Ragball International

Since beginning my work for Grassroot Soccer, I've come across some really cool and innovative ways of organizations using soccer to bring about social change. One of those organizations is Ragball International, in which "young people from Africa produce handmade soccer balls from recycled materials in exchange for a fair wage and entrepreneurial training."

I've done a lot of reading on aid to Africa lately - some experts arguing the foreign aid is helping the continent and that there needs to be a bigger influx of it, while others say that sending so much aid to Africa creates a sense of dependence, allows for more corruption, and doesn't give these countries the opportunity to grow economically. What both sides seem to agree on however, is that giving people the opportunity to learn business skills and specialized job training is of the utmost importance. That's one reason I really like this organization, it's not giving Africans handouts, it's giving them jobs.

Check it out and definitely buy a ball if you can.

The Lion Park

This past Saturday, AJ, Tizzy, and I went to the Lion Park. Despite being a mere 30 minutes outside of Johannesburg, the park felt light years away from the bustling city we have come to call home. (Naturally, as has come to be the norm, we got lost on the way there so it took us significantly more time than it should have, but still).

At the park you’re able to drive your own car, which is great because it gives you the opportunity to spend as much time as you want observing the various animals the area has to offer.  As we moved along the dusty road in our Grassroot Soccer Toyota, we cruised to the tunes of Lauryn Hill while taking snapshots and videos of everything around us. We enjoyed the serenity of grazing zebras, observed the bizarre nature of wild ostriches, were literally inches away from fully grown lions, locked eyes with antelope and gazelle, got to hold and play with baby lion cubs, and even had a giraffe lick the side of my face. It was a blast. 

Slam Poetry Part II, New House, Impromptu Interventions

It’s been a pretty interesting couple of weeks down here in South Africa.  I guess I’ll address each thing topic by topic:

The Slam

The National Drama for Life Poetry Slam last Friday evening was a great event. After winning the regional competition, I was excited to get back on stage for an even bigger event. Over the course of the week, I got to spend a lot of time doing workshops with the other top 5 poets from the Johannesburg regional competition. During the workshops, we refined our performance and delivery skills, as well as just getting to spend some fun and quality time together.

Friday night we met the 6 poets from the KZN province, against whom we would be competing. It was a really cool group and I could tell that this slam was going to be a special one.

On stage waiting for the results

The difference between this week and last week was that each of the 12 poets could only perform one piece. So you had one chance come hard, and then let the judges do the rest. Each poet went up and did their things, and I was amazed at all of the innovative and original ways that people went about addressing the topics of HIV and relationships. No two poems tackled the issue in the same way, kind of like snowflakes (yea yea that’s cheesy and cliché but whatever). After the performances were done, all of the poets came back onto the stage, and they proceeded to announce the top 6. Which I was a part of.

Then, one by one, they let poets go. When there were only four of us left on stage, they called my name. This meant that I had gotten 4^th place, which by all means is a good showing, but was not in the top 3 where I hoped to be (and to whom the cash prizes were given).

Naturally, as a competitive person and someone who holds myself to a really high standard, I was disappointed to not to place in the top 3. But as I’ve grown as a person and as participant in the slam poetry community, I try not to let my competitiveness deter me from seeing the beauty of being a part of such an event in the first place. At the end of the day, I’m just so blessed to have been able to be competing in such an amazing competition and blessed to have met the people that I did.

Some people were videotaping the event so as soon as I get ahold of the video, I'll put it up.

The Strike Goes On

Having stood on the picket lines (well no, this is South Africa – so having sang and danced on the picket lines) for over there weeks, there is still no clear end in sight service workers’ strike.  The government has made better offers but the unions don’t seem to be budging. Read more about it here: http://allafrica.com/stories/201009020018.html

From a GRS perspective we’ve had to improvise. Since we can’t go into the schools to do the interventions, we’ve brought the interventions to us. Coaches have recruited kids from throughout their neighborhoods, who haven’t already gone through the Skillz program, and have brought them to the Nike Center for a week of practices. For a last minute kind of effort, everything has gone pretty smoothly. Over 200 kids have been attending the sessions.

Hanging with the little brothers and sister
of the kids going through intervetions

I think kids were genuinely looking for something to do during the day – and the fact that they got to come inside the new Nike Center, something they’re usually not allowed to do, doesn’t hurt either. We've also held interventions at a local park for those kids who couldn't get transportation to the center.

Since I’ve been here, I haven’t been able to watch an actual intervention due to the strikes. So this week has been great for me because I’ve gotten to really see what the very core of GRS is all about – the coaches and their time with the kids. I think it’s so easy to get caught up in all the other things that go into running an International NGO that it could be easy to lose sense of the core mission. But at GRS Soweto, all I have to do is step outside to remember why I’m here doing what I’m doing.

Interventions at local park

New House

In addition to AJ finally arriving this week (congratulations to his sister on her wedding), we moved into our new house this past weekend. It’s a great place in a pretty cool neighborhood of Joburg called Melville. We’re literally a 1 minute walk from one of the more happening spots in the city – a small strip called 7^th street. Loads of bars, cafes, and restaurants.  The house is a 4-bedroom that Tizzy, AJ, and I share with a cool girl named Phoebe. We’re working on getting the place furnished in the next few days. It’s crazy how you don’t realize how many little things you need to furnish a house. We’re learning the hard way.

Special Treat

Nike Center the evening of the game...imaculate

One of the great things about working out of the Nike Center, is that because the fields and facilities are of such high quality, loads of professional and national teams come to train and play there. Last night, Ghana played the Kaiser Chiefs in a “closed door” friendly match. “Closed door” simply meaning that it wasn’t open to the public. But as an employee of the Nike Center, I was able to watch the match after work with some of the other coaches. Ghana plays Swaziland in a few days, and the Kaiser Chiefs are one of the best teams in the South African Premier League. It was an entertaining match that ended 2-2. I think the game epitomized how small a lot of South Africans are. The Ghanaians looked like giants compared to the Chiefs. It looked like they were playing against a U-15 team.

Ghana warming up with Kaiser Chiefs in background

That’s all for now...

South African Slam Poetry

This weekend, I had the extraordinary honor of being crowned champion of Johannesburg’s Drama For Life Poetry Festival. It was an amazing experience and I’m thankful to all of the coordinators of the event, those who facilitated workshops during the week, and most importantly the other poets who served as an immeasurable source of inspiration as well as becoming good friends.

You may be asking, “Clint, you’ve only been in South Africa for a few weeks, how did you stumble onto this?” Well, thanks to the internet and our increasingly globalised world, I simply went to Google the day after I got here, and typed in, “Slam Poetry Johannesburg.” The results weren’t as promising as I had hoped, with most being articles from past competitions in the area. But at the bottom of page 2, there was a press release for a poetry competition being held at Wits University, a mere 5 minute drive from where we live. Luckily, I had looked this up the day before the final audition was being offered. I called the contact person, an awesome lady named Ntombi, and reserved a spot for the audition.

The next day after work, I went to Wits for an audition. I had never been part of a poetry competition quite like this one. It certainly wasn’t your typical slam. Firstly, you had to audition to book a place in the competition. Secondly, they weren’t very strict about the “no more than 3:10 per poem” rule, which actually was really nice because it kills me when I have to take out what I consider important pieces of a poem, in order to have it under the allotted time. Thirdly, we were never quite sure when exactly we were being judged.

During the audition, we began with a series of exercises. In one, we stood in a circle and one of the facilitators would point to someone, and that poet would have to start spitting a poem on the fly. Then they would point to someone else. You were never sure how long you would have to recite for before he called on someone else. After this portion of the audition, all of the competitors made their way across the street where an open mic was being held to test our skills in front of an actual audience. I was really well-received by the audience – who I think was kind of surprised to see an American in the competition – and got a lot of facebook friend request the next day.

Later in the week, I was called and told that I had made the second round. In the second round there was more of a standard system of judging. It felt kind of like American Idol. The judges would call us up, we’d perform our piece, sit down, and wait for the other competitors to go. At the end of the evening, they told us the 21 poets who would go on to the final round. I was among them.

The Stage

Then came this past Saturday. We were performing in Wits’ Great Hall, an auditorium that holds more than 800 people. It was different from a typical slam in the sense that there were four official judges – none of whom we had met – who dictated the scores of each competitor rather than selected members of the audience. With hundreds of people in the crowd, each poet anxiously awaited backstage for their name to be called.

Prince and Donald freestyling backstage

After the first round, they trimmed it from 21 to 7. I made the 7.

In the second round, each poet was to perform a second piece on the same subject matter. Oh, I forgot to mention that this poetry competition was themed-based. All poems had to be about love, relationships, sex, or HIV. It was the festivals way of creating another platform to raise awareness and educate people on South Africa’s HIV pandemic, where 1 in 6 adults carry the disease. I think there’s this misconception that the only people fighting the disease are foreigners coming in to work for aid or development organizations. Much to the contrary. Since arriving here, it’s been really encouraging to see South Africans playing an active role in fighting the disease, something many people around the world don’t realize so many of them do.

Performing on Sunday afternoon for the funders

In the second round, I was the last of the 7 to go. I decided to do a poem that I had just finished a few days before and had never performed before. I can honestly say that I have never performed a poem harder in my life. So hard that my body hurt afterwards. I’ve never felt an adrenaline rush quite like I did in those 3 ½ minutes. It was like I was in the twighlight zone or something.

They brought the seven of us back on stage, and one by one they began to let people go. It came down to me and Donald, a dope Joburg-based poet and a guy who has really welcomed me into the community with open arms. Something for which I’m eternally grateful. Finally, the MC walked between us, grabbed both of our hands, and after a dramatic pause, raised mine in the air. The response I received from the crowd was unlike anything I had ever quite experienced. I can’t even put it into words.

Tshepiso doing her thing on Sunday

It means so much to me when people come up after I do a performance and tell me how much a piece touched them. There’s nothing like it. For me, that’s the whole point of this whole poetry thing. 

To touch people and make them think about things in a way they might not have thought about it before.

More than being happy about winning, I’m happy to have found a spoken word poetry community so early into my time here in South Africa. This poetry game is something really close to my heart and my hope was to be able to continue to do it beyond of Davidson (shout out to FreeWord, I miss yall). Now it looks like I’ll be given that opportunity. Joburg has a really vibrant slam scene and I can’t wait to be a part of it. I’ve met some amazing people, made some great friends, and found an incredible source of inspiration. I’m more blessed than I can ever express thanks for.

Donald, Tshepiso, me, and Ntombi

On Sunday, Donald, Tshepiso, and myself – as the top three from the competition – performed at an event for the funders of the festival. I guess to show them that the prize money awarded wasn’t being wasted on terrible poets. It was a nice event in a really cool outdoor space, but the crowd was a lot different (i.e. older and whiter) than it had been the previous night. As a performer, you kind of had to create your own energy onstage. Nonetheless, it was a neat experience and it was fun to get to spend the day with Donald, Tshpiso, and Ntombi.

Next week, the 7 of us who competed in the final round will be competing against the winners of the same competition from Durban. I’m excited to rep for my new city, and more ready too whoop up on those Durban kids.  Thanks so much to everyone who showed me love this weekend, it means the world.

Strike in South Africa

Our first two weeks in Johannesburg have coincided with a telling moment in South African politics. Since last week, nearly the entire public service sector - teachers, police, government employees, doctors, nurses - has been on strike. They are demanding an 8.6% increase in their wages, improved housing subsidies, and other benefits. So far the government has made several offers, with the latest being a 7% pay hike. The unions, however, have made it clear that the strike will continue until their demands, and nothing less, are met. They are prepared to strike indefinitely.

From a GRS standpoint it has been frustrating because with no teachers in school, there are no kids in school. Thus, the coaches are unable to go in and do their 'Skillz' sessions . The silver lining to this is that Tizzy and I have gotten to spend almost everyday with the coaches, rather than just every Friday as it would be otherwise. Hence, I feel like we've gotten to know them really well.

President Zuma is under major pressure because the unions striking represent some of his primary constituents, but as President he can ill afford to add to an already ballooning South African deficit (seems to be a common theme around the world these days). But on the other side of that, the teachers certainly deserve to get paid more than the paltry amount they currently recieve. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Read more about the strike here.

First Week Musings

The last two weeks have been hectic to say the least, a whirlwind in the best kind of way. On August 4^th, I made my way up to Hanover, New Hampshire for a 4-day orientation with the other Grassroot Soccer interns. During the training we did a series of team-building exercises that included a hike, doing activities from the HIV awareness based ‘Skillz’ curriculum that we use for the kids in Africa, and guided one on one sessions with each intern where we were able to connect with one another on a deeper level. Additionally, we were given a crash course in all things GRS and HIV/AIDS. While I considered myself fairly well-versed on the disease, my knowledge of its intricacies has undoubtedly increased at least 300%.

Interns at the orientation cabin

On the final night, we had dinner with the founders Tommy Clark (the visionary and current CEO), Ethan Zohn (the guy who won the first Survivor) as well as the board of directors and all domestic GRS staff. What impressed me most is that everyone in the organization, all the way from the CEO to the administrative assistant, all seem to be extremely grounded. Everyone is on the same page, and are incredibly motivated by the work we are doing. Additionally, everyone we met made it a point to convey to us how important we interns were to the success of Grassroot Soccer, and how without us, the organization would fail.

The only complaint I have from my time in Hanover is that it didn’t last longer. The other interns are amazing people. It’s an incredible feeling to be surrounded by so many other young, passionate, and excited people who share the same core values and are determined to leave their mark on the world. After staying up all night around a bonfire that made it feel like we were leaving summer camp, we all said our goodbyes and promised to visit each other at our various site throughout Southern Africa. 

Big Ben

That night, Tizzy and I (AJ doesn’t arrive until the end of August because his sister is getting married in a few weeks) lugged our baggage to Logan airport in Boston and flew across the pond to London where we were scheduled for a daunting 12-hour layover. Instead of sitting in the airport all day, however, we decided to take advantage of our time. So, we took the tube into London where we took a double-decker bus tour, lounged in Green Park (London’s version of Central Park), watched the astoundingly diverse plethora of people who live in London, walk through.

Then there was the 11-hour flight to Johannesburg, which surprisingly wasn’t too bad. I think I watched four movies back to back so I wasn’t really paying attention to the time anyway. Mmm…nothin’ like some good airplane movies.

Now you may be thinking to yourself, “an 11-hour flight Clint?!? Why didn’t you just sleep?” Well, a few years ago I had a really bad snoring problem. Anytime I would fall asleep in an upright position, like on a plane or a bus, I would start snoring like a big, drunken, allergy-infected grizzly bear. Flight attendants would have to come and wake me up because I was disturbing other passengers. It was pretty bad. So I trained myself not to fall asleep on planes. Anyway, sorry for that tangent…

At the airport, we were picked up by Karti, a guy who was ending his yearlong cycle as an intern. Unfortunately, we only had two days before he was scheduled to fly back to the United States, but I’m thankful we had him around at all because we would have been screwed if we didn’t.

Me, Tizzy, and Karti

As much as any human being can do in an 36 hours, he showed us the area we’ll be living, how to drive a stick shift, how to get from Johannesburg (where we’ll be living) to Soweto (where we’ll be working), introduced us to all of his ex-pat friends, told us where to go and where not to go at night, where to buy groceries, where to get internet, a brief political history on South Africa, and pretty much anything else you can imagine someone possibly doing for two kids fresh out of undergrad living on their own in Africa for a year. Needless to say, he was more than helpful.

For the moment, we’re living in a small garden cottage behind someone’s house in an area of Johannesburg called Melville. It’s essentially like a small studio. Like a small poolhouse, just without the pool. We’re staying here until the end of the month, then when AJ arrives, we’ll be moving into a house a few minutes down the road. For my New Orleans people out there, living in Melville but working in Soweto feels kind of like living Uptown but working in the 9^th ward. It definitely provides an interesting juxtaposition.

Where we work

As I’ve said, we work is Soweto, which is about a 20-minute drive from where we live. The office in Soweto is a brand new state of the art center that Nike built right before the World Cup in effort to provide the kids of Soweto a space to train on grass and turf fields, while also learning important life skills. GRS runs the life skills aspect of it. I’ll provide more details about the Nike and Grassroot Soccer partnership in another post.

Lastly, on only our second day, Tizzy and I were hooked up with tickets to the South Africa vs. Ghana friendly. Traffic was absolutely terrible – and there’s nothing worse than stop and go traffic when you’re just learning to drive a stick shift – but when we finally arrived at the stadium, we were treated to a festive atmosphere and a first hand experience in how loud vuvuzelas actually are. Soccer City is DOPE!!!

Soccer City

A great stadium that somehow manages to be huge while still maintaining an intimate feel to it. Considering that it was a post-world cup friendly, I didn’t expect a big crowd. But I’d say at least 75% of the stadium was full, and those who were there were treated to a 1-0 Bofanna Bofanna win (Bofanna Bofanna is the name of the South African team, literally translated as “The Boys The Boys”). Only wish I could have been here for the World Cup.

Bofanna Bofanna!!!

I could go on and on about the things I’ve experienced thus far, but I realize that super long post can get boring so I’ll save the other stuff for another day. I’ve got all year after all.

Arrived Safely

After 48 hours of traveling and 3 different continents, we've safely arrived in South Africa. Everything is pretty hectic right now in terms of getting a feel for Johannesburg and Soweto, learning how to drive a stick shift on the opposite side of the road, learning a years worth of information, planning, and skills about GRS Soweto from the past intern (who leaves tomorrow...), and doing all of this on nothing but a few hours about interspersed airplane naps. It's all very exhausting but still unbelievably exciting. I'll write a longer update regarding what the past week or so has been like when I can sit down or get the chance - or whenever I figure out how to shift gears without stalling in the middle of an intersection...