May 15 VCT

As I was watching the finals of last Saturday’s VCT event something struck me. In the span of just over four hours I had gone through the full cycle of human emotions.

At first I was panicked because so many things were missing and the event was about to start. Then I was disappointed because we had started so late and I thought this would affect the overall number of people that we could test. After this I started to feel happy and inspired as I watched all of our superstar GRS coaches and all of the amazing volunteers put so much energy and effort into salvaging our event. A short time later I was amazed at how much we had accomplished in such a short span of time with so many obstacles in front of us. Considering the circumstances last Saturday’s VCT event was as big a team effort as I’ve experienced in my life, and I’m truly speechless when I think about how thankful I am for everyone that participated. The kids, the GRS coaches, the Tingathe volunteers, the teachers…

For a while I really thought that the whole thing was going to be a disaster. If I’m being honest, there was probably a good 15 minutes when I thought we should all just pack up and call it a day before anything else went wrong.

Rachel and I arrived at the local primary school that would be hosting our event (Kalambo) at around 7 am and we immediately started setting up. The only problem was that nobody else showed up until around 9:30, a good thirty minutes after the scheduled start time. There was only so much we could do by ourselves so after a while it became clear that we would pretty much have to wait for all of the other pieces – the PA system, the kids, the village chiefs, the school teachers, our counselors and testers, the testing kits etc etc. The longer we took to get started the later into the day our tournament would go, and this is never a good thing when you consider how cranky and hangry people get if they stay too late past lunchtime without receiving any food.

Just to give you a good idea of how badly things were going at the start I’ll try to capture the first 15 minutes of the tournament. The tournament was supposed to start at 9:30 with four schools playing soccer games and the other four going through their counseling and testing sessions. Instead the games didn’t start until 10:30 and within the first thirty seconds of our first game a young girl passed out from overheating and exhaustion. At the same time the other four schools couldn’t go through their counseling or testing sessions because we were still waiting on the test kits to arrive. Additionally the PA system still wasn’t working because of some electrical problems. Normally we set up the PA system as early as possible to attract people and in theory get more community members tested. But on Saturday we weren’t able to get the PA system going until around 11:30. As you can imagine, things were not going as planned.

Ultimately, through a combination of hard work and teamwork, we were able to pull through all of these obstacles and host a successful event. In the end we managed to test 175 people, which is really an impressive number when you consider all of the obstacles and the fact that the particular area that we were working at was much harder to mobilize for testing. I think when this is all over and I’m back home thinking about Malawi and all the work we did here, I’m going to be particularly proud of last Saturday’s event. So many people did so many wonderful things to make the event a successful one and that’s why I’ll never forget it. People could have easily given up and blamed a lack of materials for the failure of the event. But instead the GRS and Baylor team rallied together and didn’t let the event fail. And because of that 175 people know their status and hundreds more have learned all about the behavior change needed to overcome HIV/AIDS.

Awesome graduation and tomorrow's VCT

GRS graduations have to be my favorite part of this internship. Today I went to the first graduation of the second school semester and while I sat there watching over thirty kids graduate I couldn’t help but have the goofiest smile on my face. I couldn’t really put my finger on why I love these things so much but I think it has something to do with all the joy and happiness that these kids exude when they accept their GRS certificates. They’re all so pumped to graduate and as soon as they receive their certificate all they want to do is show it off in front of their friends and family. All of the kids are extremely proud (and they should be), it’s really cool to see.

Most of the time the GRS Malawi team rolls pretty deep to these graduations. But this time I had to attend the graduation by myself because Rachel and our program manager were busy getting ready for this Saturday’s VCT event in Area 25. I didn’t think too much of the fact that I was flying solo at first, but as soon as the ceremony got rolling and I looked at the program I understood what being the sole GRS representative meant. I should have put two and two together earlier but for some reason I didn’t. Normally our program manager gives a 10 to 15 minute speech where he congratulates the GRS participants and thanks the school for letting us work with them. With Brian busy with VCT stuff, I realized that I was going to have to perform his duties and speak on behalf of the GRS team. After panicking a bit at first I only settled down when I started convincing myself that they wouldn’t want me to speak. “I don’t speak Chichewa…no one told me I had to speak…they wouldn’t want to hear what I have to say…”

Fortunately all of those useless ramblings in my head turned out to be completely false and the whole school did indeed want me to speak. The person who spoke before me was the regional Primary school advisor to the government and I’m not kidding when he finished his 15 minute speech with the following:

“Thank you so much for your time. The last thing I want you to know is how proud and happy we are for all of you. We hope that you will all continue to use the knowledge that GRS has imparted on you. I don’t have much else to say and I don’t want to take up more of your time because I know you’re all here to here what Eren, our GRS representative has to say. I know he will want to speak for a long time so let me introduce him now…”

As soon as he finished with that last sentence my panick levels started to go back up to code red. Did he just say that he didn’t have much to say?? He just spoke for 15 minutes! Did he just say that he knows that I have a lot to say…Oh no!

I wish you could have seen me stumble up to the center of the room, struggle with my Chichewa greetings, and attempt to make a managerial speech for the kids. In th end I think I held my own, I just focused on the kids and told them that they were all part of the GRS family now. My speech couldn’t have lasted more than five minutes but I gave it everything I had and in the end I think the kids enjoyed it. If nothing else, I’m sure they enjoyed seeing a silly Muzungu (white person) make a fool of himself!

Alright, well I thought I would just share that story with you because I thought it was fairly amusing. I’ll also share a highlight from the day before I sign off:

After the ceremony was finished and the kids starting dispersing to their various crowds I saw one kid, a GRS participant with a brand new certificate with his name on it, turn to his friends and push the certificate in their faces. He was so proud and happy and you could tell that all of his friends were incredibly jealous. I’m hoping that every single one of those kids signs up for GRS intervention next semester and something tells me that they will. I can’t tell you how cool it is to see kids get so excited about an extra curricular activity, especially one about HIV/AIDS.

Alright well that's it for me. We have a big VCT tomorrow (maybe our last one ever!) so I'm praying that it goes well. I'll be sure to write early next week as soon as I can to let you all know how it goes. In the meantime go Celtics and best wishes to you all!