FFH Centre is Open!!

Football For Hope Centre

After a crazy, but awesome weekend, the Football For Hope Centre finally opened!! Overall, the weekend went smoothly and was a great success. On Friday, we spent the day watching several GRS activities in action. The FFH Centre Opening took place on Saturday morning and went fabulously. Sepp Blatter, the President of FIFA, spoke at the opening and participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Sepp Blatter

After the opening, two GRS coaches demonstrated Skillz activities for the crowd. I hung around for a couple more hours to watch Delegation Teams from Khayelitsha, Lesotho, Namibia, Brazil, and Zambia.

Khayelitsha Delegation Team

Aside from working, I've continued to spend a lot of time outdoors, especially as the weather warms up. We spent this past weekend relaxing with the interns from Malawi and Lesotho and I'm leaving tomorrow morning to go to Zimbabwe with three other interns on holiday break. Our tentative plans include flying into Victoria Falls, going on safari in Botswana, rafting on the Zambezi River, spending Christmas in Harare, and spending New Years on the beaches of Mozambique.

Happy Holidays!!

Football For Hope Centre

Quick weekend update. I spent Saturday and Sunday in Harare, Khayelitsha at the Football For Hope Centre. Annie and I held a community meeting on Saturday morning to discuss the upcoming community opening and we spent the afternoon attempting to build tree cages (we gave up after realizing it would be virtually impossible to build the cages without a professional) and painting fences. We worked alongside many local workers and attempted to communicate via hand gestures and broken English. After a long day of manual labor, Annie and I had only managed to apply the first coat to one of many fences, so we returned on Sunday with the rest of my housemates to finish painting the fences. As the November 28th community opening and December 5th official centre opening approach, we will be spending the next couple of weekends in Khayelitsha.

After returning from Khayelitsha, we hosted a welcome braai at our new house. Lots of GRS coworkers attended with their families and we had loads of delicious food. The braai went so well that we are already planning to host a big Thanksgiving dinner.

The past two weeks have flown by! Everyone is swamped at work as the December 4-6 weekend approaches. The December weekend is a huge event for FIFA because the World Cup Draw takes place on December 4 in Cape Town. It is also a huge weekend for Grassroot Soccer since we were selected as the Football For Hope (FFH) Centre Host in Khayelitsha. FFH is the main element of a strategic alliance between FIFA and streetfootballworld and it is a movement that uses the power of the game for positive social change. The FFH Movement is a part of FIFA's "20 Centres for 2010" official World Cup campaign.

Most of my time over the next three weeks will be dedicated to preparing for the big weekend. As the final touches come together for the Centre, GRS has started to focus on the logistics for the weekend. I'm spending a lot of time putting together an agenda for several visitors that are coming for the weekend. I've learned that planning events in Cape Town is much more difficult than planning an event in the States!!

Table Mountain

We started our hike in Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens.

We hiked up Skeleton's Gorge, a route that has lots of ladders, big rocks, shady trees, and waterfalls.

At the top of Skeleton's Gorge, we reached a sandy reservoir where we set the 10 second timer on the camera and jumped up and down trying to capture a picture of all five of us jumping.
From left to right: Me, Corey, Amy, Phil, and Allen.

View from the top of Table Mountain.

View of Cape Town.

Resting on the top of Table Mountain before hiking down. We originally planned on taking the cable car down the mountain, but it was closed because of the wind.

Hiking down Platteklip, the face of Table Mountain. Although it was tough on everyone's knees, the hike down the mountain was beautiful because we were surrounded by clouds.

I'm going to backtrack a bit and write about a couple events that I have not yet touched upon.

October 9: Heritage Day at GRS Cape Town! South Africans celebrate Heritage Day on September 24 by celebrating the many cultures that are present throughout the country. GRS decided to host its own Heritage Day lunch to share our own traditions and cultural dishes. I decided to be adventurous at lunch and have a taste of everything. This included sheep eyeball, smiley (known as the "tastiest" part of a sheep, smiley is the cheek), tongue (I could feel the tastebuds), intestines (so salty), and hoofs (really chewy). I also ate lots of chocolate buckeyes (made by Elise, a fellow Ohioan), German cake, and Greek goodies (my contribution).





October 10-12: Rocking the Daisies Music Festival with the interns located in Kimberley, Richmond, and Lesotho! We spent the weekend camping and watching amazing music on a wine estate in Darling, about 75 kilometers outside Cape Town. My favorite bands were Freshly Ground, Gang of Instrumentals, Lonesome Dave Ferguson, and Goldfish.

October 13: Finally visited my host family in Grassy Park! I had dinner with Nazeema, Soraya, Juleigha, Tasneem, and Mischka and caught up on everything that happened since I left in April 2008. It was great to see the Valleys and I'm going to do my best to stop by more often.

October 18: I spent seven hours hiking up, around, and down Table Mountain with Allen, Corey, Phil, and Amy. It was my first time hiking the mountain and it was absolutely beautiful. I'll write another post with pictures and more details just now.

This past weekend was much more relaxed. I spent Saturday morning at the Old Biscuit Mill Market catching up with Alyssa, my program director from Projects Abroad and I spent the afternoon surfing with Corey, Amy, and Allen. We got a full night of sleep in preparation for a soccer tournament that we played in on Sunday.

Aside from music festivals, hiking, surfing, and eating, I've been spending lots of time in the office. My workload is picking up and I'm getting involved in several long-term projects, mostly involving the weekend of December 4-6. The World Cup draw takes place on December 4th and the Football For Hope Centre in Khayelitsha is opening on December 5th. Both of these events will have huge media coverage and Grassroot Soccer will have the spotlight for a small part of the weekend. Several GRS Board Members and important GRS friends will be in town for the events and I am helping to prepare for the big weekend.

Table Mountain pictures to come...

Skillz DVD Launch

October 2, 2009 marked the launch of Grassroot Soccer’s first ever Skillz DVD. The DVD was filmed in Khayelitsha, but is delivered to all GRS coaches after they are trained in the GRS curriculum. The DVD featured 21 boys and girls from Khayelitsha and over 150 people attended the premiere party, including all 21 boys and girls featured in the DVD, their family members, the 93 recent Skillz graduates from Impendulo, Skillz coaches, Grassroot Soccer staff, Substance Film crew, local media, and a special appearance by professional soccer star Thabo Mngomeni. Every child who participated in the video got to walk down a red carpet, receive a goody bag, and get their picture taken with Thabo.

Walking down the red carpet at the DVD Launch Party

Weekend in Kimberley!!

Several other interns and I spent last weekend in Kimberley, a huge diamond mining city. We made the ten hour trek Friday morning and had a fun night on the town with Lindsay, Hooter, and Kristin - the GRS interns stationed in Kimberley - serving as our tour guides. After sleeping for a couple of hours, I woke up to go fly fishing with Hooter, Lindsay, Allen, Taylor, and Corey. It was my first time fly fishing and I was pleasantly surprised by how fun, peaceful, and hard it was. After fishing for a couple of hours (and catching nothing), we left to attend a South Africa versus Madagascar Soccer Game. Although it was a friendly match, it was the first time the South African National team had ever played in Kimberley. The stadium holds about 20,000 fans and was completely packed for the occasion. We spent a little too much time tailgating with the locals so the only seats we could find were standing right behind the Madagascar goal. Minutes after we entered the stadium, Bafana Bafana (term meaning "The Boys, The Boys" in reference to the South African team) had a penalty kick. Unfortunately the Madagascar keeper made a great save and the score remained 0-0 until the second half when South Africa took the lead. The rest of the game was great and the atmosphere was unlike anything I had ever experienced before.

After watching South Africa coast to a 1-0 victory over Madagascar, the ten of us spent the night at Lilydale Lodge. We spent the night braaiing, drinking, and hanging out. I introduced everyone to my favorite desert - toasted marshmallows hollowed out with a splash of Amarula (similar to Baileys). After a short night of sleep, we woke up and walked down to the river for a second round of fly fishing. We had much more success on our second day of fishing - all together, we ended up catching 5 fish (I hooked one, but wasn't able to bring it in). We eventually said goodbye to Hoot, Linds, and Kristin around 2:00 and made it back to Cape Town a little after midnight.  All in all, it was a terrific weekend.