last supper

Kourtney leaves on a jet plane tomorrow. the two of us had an abnormally good time together. no food int he house so we went out to eat, not realizing that everything is shut down on sunday nights, except KFC and SPar, the omnipresent grocery store. THere is a qwikSpar, superSPar, or Spar on every other corner in South africa. Its like starbucks in he states. So we went to spar and got stuff for fajitas. we didnt have enough cash for Mexican spice (a blessing in disguise) but I was a bit worried on the way home about how I was gonna flavor the chicken with no sofrito and no adobo. I ended up using garlic and ginger, brazilian peppers, crushed red pepper, salt and pepper. and then out of desperation I added a splash of a mystery spice called simply "mints" that definitely wasn't just mint and a bunch of Italian spice mix. Its really difficult to find individual spices in this country. In the grocery stores, spice sections are dominated by spice mixes like "fish spice" or "curry" or "braai spice" or "mexican spice". Ive become an expert in mixing these unidentifiable mixes in different proportions to fake different flavors. Basically I rely really heavily on garlic and ginger. The mixture, time of addition and thus the degree of cooking of just those two ingredients can give you 1o or 15 base flavors to build from.
Despite the lack of appropriate spices and the downright awful tortillas, the meal was extraordinary. We had springboks to commemorate the occasion.
The funeral yesterday was a difficult experience. It involved sitting in a frigid church for 3 hours while 3 preachers switched off shouting at the top of their lungs into a maxed out PA system in a language I didn't understand. I'm sure it would have been difficult even if I had known what was being said. If that had been all it would have been simply unbearable but lcky for me there was singing about every 4 minutes.
Unprompted as far as I could tell, one particularly gifted woman would pop up and lead the mourners in song during a pause in the sermon. Though I didn't know the words, songs gave me an excuse to get up and shake off the blanket of sleep that would inevitably creep over me during the sermons. By far the most memorable part of the service was the actual act of burial. Everyone was huddled together around the grave in the midst of a freezing dust storm. After the last words were said and the final songs were sung, after the flowers and the handfulls of dirt of the family members had been thrown on the casket, all the men removed their jackets and set to the task of filling the grave. They, we would shovel push or throw the dirt with everything they had for a few minutes until someone came to offer help. It seemed futile at first as the wind would carry away the dry dirt before it entered the grave. The dirt itself was made of dust and chunks of concrete.
Voete comes back to work this tuesday and Ill be glad to have her back. She's really cool and its really a joy to be around her.

tons of meetings tomorrow. I am dropping Kourt off at the airport and picking up Alex, the next intern at noon. Id better get some sleep.
go well, y'all.

KG and Ray Allen!

I opened the computer to ESPN.com and saw the headline, "Reaction to the KG deal." Immediatly I thought Lakers but when I read the first sentence I flew out of my seat. hOly Crap! Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett on the Celtics!!
The way I see it, we've got 2 years to win it all. All three are way past warranty and with Big Al gone there isn't much of a bright future so the time is now now. I must admit the cost was crushing. It hurts to see them go... and two first round picks!! It is trading the future for the present but its about time the present looked a little brighter for my beloved C's. I cant wait for November! I can wait for the Red Sox, the Patriots, and the Celtics. I cant wait to be home.

Another visitor

This time his name is Joe. He's another friend of Kourtney's from UVA who happened to be in the country. They met up in Musina, out in the middle of nowhere on the Zim border, and went to Durban together and then showed up in PE on Monday.

Meanwhile Id been enjoying a more solitary existance, nursing a persistent cough and doing some pleasure reading that I promised myself when my reading list was: CH17: Aldol Reactions, CH18: beta-dicarbonyl compounds, CH19: Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution Reactions...and then read about the Wnt cytokine pathway in caenorhabditis elegans. I finished The Brothers K last weekend and I'm a hundred pages into Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

We had a pretty busy week. I met with the headmasters of 4 primary schools and gave them the GRS sales pitch. At one of the schools, a teacher on the sports committee asked me straight up, "what do we get from you? some other guys donated us balls and equipment, will you?" I was a little shocked and didn't know what to say. I wanted to say "you dont get anything. you get your kids an effective HIV awareness and life skills curriculum that they're gonna love. You get us to take them off your hands for a couple hours a week." Im glad I didn't.

My diplomatic colleague said "I'd have to say no".

Schools in this country are really different. It seems like the kids only spend 2 to 3 hours a day in class. Maybe its just on the days when we're there, but it sure seems like they just hangout in classrooms without teachers or in the stairwell or play cricket on the field or just do whatever they feel like. I suppose it's better than wandering the streets and causing trouble but some of the schools are shockingly disorganized. At one of the schools I visited this week I explained how we have been delivering the curriculum in the schools were currently in, Sithembile and Isaac Booi. I said we are working with two groups of kids and he was amazed that the other schools could manage that simple task of dividing the kids into groups. Ive seen the kids act up and be hard to manage but the vast majority of the time have them well under control, tranfixed even, staring eagerly at whoever is leading the game. Having young coaches, and a fun curriculum makes a huge difference it seems.
Don't get me wrong (Tim). I dont want to antagonize the teachers or come off as condescending but my memories of primary and high school are not better, but certainly more orderly.

At Sithembile on tuesday, we (Kirk, Tumie and I) had a meeting with the headmaster where we told them about a certain German company that approached Grassroot Soccer expressing the desire to donate a new soccer pitch to a South African primary school. Just by chance, the headmaster had given us a prayer of a request to donate them a soccer pitch a week before hand. WE had the pleasure of hooking up a needy and appreciative school with a willing donor. The proposal was for a job that would have cost about $22000. The donor has a budget of $90000. It was so amazing to see his, the headmaster's face, and the faces of all the teachers present, light up and shed 10 years instantly. When Kirk was done presenting the idea, the headmaster said, "wait a minute. I'm a little confused about the figures." Wnen I tried to offer him a business-like handshake at the end of the meeting, he pulled me, crushed me into his vast person, and lifted me off the ground for a real hug.

On thursday at the same school we graduated a group of about 50 students. Every graduation is different because the kids sometimes have prepared poems, songs, dances and skits, and sometimes you get parents or teachers with big personalities who take it on themselves to lead the kids in prayer or song. Sometimes we do it inside, sometimes outside. Sometimes we have a PA System, sometimes we have a stereo, and most of the time we have nothing at all. Sometimes we have 3 guests and sometimes we have 60. There are also some strong personalities among the coaches, myself and Kourtney included, and we end up doing the same thing in three different ways.

This particular went pretty well after Titie took control and let her personality guide us through. SHe called on me to make a speech and of course I could do it in the only language I know and I had no idea what had already been said because everything had been in Xhosa. I had thought about it the night before and that morning but I didn't write notes or anything. Of course as soon as I started talking, all the planning had combusted. I'm not someone who can rattle off a ramble and crack jokes that people will get on the spot. For, me these things take practice. I think I did pretty well. I remembered to thank all the important partner organizations abut I couldn't thank the representatives by name because I hadn't written them down. That was one mistake. Another on I made is I didn't work out the phasing on certain things and my word choice was a little dubious on a couple key points. THe biggest mistake I made was that after everything was done, the kids had gotten their certificates and songs had been sung, dances danced and whatnot, when I offered refreshments to the parents I didn't lead them in prayer before hand. Big mistake. Everyone looked confused. "how can we eat without praying?! shown through their furled brows) Next time Ill use the prayer of the father in the Brothers K, "GiveusgratefulheartsourFatherandmakeusevermindfuloftheneedsofothersthroughChristourLordAmen".

Joe, Kourt and I have been having some good fun together. We got wrecked on springboks (a popular local shooter made of peppermint liquer and amarulla) and then went down th street to the best restaurant in all PE. Its a house identical to our own with an inconspicuous sign out front in Thai. I always assumed it meant "open" or "welcome" or "restaurant", even "Natti's Kitchen" but who knows. At first it was very difficult to find because it just blends into the neighborhood. The food is delicious at this place and if you say you want it hot, youll get a delicious smelling poulty of seafood filled murder attempt. The owner Mark, orNatti, his wife rather, is pepper happy. If I wasn't lit I dont think I would have been able to take the burn. But as it was, it was delicious. Brought me back to the old days at the McKenna household when I still had full feeling in my tounge, before my father's cooking burned my taste buds off. Yesterday we all drove down to Cape St. Francis to see a lighthouse (Kourtney's obsessed) and some of the coolest tidepools Ive ever seen. The surf is so powerful it sprays water 5 or so meters onto the rocky shore where it forms pools. Afterwards we went to J-Bay for a dinner party hosted by the oldest brother, Adam. Good times. THis morning we got cappuchinos at his cafe (The best in the world, I swear!) and then headed back to PE for a development session with th e coaches.
Tomorrow is the funeral of the on of the coaches mother. Ive heard African funerals are very different from anything Ive ever seen. I not looking forward to it, its an awful tragedy, but I am interested to see what it will be like. Forgive me if I seem detached.
I miss you all.
NOah

Amakosi for Life!

When I got back for joburg the other day i was happy to hear that Kirk gave Tumie the go ahead to get tickets to the Vodacom Challenge match. Billed "the clash of Sowetan giants...in PE" the match was between the Kaizer Chiefs and the Orlando Pirates. Both Teams are from Soweto (actually the single township boasts three premiere league clubs while all of the Eastern Cape has not one since the dismantling of the East London Bush Dogs). PE might not have a team but its got fans; People have been going nuts all week flying their colors and talking about it incessantly. The game was held in Telkom Park, an ancient Rugby stadium that seats about 25,000. As early s 4 houors before the match there were live performers, some quite big on the radio, singing and dancing on the field. There were no elaborate stages assembled or special effects, the old fashion little man or woman with a mike dancing his or her ass off o n the field in front of the growing crowd. And the crowd was dancing too. Before the game started it had the feel of a nightclub actually, albeit on with a strange dress-code. Everyone was decked out in black and white or black and yellow. Many had red painted faces (don't know why) and tons of people had enourmous hats and flags. My favorite getup was the black and yellow graduation gown with yellow painted face. Actually its somewhat similar to the costume I wore in the surrealist circus at Bard. Except I had a 5 inch yellow high-top to go along with it.
The style of play was quick and hard-hitting in the first half. I couldn't believe the ref wasn't calling more fouls in the first couple minutes. I remember thinking if they keep this up, the last player standing will be able to dribbble the ball into the net passed all the injured and knocked out players. Before long people did start to get injured but it made for some good grudge match football while it lasted. How does that saying go? When in a Rugby Stadium...
There was one guy on the Pirates who had just been bought from the top club in Zimbabwe, Highlanders FC, the same team that my boss, Kirk, Ethan Zohn, and Methembe Ndlovu played on before founding GRS.
The pirates scored the only goal just before half-time on a nice sideways airborne volley. It was a great goal but for the wrong team. I had chosen sides before the game, randomly I guess, but I bought a big chiefs flag for memorabilia. Once you're Amakosi (chiefs fan), you're Amakosi for life, rain or shine, win or loss.
Some of the coaches were truly formidable fans. One coach in particular, Palesa, who is generally quiet and at times shy, was dancing the whole time, singing louder than I thought she was capable of, and reacting so dramatically to what happened on the pitch that I would have thought they were her kids playing. We all know watching soccer can cause some serious personality shifts, especially in tight-laced parent types. Some of the best cheering for soccer Ive ever seen in the states has been done by loving parents driven mad by the fast paced competitive smash-up of power and skill that is soccer. They just forget their image and their logic and they go for it. "I'm gonna help my kid win in any way possible. If that means screaming at other parents, the refs, or even other kids then so be it." We've all seen this type of fan. Now imagine 25000 of them and imagine instead of screaming haphazardly at whoever they thought was standing between their kid and glory, they were all screaming soccer songs in unison or at nice plays on the field. Yes, I was right in thinking beforehand that a soccer match in Africa would be nothing like a soccer match back in the states. Unfortunately the game was ruined a bit for all of us when, after one of the coaches had left with a panicked and ghostly face, I got a text saying that she just found out her mother died unexpectedly. It was a rough week for GRS as another coach, the translator for Lesotho, Refiloe, just found out that his brother died from AIDS and Titie, though she doesn't even know yet , just got a letter saying that her scholarship is not going to work out for this year because of bogus NCAA technicalities. Im especially upset about Titie's news because I feel guilty for getting her psyched about it and also telling some people about it. At least it came with a promise that if she goes back to school here she can get a free masters at VCU and play soccer on the team for a year but Im a little skeptical of what Tiffany Roberts says now. Granted she's new to the job but It was a mistake to promise that Titie would be able to come with out actually knowing the rules as well as she should have. I still have to give her the email today and Im not looking forward to it one single bit.
Im gonna go finish my book...
thanks for tuning in,
Noah

Billabong Pro at J-Bay

For all my surfer friends, if by chance I have any and they are reading my blog, Im sorry to tell you but I was at the Billabong Pro last week. I say Im sorry becauseyou would know I dont know jack squat about surfing and it seemed the real surf fans were elated to be there...er, sorry, I meant, they were wicked stoked to be there, dudes!
It was a gorgeous day with a nice head breeze but there wasn't too much action. Swarms of surfers, surfer photographers, surfer wannabes, surf afficionados, surfer babes, and surfer groupies, and then a couple sort of random ones like Kourtney and I flooded the beech and the bleachers on top of the dunes. Basically there wasn't all that much to do besides eat, shop and watch surfing; there was a music festival that ended the night I arrived but everyone was wiped out and wouldn't come with me. Billabong abso-fricken-lutely cleaned up with the merchandise. Everyone there had a t shirt, wind-breaker or a hoodie. Admittedly, they were kind of cool but they were also prohibitively expensive. Wherever I go now I see Billabong this and Billabong that and think about how much dough they're raking in. Whew!
The surfing itself was pretty awesome despite the mediocre conditions. For those of you who are as new to competitive surfing as I was, the format is a four round, single elimination tournament. Surfers go head to head on the same break in a 30 minute "heat". The one who has the two strongest individual wave scores moves on. I saw Kelly Slater, 8 time world champion do some cool stuff that I didn't even know was possible; "bodacious whips" and "gnarly floaters" I soon found out.
Watching the pros make it look so easy and fun inspired me to try surfing myself...bad idea. With my gimpy aching wrists, atrophied shoulders and complete lack of know-how and confidence, not to mention instruction, it added up to a little more than a couple hours of paddling around, wondering why the waves weren't breaking where I saw them break on the shore and how long before the sharks came to get me. Kourtney had even less success. I can see her now, dragging herself from the thunderous foamy shore-break with the massive yellow longboard precariously in tow and a head of hair full of shells. I did finally get to try a wetsuit for the first time in my life. They're nice. Kirk maintains they are the single greatest accomplishment of human invention.
Kourtney, whose response to my question, "so where do you want to go this weekend?" is without fail "I don't know...J-Bay!?", is about hooked as you're average junkie. If she doesn't get her fix every couple weekends, things start to get a ugly. So when we heard from Kirk, our esteemed boss, that his fiance was coming to visit and we were welcome to come down and meet her it was already a done deal. Little did we know that her two sisters were there, as well as 2 Argentinian high school rugby players and 2 french ones, their mom, and three of the four South African brothers who live there. With Kirk and the mom, Shuna, there were 15 people in that house! its always an adventure when we go down to J-Bay. we never know who will be there or what crazy kids will be hanging around. Thats part of why we love it so much...that and the perfect tubes, dolphin sunsets, beautiful beech at the edge of the deck, and the best cappuchino in the galaxy.

Hello all,
Im in Joburg at the moment at a chinese internet shop in a massive asian fleamarket just next to an even more massive shoppong center called East Gate. They tell me it's the largest mall in Africa. It seems like malls are such a big deal here because the city centers, where one would usually go to shop, go out to eat, nightclub and so on are all so dangerous. Port Elizabeth is like that to some extent but Joburg is on a whole different scale. Downtown Joburg is so dodgy that entire skyscrapers stand empty. The Carlton Hotel, the tallest solid concrete building, a testament to Arathied extravagance, has been abandoned for over 12 years. The remaining skyscrapers that are still being used have underground parking facilities so no one ever needs set foot on the sidewalk. The source of this information is the lady who runs my hostel, Stella.
Driving through the dowtown area yesterday gave me a glimpse at a fascinating metropolis. Rich with old buildings, interesting little streets, huge squares and amazing grafitti, I wish I could go explore the city but unfortunately that is not possible. Day or night, ofriegners are guaranteed to get mugged, so they say.
SO why am I in Joburg anyways? Three weeks ago I heard that our program up in Mussina, on the Zim border, basically the farthes possible location from PE within South Africa, needed a car and I volunteered to drive it up. It turned out that Kourtney also wanted to go up so the plan was for the two of us to do it over a day in a half and then bus back to Jbourg and fly to PE. Kourtney ended up making plans to stay up there for a week, her rowing friend from UVA is based up there, and an extra stop was added to the journey when we heard that we would need to pick up someone at the Lesotho border to serve as a translator for the Training of trainers that was happening in Mussina this week. It turned out there was no point in me going further than Joburg because Kourtney had a driving buddy and I would have to catch a bus 2 hours after I ot there in order to be back in time. So Kurtney and Refiloe, ther translator, dropped me at the airport. To complicate an already adventuous situation, I had fallen ill the night before and could barely stand or speak. Feeling a little better this morning I set off to the flea market in search of herbal tea and internet, not realizing this meant a 30minute treck through the blazing winter heat.
What else, what else. I convince Kourtney to switch off reading plays during the drive. Ambitiously we picked up 4, King Lear, Henry the IV, Alls well that ends well, and Pygmalion. The four cost us a combine two dollars. We made it through half of Pygmalion before she lost interest and my voice went.
Ill be back at home tonight and if my voices continues recovering I should have the energy to make a few calls.
Much Love.

I don't really know what to write anymore. After five weeks, the initial buzz of being in Africa and of having a blog has been scaled back to a more realistic proportions. Seemingly, with all that hot air went my ability to just sit down and tell you about my life and (mis)adventures.
I am still having a fantastic time; it's just that my tolerance has gone up. There's nothing more tragic than stale excitement, besides maybe stale cereal. Maybe if I write about what I've been doing I'll realize that I'm actually still soaring and maybe I'll even uncover whats got me feeling deflated.
So last week was the goals for girls, or G4G for short. It was kinda hectic, fun though. I didn't end up spending all that much time at the camp. I was running around all day doing all the behind the scenes kind for stuff that is necessary. I had to get water for everyone, pens, and snacks and print diplomas for graduation. You wouldn't think they'd be hard to find but believe me, in the township, they are. I was also responsible for chauffeuring Tiffany Roberts and Titie around the city to various institutions. Trying to get a south african with no passport and no birth certificate to the states in 4 weeks is a herculanean feat. As always, its all about friends in high places and lucky for us, for Titie, the coach of the team of American girls, Ian Oliver, is in with the folks at the embassy. The wind is at her back for sure because someone from Ubuntu also knows someone at the office of homeland affairs and will be able to minify the normal 6 week waiting period for passports. I'm gonna try to go to Titie's game at Hofstra. I say I am but really I'm not gonna have a minute of free time during soccer season. My courseload is gonna be crushing...there's no sunnier way to put it. Ive been thinking that soccer is not something I really want to do this year. It's great because it keeps you in shape and its fun but Im beginning to realize I'm not much of a competitive player. Just considering skills I'm not sure I have a starting spot on the team, even with all the spots opened by departing seniors. And with my fitness where it is, I'm not gonna be making up of lack of skills with exceptional speed or strength. I am also thinking I would like to enjoy what's left of the good weather and do all the things I have wished to to with friends from school. Do you believe Ive been in the Hudson Valley for 3 years now and I've never gone for hike in the catskills or explored all the nice little ponds and waterfalls in the area. Plus, because I spend so much time working, my social life and non-soccer friendships get moved to the back burner.
But on the other hand this is the last chance Ill get to play truly competitive 11v11 soccer on a beautiful pitch. And what better way is there to enjoy the last few days of summer and the fall than to be outside playing soccer? Being in shape has its obvious perks and playing sports always helps me manage my time and steer clear of bad habits. Plus I love the guys on the team. What do y'all think I should do? (stop being a dweeb and start training... and stop eating so much!) thanks, guys.
That was my coach's voice. Coach's voice is a key concept in GRS. Its a pretty simple concept but you have to remember the curriculum is designed for 12 to 14 year olds. THe idea is that everyone has life coach's who will give them good advice but the most important life coach is yourself and you have to learn to listen to your coach's voice. It's a concept that works best for kids who love sports.

I suppose I should stop apologizing for digressing because it seems to be what I do.
So I went on a Safari the other night. that was a trip. African elephants are HUGE!! I was arguing with someone as we left that an elephant would not be able to knock over the flatbed that we were all in. Is suppose a little background is in order. Citrus is banned form the park because it used to be a main component in the Elephants diet back in the seventies. THey used to dump a ton of oranges in one spot regularly to get a reliable herd of elephants for park visitors. Eventually some genius noticed that this unnatural food source was seriously disturbing the natural order among the 400 or so elephants. tHe elephants, usually scattered throughout the park in small groups stopped leaving the immediate vicinity of the orange dumping spot. They learned what the orange truck looked like so whenever they saw it there was a massive stampede of hundreds of elephants that wrecked havoc on the plant life and on the social structures within the herds. Elephants started exhibiting abnormal aggressive behavior in competition for the resource. Some started showing signs of serious stress. What kind of people were in charge of the park at that point, I wonder. So I was thinking about how great it would be if someone on the flatbed had accidentally brought along an juicy orange and herd of elephants got a whiff of it and started chasing us around the park. I said it would be worth being unseated when an elephant put a shoulder into the side of the flatbed to see the spectacle. She said that if an elephant had a mind to do it, it could topple the truck and trample us all to pulp. After I saw one I admitted being wrong.
We also saw about a zillion kudu, a bunch of eland (the biggest antelope in africa), some humping zebras, a bunch of pumbas (alas, no timones), some black backed jackals, some chubby little foxes, some scrub hairs (boring), a couple of paranoid porcupines, a springer, a spotted eagle owl (270 degrees of neck rotation!!), and we think we saw a black rhino in the distance. No cobras or lions but it was nice to see everyone from G4G one last time.
I went out in the township yesterday for the first time. Straight from the night safari, Kourtney, Tyler (another GRS field intern and friend of Kourtney from UVA) and I picked up Titie and went to a club called Eyethu in Zwide, just down the street from Ubuntu and the future site of the GRS headquarters. 5 rand (~75 cents) for guys and free for girls, not bad. The place was packed. it has a cool multilevel layout with two massive fires burning in open rectangular smoke stacks at the edge of the dancefloor. The place was massive; there were probably 400 people there last night and you could have squeezed 100 or so more. Strictly house all night long but good stuff. Everybody in the whole place was moving and more than half of the people were giving it all they had on the dance floor. dance circles are big here, really big. Its fun to test out all the different combinations of people or show everyone what you've got in a public forum but what happened to two people sharing a private moment on the dancefloor? The club had huge number of gays and guys in drag. There were a couple freaky 6 footer giving Tylerr a litle too much attention. In general we felt safe all night long, mostly because of Titie's relentless patrolling. There were only a few obnoxious drunks. It seemed like everyone was there to dance and believe you me, they knew what they were doing. I got schooled in the art of getting freaky. I think of myself as a pretty decent dancer when I'm feeling the music but I was humbled last night.
Tyler randomly bumped into an acquaintance from the bus ride down from Mussina, where he's working to get GRS established. This guy was a really interesting character. He was Zimbabwean and he and his three brothers were down seeing their mother. They are in the "imports and exports business" and apparently are doing quie wel for themselves. He invited me to a party he was throwing up in Zim in two weeks to celebrate his becoming a dollar millionaire. He's already a trillionaire in Zim. He kept flashing Benjamins all night as if I didn't believe him. It was pretty weird but I was glad we ran in to him because we'd been standing in the bar line for half-an-hour without moving when he told us to come have a seat while he sent someone to fetch us drinks, on him of course. A little shady but I had some funny conversations with his brothers and I felt safer that everyone saw they knew me. The only real problems we had all night were from drunk guys giving us too much attention because of our white skin. We were the only white people there that night and I don't think whites are a common sight there. The club is about a million times better than any white places on the upscale side of town.

Saw Die Hard 4.0 tonight. It was fantastic! at least it blew my expectations out of the water. Its so fun watching an aging Bruce Willis getting kicked here, exploded there, shot multiple times, and then finally utter the greatly anticipated phrase, Yippy-kye-yay motherfucker! some really good action sequence cinematography.
way passed my bedtime.
I also went down to cape recife, south of PE and climbed out onto the rocks where the absolutely massive waves were crashing. Found tons of nice shells. This coast, or what Ive seen of it between cape town and PE, is paradise and i hear the coast to the east, between PE and Durban, is even nicer.
I hope everyone is doing well. I feel a little out of touch.

Sorry friends,
It's been nearly two weeks since i last wrote something. Ive got a bunch of excuses that you probably don't care to hear but ill tell you anyways, because honestly I just like to whine. The internet at the office/house was down for the last two weeks. It was working ok, occasional hiccups but fast and consistent enough, and then wam! all of the sudden it stopped. It took us a while to believe it because it would come on for a few seconds every day but eventually we got mad enough to call the company. The guy showed up when we were out but luckily the realtor was there giving a tour and let him in. The only evidence of him being here is a bunch of electrical tape on one of the wires. They do this weird thing here where they splice the wire from an AC adapter into the internet wire from outside. What is being powered? I havent got the slightest.
But thats neither here nor there. I was talking about the reasons why Ive been a bad blogger. Besides not having internet, a hurdle I suppose I could have overcome, I have been exquisitely exhausted. I mean I passed out at like 8 the other night! Maybe its cause my coffee maker broke. Even though I didn't even have any coffee today I have lasted a good deal longer just because I know I have a working coffee maker in the other room.
So, as some of you may have picked on, the GRS house/office is on the auction block. Almost every day this week, when i pull up in the Jetta I'm met by a crowd white couples who have just finished or are just about to take a tour of my life and affix a price to my much loved home.
I dont think I ever told you about pedro the lizard. He was the former resident in the house. Used to spend most of his time in the bathroom. He wasn't but an inch long. Some people would say he didn't stand a chance. I always said he was good company during my lengthy baths. I have a guilty conscious though because It was me, his housemate, his protecter, his compadre, who took his life. One infamous night, while rinsing the soapy scum from the bathtub before bathing I clumsily turned the faucet on full blast and watched helplessly as my slimy little friend drifted down into the damp darkness. I still feel awful about the whole ordeal but nothings as bad as the bathtime confinement.
that was a bit of a tangent, sorry. So the other main reason I havent written is becuase Ive been dead tired. I thought i might be getting sick but i never really plunged in to the depths of real sickness. I havent been sick in quite a while. almost a year i reckon (knock knock knock). A coleague and new firnd if mine, Jessica just recovered from a pretty nasty stomach virus. Jess is a former GRS intern in Zambia who is back in Africa with a team of American Girls who are doing a cultural exchange girls' soccer promotion trip. These girls are doing a week long camp with a group of local teenage girls run by Grassroot Soccer this week. Jess is really cool and Im already sad she'll be leaving in a few days back to the states. Shes super sharp and funny even when shes not all there because of this bug.
These American girls who call themselves the DC Blast are mostly from in and around bethesda, maryland. THey are a pretty fun bunch and they have been great so far in the camp. THey have a blog called worlds united that you can get to on the washington post website. There are some cool pics and supposedly there is a recording of Titie, the GRS protege, telling her coaches story. Coach's story is about how HIV/AIDS has had an impact on the coach's life and how education has helped her deal with the tragedy of losing a loved on or seeing the stress on the community but youll see if you look up the blog. Titie is amazing. Im sure Ive said it before but she is one of the most positive, motivated and thoughtful people Ive ever met. Shes also a phenomenal soccer player. Her charisma and soccer skils have won her an opporunity to change her life in a BIG way. Tiffany Roberts, olympic gold metlaist, women's World Cup champion and head coach of the division 1 womens soccer program at Virginia Commonwealth university, is also traveling with the DC Blast Girls. After meeting Titie and seeing her on the soccer pitch she immediately offered her a full ride to VCU with a sports scholarship starting in the fall. Making this huge project happen has consumed most of my time in the last couple days. THe logistics of it are quite a challenge, especially because its so late. I wasn't at the camp at all today becuse I was the choffeur for tiffany, Jess and Titie as they tried to get together all the documentation and persuade Titie's family that it is the right choice. Forgive me lord for I have sinned. I have been an accomplice in the crime of Bran Drain. I think shell probably end up coming back after she gets her engineering degree but well see. a lot can happen in 3 years.
Tomorrow is the fourth of July. WOOOHOOO!! Weve got a plan for a braai (BBQ) for the american girls and the south africans. Weve been forced to have it in a shebeen or township bar because it gets dark and dangerous at nightfall around 5:30.
I hope it goes well and there arent tons of drunk old guys in the bar.
Last time I was there a bouncer had to remove one guy who kept on trying to hug Kourtney and I. Our partners, ubuntu, have taken it upon themselves to arrange the venue and the food so i dont know if we have the whole bar or what. We're gonna have smileys, boiled sheep's heads, hot dogs, hamburgers, and a American/South African flag cake, and sparklers too, I hope.

cape town by foot

I walked and ran the streets of cape town all day long, dusk till dawn. I didn't sleeep so well so when I woke up for the 5th time at 7:30 I justs threw on some shorts and hit the streets. Went by the company gardens (Dutch East Indies Company, that is) and through the narrow side streets, crowded with uniformed teenagers and up the slope towards table mountain. I didnt really have any direction until I saw a sign for Vredehoek, the neighborhood where Alan Drabkin grew up. He described to me in detail where his house was the week before I left but i didn't bring the scrap of paper where I jogged down the names. I decided to just explore until I found something that sounded famailiar and with some luck I ended up in front of his old house. Its a very nice neighborhood, tons of flowers to soften the brutal walls which characterize all white neighborhoods in this country. I cant think of the name of the flowers but they are the same ones I saw and loved in Israel. I took few petals back from one of the brilliant bushes in the weitzmann institute campus so I took a few petals from one of these bushes as well. Its not a bad tradition, I think; collecting petals from a certain type of flower (Its killing me that i cant think of the name!!) around the world.
This fella next to me( he owns the hostel) is saying its a protea and that it is exclusive to the western cape, meaning it couldn't possibly be the same type as those I saw in Israel and elsewhere but Im not sure I believe him. Nope, not the same flower. NOw I found a picture of them and hes calling it borgenvilia. Either way, I like em and I collect petals where ever I go.
SO I wanna go out and dance but my peoples are passed out upstairs. There are others in the hostel but they're way ahead of me if you know what I mean. Apparently they had been playing beirut all night. Yes, beirut has spread like the plague and has supplanted much better drinking games all of the world. Its worse than starbucks. THank god I havent seen any here hold on Im gonna knock on some wood. cape town, long street in particular hasnt been overrun by chain stores.
By the end of this weekend Im gonna be basically broke and will be forced to live like a pauper for the rest of the summer. Luckily I dont need to pay for much besides food and Ive got tons and tons of multivitamins (thanks ma) so I can basically eat bread with olive oil and be fine. Oranges are in season here and they are cheaper than dirt cheap. Were talking juicy delicious seedless oranges here. 5 Rand (~80 cents) for 25 of them. 25 big oranges!! Everything else is comparable in price to american supermarkets. oranges , bread, olive oil and multivitamins...sounds delicious!
Its hard not to spend money in a town like Cape Town because everything is cheap by American standards. I had a guy say to me at the market today, "Ill give you good price, just give me anything." Shocked at the bargaining strategy I asked him how much time he spent of the object in question and he says 2 weeks. I could have given him 30 rand for something thast took him 2 weeks to make! thats desperation! OK to be fair, he probably didn't spend two weeks carving the damn thing - the stone is quite soft - but even if he spent a quarter that amount of time, 30 Rand aint much. I ended up buyin a similar thing from another vendor for 20 more but it was worth it.
Im gonna take a tour of Robben Island, where Mandela was imprisoned, and climb table mountain tomorrow and Ive got a ton of partying to do before then, so I suppose I had better be takin off.
THanks to everyone who is still with me.
sharp, sharp

So with all my fee time Kourt and I decided to skip out to Cape Twn for the ling, long weekend. Hopefullyt he strike doesn't end tomorrow. Its been a lot of fun so for. I watched the Sundowns, the South African championns play Barcelona in a first ever type match. Some good fans in the place. Wee staying on Long street which apparenty is the place to be in Cape Town. Its like Nebury, Lansdowne, and all of the corrercial district compounded into one 1 kilo street. Ive got to wrap up this post short b/c they ae shutting down the comp. pictures to follow.
cheers

I haven't been all that busy this week because of the strikes which have been going on now for two weeks. Nurses, teachers and other public service workers have demanded a 12% increase in pay and the government has been stubborn. The strike has made everything go haywire; hospitals are staffed by the military and children wander the streets all day. Schools normally would be in session here because it wintertime. I suppose the summer break comes in january and february. Most of the work Grassroot Soccer does at the moment is through the schools in the townships so the strike has thrown off our schedule significantly. Were under pressure to hold graduations before the end of the second quarter on June 30th but Im not sure we'll be able to do it. We gather data at graduations including post-quiz data and number of graduates and attendees which we include in quarterly reports. These document and monitor the effectiveness of the programs and are important for getting donations. My boss and one of the founders of GRS, Kirk Friedrich, is on a plane back from Germany at this moment after meeting with FIFA and streetfootballworld, an umbrella organization that brings together organizations from around the world that use soccer as a social development tool. FIFA and streetfootballworld put on a tournament every four years in conjunction with the world cup for teams that represent different organisations from different areas and GRS, as one of the key members of the streetfootballworld network in Africa, is hoping to host this tournament in 2010. Im not sure I I already mentioned it but we are planning on building a compound in one of the townships, across the street from the Ubuntu Education Fund Headquarters, that will include a turf soccer pitch and a clubhouse. Once I get the green light, hopefully tomorrow morning at my meeting with Kirk, one of my jobs is to set this plan in motion. I would look for architects to make sketches and draw up a proposal to the municipality asking that the land, currently a dirt lot where kids play and people dump their garbage, be donated.
Its all very exciting.
Besides work, Ive been listening to a lot of Oliver Mtukudzi and Tupac (only god can judge me now) and reading the Brothers K. Im just at the beginnning now but so far it has made me laugh out loud more than any book I can remember.
I went out last night with Kourt to the waterfront, an area of PE with restaurants and dance bars, kind of near Barney's. One place, Tapas al Sol, had a good crowd and groovy music, at least for a while. At 1 am it changed from house remixed hip hop and 90s pop to american 70s classic rock, the kind of stuff you only want to hear when you are wasted. I wasn't so after making pretty valiant effort I was driven from the dancefloor by the lack of thumping base. THe place was pretty good. It had a truly mixed, though not at all representative, crowd, a rare thing in this very segregated town. Indians, who make up about 1% of the city's population probably made up a quarter of the crowd and their were very few black africans, mostly colored. Colored is the word for black/white mixed here and it took a while to get used to.
Took a nice run today in the park adjacent to the neighborhood where I stay. My neighborhood, in which every house has a 2 meter wall with spikes or electric fence on top and attack dogs behind the gate, sits on the edge of a significant cliff which constitutes one side of a beautiful canyon. The little river at the bottom cuts through the hilly landscape from a lake 40 K away right through downtown PE. It is flanked on either side and buffered from the city by dense lush park. There are beautiful flowers and groundhogs that live there and it is great for long runs. PEs got tons of park and is a great city to run in, before dark at least. I plan on taking quite a few so long as my feet cooperate.
SO long. Im gonna go call my father and wish him a happy father's day.

African Beeah

The most interesting experience so far has without a doubt been drinking african beeah and communing with the ancestors. What they call african beeah here is like no beer you have ever . Its not brown, it hasnt got any bubbles, its not even made with hops. I dont know what did go into it so all I can do for you is describe how it looked and tasted. It was in a 20 liter bucket before they divided into separate portions for the mothers and the fathers who then portion off some for the unmaried women and men. The stuff looked a little like a malted vanilla bean milkshake. It was a uneasy milky grey-purple off-white color with black speckles that could have been small seeds or bits of charcoal. I didn't really have time to make a careful inspection partially because I didn't want to be seen as suspicious and also, I must admit, because I just didn't want to know. It had an initial bite reminiscent of citrus. right after that came a sweet wheaty kind of wholesome taste and finally an aftertaste of burnt something-or-other. Im really curious to find out what was in it but Ive got a feeling its a secret reserved for the family elders. Apparently it is an ancient Bantu tradition that dates back to way before the US was even a sparkle in George Washington's eye. This was the first time anyone can remeber an "umlungu" (white person) being there, much less three, and everyone seemed a little excited about it.
The whole time in the back of my mind i was feeling a little like an intruder. I was half expecting one uncle or cousin to get half-cocked and cut me nasty glances but it never happened. All I got was kind words and smiles when words werent an option, repeatedly assuring me that I was welcome. The mothers were especially amused by having us in their midst though it seemed virtually none of them spoke a word of english. THey all wanted pictures with me and made me promise to print them and give them copies. They all found it especially amusing when I offered to help distribute the food. I was probably stepping all over time-honored gender roles but they got a good laugh out of a white man serving them. One sister dumped her gigantic one month old to Kourtney and he stayed with her the whole time.
I only got a partial translation of the speeches made by the grandfathers but the gyst of them was that they were celebrating the closeness of their family and of their community; indeed two representative members of the community were invited to the ceremony. They talked of the youth nowadays not respecting traditions and drinking their beer elsewhere, down the street in the pubs and so on (njalo-njalo in Xhosa). They also talked about how our presence was telling of how things are changing for the better. THere were other things that I missed or dont remember and all the while they addressed their speeches to the ancestors.
One grandfather, who I had met the day before when Siya was giving a tour of the different townships, was a real character. He was probably about 65, bald and barrelchested with a potbelly and a booming voice that reminded me of Jabba the Hut. He stretched out certain vowel syllabes and had a enourmous smile on all the time. He also didn't have any of the beeah and instead drank coca cola from his own 1 litre bottle. He was particularly overjoyed by my rudimentary Xhosa vocabulary and botched pronunciations. Xhosa pronunciations are a whole different story. It puts your tounge to work!
So I just realized that I haven't explained to you why I was here in the first place. Siya, my right hand man, has been working with GRS now for 4 months or so. He is an amazing character and I think I already said this but I was and am very glad that he is on my side. Hes got a lot of knowledge of the area and of the curiculum that I could not have done without. He has been around the same amount of time as everyone else but the difference in level of mastery of the curriculum between him and the vast majority of the other coaches is emormous. Titie is also well ahead of the pack and my bosses always comment on how she has potential to be a GRS country manager. She's not as remarkable a stage presence as Siya but she is more thoughtful and independant in many ways. Siys strengths, his charisma and hi uncanny ability to command attention and lead large groups are also his weaknesses. He has a tendancy to steal the show at the slightest hint of a loss of energy or direction. Im going on a complete tangent. Ill finish the story and ten talk about my difficulties playing to the coaches strengths.
Siya introduced me to his mother during the townships tour and she invited us over for the beer the next day. Siyas family is probably an exception in many ways and I don't believe that their unbridled hospitality is shared by everyone but It was a fun experience.
In the picture above, I was holding a tray of food getting ready to go distribute it when a sister unexpectadly took a spoonful of cabbage and stuffed it in my mouth. She held it there for about 10 seconds while Siya figured out how to use my camera so, as you can imagine everybody was just kind of staning around laughing at how rediculous we looked. fun times.

There is so much to tell that is already happened. I hate playing catch-up but some of has been really amazing and I feel I can skip it.
Im the sole driver of the company car, a pretty nice VW jetta that we loving refer to as baby blue. Its just like a jetta in the states except the steering wheel is on the wrong, the right side. Drivng here was somethig I had to get used to really quick. At first ths thought keeps jumping into your mind screaming "what are you doing! Youre on the wrong side of the road and were gonna die!!" wide rights and tight lefts, and no left on red. I managed to adapt pretty quickly but my manual technique is a bit rusty after a semester of not driving one at all. I started teaching the other intern how to drive today because sometimes you just want to be driven places. It will also help a lot when she can drive so that we dont have to do everything together all the time. Honestly I really dont like driving all that much anyways.
Some of you may have noticed a hairy faced Simon Eisenburg inthe photo in the last post. Thats right he came out to visit me for a few days and we pretty much had a blast. He came to two Grassroot Soccer events and he said he had fun. He got a pretty good sense of the stuff Ill be doing out here for the next few months. Besides that we explored Port Elizabeth nightlife, which seems pretty bland. We checked out the Boardwalk, which basically has nothing to do with a board walk. Its not actually on the beach. Its a couple hundred meters back and its like a fun park of some sort. An adult disneyland complete with a casino, a handful of fastfood places, a couple bars and the kind of tourist shops that you might see in an airport or the Africa section of an american fun park. Inside the boardwalk you really could and might as well be in the united states or any other country for that matter. I mean its nice but I dont think Ill be going back.
That night was kind of a disaster from the start. First we went this bar called the the slurping owl or the chirping owl or something. Everyone was an Afrikaner and virtually everyone was over 50. Just imagine a little pub full of large people dancing to an unremarkable band with an electronic drum set. We drank our beers and fled quickly. The only girl under 30 was a waitress and she was too busy to give me decent direcions to a younger spot, but I think she was interested.
The next night we checked out the bar thats in all the tourist books. It is an English pub
called Barney's aand its supposed to be a great place. It had great potential. THere were people of all ages and skin colors but, alas, the same band from the night before at the chirping owl was playing. They did sound a little better tonight because the crowd was a little more energetic but they weren't good enough to get me off my bar stool. I was content with watching these two women just tear up the dance floor. One was a mixed woman who appeared to have an old white sugardaddy that she would drag around the floor everyonce in a whil. The other was a striking tall skin-and-bones indian girl. In all seriousness I think they may have been the two best dancers Ive ever seen. They could go on spinning eachother round for 5 minute stretches without breaking, and I didn't get the sense that they had ever even met before.
Hopefully next time there will be a different band.
thats all for now. I still havent talked about my most interesting cultural experience so far, where the picture in the first post is from.
thanks for tuning in.

Molo friends and family.
I wanted to make this blog so I could keep everyone caught up with what I'm doing this summer in Port Elizabeth, South Africa without having to write a million emails. This way I can just record what I do and what happens to me and then talk about it further with anyone who is interested. It's my first blog so we'll see how it goes.
So I arrived last sunday at eight pm local time (we're six hours ahead here) after an epic 50 hours of travel. My voyage began on the familiar chinatown from Boston to NYC. As we inched through Brooklyn I realized we were getting further and further from my eventual destination, the studio of my old friends and alternate parents, Lucy Fradkin and Arthur Simms. I got a funny idea and told the girl sitting next to me, who was clearly from Brooklyn "I wonder if he'll let us out here". On an other bus line it would never have worked but the Fung Wah, for all its safety and sanitary shortcomings, has great drivers who are down for whatever. So I cut about an hour off my trip and dropped my enormous duffle bag of in their studio while I took care of some business in Manhattan. Actually I was passing in the last essay from the semester that had ended a week before but thats another story.
So Lucy and Arthur dropped me at JFK at 5:30 and I boarded the plane that would carry me across the Atlantic to Paris. I had a whole row to myself, which was nice. After 6 boring hours in the Paris Airport spent reading and walking from overpriced tourist shop to rip-off boutique, I finally settlesd on a way to spend some of the Euros that Lucy had given me as a going away present. She said "you'll feel cool because you won't have to convert your money to get anything in Paris". She was right. I felt pretty cool flipping through my three types of currency, Dollars, Euros and South African Rand to pay for some truffles. My boss at Rockefeller had given me 20 Rand, about 3 dollars, as a farewell gift.
The flight was long and sleepless. Everyone else, it seemed was on France time and had no trouble falling asleep for the entire ride. For me however it was mid-afternnoon. The movies were pretty terrible but interesting as my last exposure to american culture. I watched Shooter with Mark Wahlburg and half of Music and Lyrics before I shut it off. I'm generally not picky when It comes to movies. In fact, the worse a movie is, the more I must see it through to the end. In this case though I simply couldnt stand an aging Hugh Grant opposite the cliche quirky...whatever.
I had way too many hours in the Jo'burg airport that I used them to start to learn Xhosa words that I thought might come in handy. The waitress in the cafe found it really amusing that this Stetson-wearing american was trying to learn her language. My pitiful first tries at pronouncing the click syllables k, x, and q got some laughs from her and some strange looks from the family sitting at the next table. That's been something that I have noticed consistantly since I arrived. Most Xhosas really appreciate when a white makes an effort to learn about their culture and language because so few white South africans ever do. Most of them seemingly live in a completely different universe that virtually never comes in contact with blacks outside shopping malls and petrol stations. Since arriving I have seen a grand total of 1 white fluent in Xhosa and he was a police officer.
The last leg of my journey, an hour and a half from Jo'burg to Port Elizabeth passed uneventfully as I finished my book, George Orwell's 1984, and I reached my final destination, the Friendly city, Port Elizabeth in the Nelson Mandela District on the beatiful Algoa Bay.
At that point I didn't know what I would be doing ant more than any of you know. All I knew was that they told me to be ready to take on a lot of responsibility very quickly. It turns out that within three days of me arriving, the two guys who had built the program up from scratch over the last six months would be gone leaving me in charge of training the other intern and running the entire Grassroot soccer program in PE. THere is another guy, Kirk Friedrich, who lives in the area and is a resource to me. He deals mainly with the high profile partners like FIFA and travels a lot. He was one of the original founders of Grassroot Soccer back in 2002. He lives 60 kilometers away in Jeffrey's Bay, a world famous surf town to the west of PE. He has the surfer mentality but also seems to work very hard. Overall, he has a realy admirable attitude towards life and possesses the ability to turn off work stress as soon as he shuts his laptop.
I have to get to bed. More to come. and thanks for tuning in.