I've been back stateside a few weeks now and just wanted to do a final send off and weave you through some pics of the great stuff I did in my final days with GRS and in South Africa! Let's get going, shall we?
GRS Alex HIV Counseling and Testing Tournament
Alexandra Stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa
May 11, 2013
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| Action from the Men's U-17 Group |
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| The Registration Team! From Left: Dipuo C., Thembi, Lentswe, Dipuo M. & Thandi |
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| Waiting to receive HIV Counseling and Testing (HCT) as a team! |
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| Corner kick during a Women's Open Semi-Final Match This HCT was the 2nd I had the great opportunity to coordinate and it was a huge success! Everyone had alot of fun and we were able to raise alot of awareness among the youth community of Alex. To see a full write-up of our HCT last November, click here. |
Bushfire Music Festival
Manzini, Swaziland
June 1-3, 2013
Music festival? Swaziland? Beer? Count me in! Got to go to the awesome Bushfire Music Festival in Swaziland with my friends Rob, David, Simon, Eric, Nolo and Rita...needless to say we had a blast!
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| View from the Guest House |
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| The Crew: Rob, Eric aka Danny K, David & Simon A really big highlight was that we got to see The Soil perform! They're a really awesome acapella group from Soweto, check out a video I shot of them performing "Use Somebody" here! |
President Obama's African Youth Summit
Soweto, South Africa
June 29, 2013
Yes, I know I'm not an 'African' youth...but I have been working on programs for African Youth this past year! USAID graciously provided an opportunity for GRS staff to go see the President speak at the University of Johannesburg's Soweto Campus. Needless to say but it was a pretty amazing experience and we got to sit front row! I could almost tap the president on the shoulder and challenge him to a game of b-ball!
Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries right before he spoke (of course...), regardless, enjoy the pics of my GRS Jozi staff and I:
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| The GRS Alex Staff Delegation: Mookie, Lenstwe, Me and Thandi |
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| GRS Alex + GRS Soweto = GRS Jozi! |
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| The Roomies: Matt, Ally and Me |
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| My ticket in! |
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| The obligatory flag/screen pose |
Obama's presentation is available for streaming, he had some great stuff to say and my co-worker Mookie (yellow t-shirt) is in the backgroud for like 90% of it, check it out below!
Mandela Day
Planet Earth
July 17, 2013
It's become tradition in South Africa during Mandela Day to dedicate a part of your day doing something positive and helpful for your fellow man. Seeing that GRS does great stuff for our fellow man every day, we thought it would be great to do just a bit extra and help the lunch-ladies next door to us in the youth center do their dishes. Check out some action pics:
Tebogo aka expert pot scraper!
Thandi washing the dishes
Tebogo, Thandi & Lentswe in Action
The gang drying dishes
I got my hands dirty, too!
The Final Days in South Africa
My final week in SA was kinda a whirlwind--- alot going on, to say the least! A lot of celebrations, goodbyes, parties, the whole lot.
GRS Alex hosted a going away braai for me that I'll never forget
And we got to play soccer!
Green Team vs.
Our Nemesis Archrivals the Blue Team GRRRRR
Spider-Tebza made a visit...
And then there was meat!
Curated by braai-master Tumza...
...And braai-master Deep
As this grill can attest, there was alot of meat
Followed by the awkward chair-hoisting finale (bar-mitzvah, anyone?)
And finally, I had my last going away Kota, the frankenstein-like fast food sandwich born out of the Jozi Townships...
Ingredients: A quarter loaf of bread (get it, ko-ta), fried hot dog, fried sausage, fried spam, french fries, pickled mango, sweet chili sauce, ketchup, cheese, and a little piece of bread on top just to be able to call it a sandwich. It's delicious.
The last one :(....
Again, I couldn't be more thankful for everyone who supported me this past year, I couldn't have made this year what it was and did the work that I did without you!
I'm thinking about keeping this blog but changing the name...I'll keep you posted about that :)
