Pictures!

This is the group of interns that have come together from all over the United States to help Grassroot Soccer. A Couple of the guys are missing from the photo. There are 26 of us altogether and we are now spread across five different countries in Southern Africa: South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Zambia, and Malawi. For more info on all the interns and other staff you can go to grassrootsoccer.org and click on the "Who We Are" link. There is a profile for each of us.

This is the hotel where we stayed in Cape Town for the first 10 days in South Africa. The hotel was located right in the shadow of Table Mountain.

This is a photo I took from the top of Table mountain after a three hour hike. It was a beautiful day. Cape Town lies in between Table Mountain and the Ocean which makes for the most incredible setting for such an interesting city.

This is a photo I took in Khayelitsha which I find to be pretty sad but very interesting. No adults were in sight where these kids were digging through the trash looking for snacks.

Khayelitsha is one of the largest townships in South Africa. You can notice the shacks upon shacks. This goes on for miles. This being said, the townships are full of energy and pride. Many of the shack owners have great pride in their homes. Most of these homes hold between five and ten people each. Note: You can click on the photo to enlarge it.

The day we spent in Khayelitsha during the first week was incredibly enlightening. It concluded with a Grassroot Soccer employee tournament held at the CTC '10 field in Khayelitsha. The field is a 3/4-size field-turf field, built in memory of a player from Franklin & Marshall University who passed away. The field is located right behind one of the town's primary schools and is lined by a chain-link fence with shacks on the other side. You can see the houses in the backdrop of the photo.

These two pictures below are from the Skillz Street League tournament we held at Sithembile Primary School in Zwide. We had 8 teams from Zwide competing for prizes. I was able to organize this with Siya which was great! Bringing all these kids together after school and teaching them about fair play and responsibility really keeps them out of trouble. This is the basis behind the Skillz Street League which is going on in Zwide and New Brighton; soon to start up in Motherwell.

This is a team picture of Nkuthalo. They are a great groups of kids and their school is very involved with Grassroot Soccer events. The kids are very passionate and play their hearts out in each game which is awesome to see considering they come straight from school with nothing to eat and no water to drink.

This is a picture of a South African sunset taken from our back porch in Port Elizabeth. The sky looks so big here and we often find ourselves talking about how different it is from where we come from in The States. (Click on the picture to make it bigger)

Here is a picture of the Bungee that we did in Tsitsikama. It was on the underside of the N2, a major highway that traverses the southern coast of South Africa. Its kind of like jumping off the underside of the Mass Pike if the Mass Pike crossed over any valleys that dropped down over 700ft. Needless to say, the jump was quite a rush.

Here is a picture of Rosie playing with some of the school children right outside our office. Having the office at a primary school in the township is one of the coolest parts about the job. There are always kids around and its hard to complete tasks in the office when they are always calling our names and wanting to hang out. I think Rosie is learning a few dance moves here from a group of first graders. Its hard to tell who is enjoying it the most.

This is one of our coaches leading "Fact Fitness" during the Holiday camp. All the schools had spring break last week so we ran holiday camps in three different sites during the week. This gives kids an opportunity to stay out of trouble while they are not going to school for the week. In New Brighton we had over 200 kids each day playing soccer, cricket, netball, and rugby. They also spent half the time learning about HIV and life skills from our coaches through the Grassroot Soccer Skillz activities. For me the camp was a great opportunity to see all of our coaches in action. I feel as though I know them all a lot better after spending a week with them out in the field. The week was not all fun & games though as three of us has to collect data from the camps and take pictures for the main sponsor, Castrol. Castrol funded all of the camps across the country. We had three camps in Port Elizabeth, two in Kimberley, one in Soweto (Jo'burg), and one in Khayelitsha. These next two weeks will be pretty busy inputting all the data from the camps and reporting to Cape Town. Castrol also requested that we find out the story for one kid at each camp and report about how this camp has "changed their lives" and "improved the community as a whole." I'm not sure they really understand what is going on, but whatever they think will work for their PR is cool with us as long as they keep providing support. I actually did meet a nice sixteen year-old boy from New Brighton who loved to play rugby. In New Brighton we worked with a partner organization called Umzingisi who promote the influence of sports on a positive lifestyle. Their campaign is similar to Grassroot Soccer but more focused on sports. Lifa, the boy I interviewed, played for the Umzingisi Dragons rugby team. The holiday program is just another avenue Grassroot Soccer uses to spread awareness for HIV and reach all the kids in the township. In one week Port Elizabeth reached almost 400 kids. This is a good start in our goal to reach over 16,000 for this next fiscal year.

This is a Photo of a girl signing the "Skillz Trial Contract": Play, Respect, Coach. All the kids do this during the first session of Skillz Core. It is referred to throughout the eight sessions and then at the end the Kids all sign the "Skillz National Team Contract," which means they will go out and share all the information they learned during their time with Grassroot Soccer with others in their community.

Here is a cool little photo I took in the bathroom at the Addo Elephant Park near PE. Its easy to see that South Africa understands how big this problem of HIV is. Its also interesting to see the different campaigns that offer solutions to the problem. The elephant park was cool, but we only saw two elephants, a few jackals, about 20 Kudu, and some warthogs. In our disappointment of not seeing any lions we went to a croc & lion park down the street where we got to play with baby lions.

I have a had a few comments about the blog and appreciate the support. A couple of people have told me that they weren't able to leave comments. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to e-mail me at dfitzpat22@gmail.com. Thanks!