Voluntary Counseling and Testing Tournaments (VCT) are put on through GRS about 4-5 times a year. These tournaments are always done in one of the compounds in Lusaka, with the main goal of bringing the entire community out to participate in a day of soccer games, music and HIV testing. We have 3 of our testing partners attend the tournament, and all of our registered teams are encouraged to go through the pre-test counseling, get tested, find out their status, and receive post-test counseling along with referral to a clinic if they are to be found positive. We do the tournaments in the compounds as well to encourage and provide free testing, male circumcision(I will provide more detail on the very exciting new data surrounding the impact of this for stopping the spread of HIV), and HIV education for anyone who desires it. GRS makes sure that anyone who is tested is not left alone or without guidance after finding out their status, we make sure that they are referred to a clinic, go to their appointment and begin treatment, the work does not stop the moment someone is found to be positive.
Onto the tournament itself...
Being our first VCT tournament we did not have clear expectations going in but were ready and excited for the day! This particular one was a Skillz Street tournament, which is our all girl curriculum/tournaments. It was awesome to see so many people out at the grounds from the community supporting girls playing, because it is much less common for girls to play soccer here. Basically every compound (tend to be the poorer areas of town, that typically are much like their own borough or community) has a grounds or soccer pitch somewhere within their community.
The adventure began before the sun was up at 6am as the 3 of us interns ran back and forth loading up our car with the miscellaneous tournament supplies and cases upon cases of water, and then we were off! We did rather well navigating our way to the compound, but began to struggle a bit with the actual finding of the grounds. This difficulty was accelerated by the "fun" conditions that many of the roads are in within compounds. And when I say "fun" or "road" what I mean is a never ending supply of ditches/holes with a bit of dirt thrown in there to spice it up, and lined with Auntie's selling veggies, snacks and tons of random stuff. Not to mention people, everywhere. The roads really were not made for cars (or freakin semi-trucks, try passing one of those on a ONE LANE road), but the awesome part is the challenge that is placed before you as a Mzungu driver in these conditions. Basically you have to go in there with the mindset of being defensive and incredibly aggressive driver at the same time. By defensive I mean trying not to hit pedestrians/animals/other cars, and by aggressive I mean driving exactly like the mini-busses (tro-tro's) aka any & everything can be a road. Makes you appreciate the sweet smell of a freshly paved road, but nonetheless love the uncertainty of every wrong turn.
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| Mzungu dancing...always entertaining. |
Any who, after asking at least 5 different people, making a few 8 point turns, and lots of Zikomo's(thank you's) we were finally at the grounds. My role at the tournament was to get the 10 or so teams signed-in and supplied with water. Well this happend eventually, as I ran around the grounds asking and searching for the teams and then hurrying them along because they were on average about an hour late.The girls were all very excited to be playing in the tournament and I could see the competitive nature in the eyes of each team captain I talked to, which I could quickly relate to being an incredibly competitive person myself. The teams played their first few rounds, and the games were moving along surprisingly well. Then came time for my second responsibility, the food.
Food for appx. 250 people is never a simple task, and this proved to be no different. Myself and a few other GRS staff headed off to the very popular ZamChicken (they are everywhere, like the McDonald's of Zamiba) to pick up our order that we had placed earlier in the week to be ready at 12:00pm....it is now 2:45 PM, we have been waiting and waiting and waiting for the lunch, as we watch the ZamChicken staff pack meal after meal. After all the lunches were ready we loaded up the car with enough chicken and chips to make the Chick-fil-a cows very proud, ohh how we(we'll not me...) did "Eat Mor Chikin."
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| Intense PK shootout |
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| Great turnout for the finals! |
GET IT GIRL(s).
By 6:00pm we were all exhausted, hungry and caked in a wonderfully appealing layer of dirt. Beyond this, the tournament was a success in my book as we had a good amount of people tested and shed more light on the GRS name and the importance of stopping the spread of HIV in this community.
Next up, our first braai at the GRS abode, a recap of the Chipolopolo (Zambian National Team) game this Saturday and my bday!
Peace out girl scouts,
Casey
