D. requested that we start using the term “safer sex” instead of “safe sex.” He also suggested that, for our own sake, we always ask ourselves “what if?” before engaging in sex or any other risky behavior. I don’t think he was telling us to live our lives in a box, but I think his analogy raised a good point;] – if you aren’t ready for that “what if?” then maybe you are not ready for sex (or any other “risky” behavior).

Another teamwork activity.

But my favorite parts of the ToC were the sessions where Mr. D. talked to the coaches about coaching. One afternoon he asked all of us to make a paper airplane that had to fly from one end of the room to the other. This was a hilarious activity because it quickly became apparent that coaches in Kimberley had not spent hours upon hours making paper airplanes when they were younger (like my brother and I had). But this didn’t stop them from being creative – I saw some of the strangest looking paper airplanes I’ve ever seen that afternoon. Unfortunately most of their planes didn’t fly very well, but I was happy to show a lot of the girls how I made my plane. At the end of the activity, every coach had successfully thrown a plane from one end of the room to the other.

The point of this activity was simple; every Practice in the curriculum has goals and at the end of the day GRS doesn’t care how you reach the goals, but you need to reach them. And if you don’t succeed it is perfectly acceptable to go back and try again. And it is never wrong to ask for help. In closing Mr. D. said that it was not his job, or Ali’s job or an intern’s job to make the coaches perfect; it was our job to give the coaches the information so that they could perfect themselves.

All in all, this ToC helped me realize that I don’t have to be perfect. That things don’t have to go exactly to plan in order to work. That people will not always agree with what I say and do. And that I shouldn’t strive to be perfect, but that I can strive to be better. 

Our coaches!

one thousand rand

The average coach that works for GRS in Kimberley makes about R1000/ month (this is equivalent to USD 120 at the current exchange rate).  And although living in Kimberley is cheaper than the cost of living in the States, this is still not a lot of money.

For a while now, Trevor and I have been wondering what it would be like to live off of a coach’s salary and we have decided to stop wondering and give it a try. So, for the month of February we are each going to spend no more than R1000.

Here’s the break down:

Housing and water – Most coaches live with a parent or other family member and probably do not contribute money towards rental/ property costs, so Trevor and I are not going to “pay” for our housing either. On an interesting side note though, the intern house costs R4 290 to rent each month – an amount no coach could ever dream of paying. (Note: some coaches do contribute towards rent/ water costs and a common breakdown is likely R500/month for rent and R100/month for water.)

Electricity – Even though GRS usually pays for electricity at the intern house, this is something most coaches probably do have to pay for/ contribute towards.  Trevor and I are already pretty energy savvy and we only spend about R250/ month on electricity, so electricity for the month will cost us R125 each. 

Airtime (to make phone calls) – GRS provides interns with airtime in order to help us do our job, but it does not provide coaches with airtime, even though we expect coaches to call if they are going to be late or miss an intervention. So I’m calculating that I will spend R105 (what GRS gives me) on airtime this month. 

Transportation – GRS gives all coaches transport money so that they can take taxis to and from their interventions. If I were a coach, GRS would supply me with transport money, so I am not going to deduct any money for transport purposes. I do want to draw attention to two things though: the cost of petrol and the cost of transport. Petrol costs R11/ liter and a tank of gas in the Tazz (the smaller intern car) usually costs R550. A tank would cost me more than half my monthly budget. As for public transportation, to get from Galeshewe to town via taxi, it costs R8 (taxis are the only means of local public transportation). If an employee took a taxi to and from work every day (R16) and had a “steady” job in which they worked four days a week, they would have to spend R256/ month on transport (note that Trevor and I spend that much on electricity each month). Furthermore, most businesses in South Africa do not provide employees with transport money. Employees have to figure out whether or not they will use part of their salary to get to work. As you can imagine, most people opt to walk. I’ve walked from the intern house in to town (a distance of 3 km) and it usually takes 25 minutes to make the trip. Most township residents live at least twice as far from town as I do, which makes their walking commute at least an hour, one-way.

After deducting R125 for electricity and R105 for airtime, I am left with R770 to spend on food, alcohol (which all of the coaches somehow find the money to buy – I think they use their transport money), social activities and any other unforeseen expenses. There are 29 days in February, which means that I have a daily budget of R26.50 (or R8.80/ meal).

I feel confident that I will be able to live off of R1000 during the month of February. But I will definitely be making some changes. For one, I will not buy any ice cream this month; a one-liter tub costs anywhere from R40 – R60 and Magnum Ice Cream Bars (the most delicious ice cream bars I have ever had) cost R14 per bar! I also won’t be buying any peanut butter. It’s not that peanut butter is exorbitantly expensive; rather, the rate at which I eat it makes it exorbitantly expensive. Meat is also not going to frequent my dinner table this month. And as for fresh fruits and vegetables, cereals and hot sauce, I am really not sure if I’ll be able to afford them.

I will also have to tailor my social activities. Trevor and I developed quite a habit of eating at Panartoti’s every Thursday for the all you can eat pizza deal (R50), which we won’t be doing in February. Trevor and I also went to the movies last week (we saw the second Sherlock Holmes – it was awesome), which cost us each R39. And there are weekends when Trevor and I do go out with coaches and pop out money to buy food and/ or alcohol, which I know we’d both like to still try and do this month, but we’re not sure if we’ll be able.

It’s going to be an interesting month for sure. I’m looking forward to it though, and I hope you’ll keep checking in to hear how I am managing.