Buckingham Browne and Nichols Spreading the Halloween love in Malawi

A couple of months ago Buckingham Browne and Nichols (BB&N) where my Mom is in the midst of her 22^nd year as the Lower School French teacher, got in touch with me about an idea they had. The school administrators proposed the idea of sending me some candy so that I could give it to some needy kids in Malawi. My Mom had been sharing my news and updates from Malawi intermittently throughout the year so many of her colleagues knew what I was up to. And went I went home for Christmas in December I actually gave a talk to about one hundred 6^th graders that covered some of my work for Grassroot Soccer in Malawi. So when I heard about BB&N’s desire to help me out in Malawi I instantly signed up to do my part. The kids and teachers that I spent time talking to in January were all fantastic people, and they all shared an interest in learning about Africa so I thought this would be a great fit.

I started having these discussions with my Mom around the end of October, as kids in Cambridge, MA were making there costume preparations for Halloween. Right after we had agreed to do something together, the kids gathered as much candy as they could fit in a big package and sent it off to my address in Malawi. I received the BB&N package around mid-January (ha! 10 weeks for a package! That’s how long it takes in the states as well, right?). As soon as I opened up the package I was really humbled by all the goodies and treats that the American kids had sent to Malawi. In addition to a collection of some of the finest candies that America has to offer, the kids wrote some really sweet cards for the Malawian kids. After talking to some of the GRS peer health evaluators out here, who all work at some local Malawian school, I decided that the best fit for these treats was a local orphanage called OCSR.

A few days after I had decided to give the treats to OCSR I went to donate the goodies with Rachel and the GRS coach who works there, Aaron, by my side. When we arrived at the orphanage there was a whole assembly of seats arranged and all of the kids were waiting impatiently for us. Before we gave them the candy they presented us with a group song and a dance to honor us as special guests. After that we ran a quick GRS activity with them, pressure limbo, a game that highlights the increased risks associated with being a sexually active teenager. Once this activity was finished it came time for me to explain to the kids what Halloween was and then present the goodies to them. Needless to say the kids had almost no idea what I was talking about when it came to Halloween (Costumes? Free candy? White people are nuts!). But when it came time for me to pass the candy around all of the kid’s faces lit up and all of them started smiling uncontrollably. The whole experience for me was really rewarding and I’m doing everything I can to repay BB&N for their kindness and generosity (hint hint, there may be a return package from the Malawian kids coming your way soon!).

Hands down the best highlight of the whole day came at the very end of the meeting when Rachel and I were just about to leave. As we got up to go to the door the kids broke out into a song. The song itself was great and catchy but it became even more powerful when our coach, Aaron, started to translate the words for me. I’ll spare you a word for word account of the song but the chorus of the song basically meant “Thank you for remembering us”. This may not seem like much but it meant an incredible amount to me because I started to think of all the people who have forgotten these unfortunate kids throughout their tough lives. At that moment I learned two things about these kids:

1.     1. How much our visit meant to them and how touched they were by the donations from BB&N.

2.     2. That Halloween was their new favorite holiday! 

Last Graduation!

Just writing to let you guys know that this morning we had our 8^th and final graduation for the second cycle of 2010. The graduation was intended for about 25 kids but almost 500 showed up to watch us dance and make a fool out of ourselves. I was actually the blunt of most jokes after I got up to introduce myself. Before I explain what happened, I want to mention that both Rachel and I have been trying to hard to improve our Chichewa in an effort to communicate more effectively with the kids. So I got up first, all excited about the prospect of introducing myself in Chichewa and said “Muli bwanji, dzina lako ndi Eren”. After I said this all of the kids started laughing, at this point I wasn’t too nervous because I thought all of the kids were just laughing at my dumb (azungu = white person) butchery of their language. They always laugh at me anytime I try to speak Chichewa or try to dance so this wasn’t anything new to me. Unfortunately though, it seems that the kids had more reason to laugh at me than I had realized. Turns out I should have said “Muli bwanji, dzina LAKO ndi Eren”. I guess my first attempt meant “Good afternoon, your name is Eren” instead of “Good afternoon, my name is Eren”. I guess you can’t say I’m not trying…

Anyways, after I got past the embarrassment I managed to take a lot away from our last graduation ceremony. This ceremony took place in Chinsapo, the newest and furthest GRS site in Lilongwe. The fact that Chinsapo was brand new to the GRS program in Malawi, and that it is far away from all of the other sites means that there is a lot of work to be done if we want to make the brand Grassroot Soccer well known in the community. For the most part GRS is fairly well known in and around Lilongwe, but the more you go out of town you find fewer people who have heard of our NGO. So today was a great opportunity to get the word out on what we do and what we’re all about. And I think we did that pretty well (except for my language blunder, which everyone laughed off anyway). The really great news is that the event took place in front of so many people, because now there are 500 more people in the area who know what GRS is and 500 more people who know how important it is to get tested.

Before I sign off I want to share two really cool stories from last Saturday’s graduation in Kawale. The graduation itself was a huge success as we were able to graduate about 150 kids and there were a number of celebrated guests in attendance.

Story #1 – One of our most major guests, the head chief of the Kawale district, attended our event and seemed tired all afternoon. Granted he was a fairly old man, maybe 80 years old or more, but I was still slightly worried that he wasn’t engaged or something. After the event the GRS Malawi team went to go talk to him to thank him for coming and it was during this interaction that he said one of the most touching things I’ve heard since I’ve been here. After we were done saying thank you and all that jazz, the chief turned to us and said “Before I came here I was hungry” (at this point all of us were a bit worried because maybe he was upset that we kept him in a room for four hours but neglected to feed him) but then he continued with “now, I am full”. I guess this is a popular saying in Malawi and basically what it means is that his heart and soul are full of happiness. Turns out the chief was absolutely thrilled by the event and as he left he promised us that he would help us in any way possible in the future – a really great promise when you consider how much power this man has in the community.

Story #2 – One of my favorite traditions in GRS is the coach’s story. This is something that each GRS participant and coach is encouraged to create and master during his/her time with GRS. The story is supposed to be very personal, and it is supposed to explain why he/she decided to join the fight against HIV/AIDS. At the Kawale graduation, one of the children got up to share his coach’s story. At first all of us were a bit skeptical because the kid about the share his story was normally a bit of a goof. But as he got up in front of everyone in attendance something in his demeanor changed – as he readied himself for the story you could see that he was digging deep to reflect on a very challenging time in his life. The story was an incredibly sad one, about how his older brother died of HIV/AIDS. I won’t go into too much detail about the story because its actually quite long (if you want to hear the whole thing email me), but all you have to know is that the story involves an absolutely tragic and unnecessary death -- one that might have been avoided if this kid’s older brother got the chance to learn the GRS curriculum. After he was finished wit the story, he stared out at the audience with tears in his eyes. Everyone who had heard his story couldn’t help but share the tears, and as he went to sit down numerous people went up to him and either hugged him or thanked him for sharing. The kid ended his story by explaining that his brother’s death forced him to join GRS. As I write this blog post half a week later, I still can’t shake the image of this kid getting up to share this powerful story.

ARV treatment in Malawi

When I first got to Malawi I had no idea what ARVs were. To be honest, I’m not ever sure if I’d ever heard the name. But the more time I spend here, and more specifically the more time I spend working at Baylor’s pediatric HIV hospital, the more I realize how important these drugs are for patients suffering from HIV/AIDS.  ARV meds can be the difference between an HIV/AIDS patient living until he’s 80 years old, and an HIV/AIDS patient dying at a very early age because of the disease. Patients who put themselves through regular ARV treatment come across as healthy and happy people. People who don’t have access to this type of treatment can suffer through a slow and painful death.

The whole reason I bring this up is to highlight a piece of news that I just read in the Malawian newspaper this morning. The article informed me that there are currently 250,000 people on regular ARV treatment in Malawi. This may sound like a good number, but when you go digging into the details you’ll realize that this means that only 25% of people living with HIV/AIDS in Malawi are receiving the care they need to survive. You see, the population of Malawi is just over 14 million. And many of the most recent estimates about HIV/AIDS in Malawi suggest that the national prevalence rate is somewhere between 12 and 14 percent. This means that even at a very conservative guess, there are over one million people living with HIV/AIDS in Malawi today. (A more adventurous guess would put that total much closer to two million, around 1.7 if you want to be exact). But regardless of what the total number is, this much is clear – there is a significant number of Malawians infected with HIV/AIDS who are not receiving access to ARV medication. When you consider that in some countries like Botswana and Namibia the ARV coverage rate is between 70 and 80 percent, you can see that a in a country in Malawi where only 25% of people are covered, there is still a lot of work to do. 

I don't care about your name! I just want to see you dance

In a lot of ways this past week has been the culmination of my first six months in Malawi. Every single one of our sites – Area 36, Area 25, and Kawale – has recently finished their 10-week GRS HIV education curriculum and as a result we’ve been spending the past couple of days graduating all of the newest members of the GRS family.  All of our coaches and all of the kids graduating have put in a ton of work and effort to get to graduation day, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to convey the happiness and joy that fills the room when these kids accept their certificates. Most of the graduation classes put together a poem or a song about GRS to help celebrate the day. I’ve been blown away with the amount of talent and effort that goes into each one of these works of art. I’ve been taking a lot of pictures, and actually a lot of videos too, but as always I won’t be able to post them onto my site because of the terrible Internet here in Malawi. I have a hard enough time posting these blog updates!

Anyways, I’m basically writing this post to talk about two things that I’ve enjoyed the most in the past two weeks:

1)     Dancing – I can’t even count the amount of times that I’ve been forced to dance in front of hundreds and hundreds of people during my graduation ceremony tour. It seems that Malawians are more concerned with seeing an individual’s dancing ability than anything else. At one graduation ceremony yesterday one of the teachers in charge of the program literally said the following to me after I was done introducing myself: “I don’t care about your name! I want to see you dance!”.  After he finished saying those fateful words all of the kids in attendance, close to 1,000 in total, started clapping their hands frantically in eager anticipation of my moves. Needless to say I didn’t disappoint (that is one video I might intentionally be hiding).  The whole dancing thing may seem a little weird at first but when you think about it, it’s pretty awesome. It just shows you how much people around here enjoy life, no matter the circumstances. They could be starving, dying of some disease, in total poverty, but if there is a beat they will dance and enjoy life for as long as they can. I was trying to think about what would happen in the States if one of the teachers started clapping and waiting for everyone to dance and I immediately recognized the fact that almost every single American kid would just sit in his seat and be weirded out by what was happening. In Malawi, the kids are ready to dance and have fun whenever and that makes things a lot more fun for me.

2)     Commitment to GRS – One of the most astounding things I’ve been trying to wrap my head around recently is the level of commitment that these kids show to the fight against HIV/AIDS. As I was sitting through a graduation ceremony yesterday I started asking myself – “Why are these kids even here? Why would they devote so much extra curricular time to our program when there is no tangible benefit to be gained?”. In all honesty I was having hard time finding answers to these questions. I mean, we were putting these kids through an intensive 10-week HIV education program, where they devote hours and hours of time outside of school and giving them no tangible reward.  I was imaging myself at that age and thinking about what I would have done back in the day, and I’m pretty sure I would have avoided any sort of serious extra curricular work at all costs.

But then it hit me – these kids don’t need any monetary or tangible rewards for this education because all they really care about is the knowledge itself. This is a disease that affects almost every single Malawian (I guarantee that everyone in the graduation room knew at least one person touched by HIV/AIDS). These kids just want revenge. They want to learn about what has been attacking them and their communities so that they can one-day defeat it. To sit back and watch the level of commitment that these kids had within themselves gave me a new sense of inspiration and passion for my work. Their dedication proves just how serious the problem of HIV/AIDS is in the region, and it proves that we need to do everything in our power to beat it once and for all.

In other news, starting to get very excited for the Super Bowl. Sunday night will be a very very late night but its hands down one of my favorite events of the year so I’m going to find a TV and get my popcorn ready.

Prediction – Colts 31, Saints 23