And this, my friends, is the beautiful girl who will be in my arms tomorrow morning.

We threw a kickass post Valentine's party at my house Saturday night. About 60 people showed up and my living room/balcony still wasn't completely full. Of course the power for the whole neighborhood was out until about an hour before the party so we were scrounging for candles and had settled on possibility of this (romantic) setback. Luckily the power came back, but the candles stayed and eventually lit one of our friends on fire later in the night. She survived. Also a rather flamboyant Zambian guy somehow managed to dance his way through our television and break it. Party foul. Despite all this, the most disturbing part of the night was that we called the party for 8:00 and a bunch of people actually showed up on time. Who does that?

Here are my beautiful ladies Ali, Leah, Nancy and May. Leah and May (my housemates) made heart-shaped cookies, made everyone wear red to the party and even made the kissing booth pictured above because that's what girls do. I grilled chicken wings pre-party and got the beer. Way too stuck in our gender roles.


Everyone was supposed to wear red and I picked up this shirt in the back alleys of this covered market in town. The place was scarily like a maze, but when I emerged, I was victorious. I was on a mission to find bootleg 50 cent t-shirts and thoroughly amused myself by going up to vendors saying "I'm looking for 50 cent. Can you show me where he is?" In process I realized that my long lost brother is Michael Ballack:


This is my boy Bernard having a zen moment at 3am when someone turned on U2. Pele supports him just in case.



Now it's 4:30. Things died down around 2:30 actually, but about ten remained for a two hour long dance party finale. By this time Luka, Sarah and I have formed a band. I'm on air drums, Sarah is playing air tamborine and Luka is playing the fan guitar (really well) on the floor while we all sing Hey Jude. Priceless.

Friday I made a really interesting trip into Chawama, one of the poorer compounds in Lusaka. I've been there many times before, but this time I went to visit a sports ground that has been designated solely for the use of girls in the community. This is a unique and positive venture because it really gives girls a space of their own, one in which they are able to develop both as athletes and as confident young women. In places like Chawama you see kids on the street all the time with nothing to do. This ground is a place where girls can go to be active and interact with other girls through physical activity. Grassroot Soccer is donating a bunch of soccer balls for the girls. My hope for the future is that we can somehow turn these young women into role models in the community who actively educate other girls about HIV but also positive self esteem and the confidence to make healthy decisions.

I've joined a bowling league. Not only is there a bowling alley in Lusaka, but there's actually a league and I'm living out my Big Lebowski fantasy. Our team name is the Bowling Stones, which is a take-off of rolling stones, not anything else that may have come to mind, honest. The thing about the league is that it's pretty much all white because to join you need a bundle of money and it's my belief that Zambians aren't going to spend money like that on the leisure sport of bowling, golf maybe, but not ten pin. This is certainly not ideal, but neither is my average. Right now I'm around 125, but I'm trying to up the ante. I'll keep you posted.

So finally, after a three month absence, we made a trip back to the Mayukwayukwa refugee camp. Of course everything was in shambles. Our whole program had fallen apart. Everyone there was expecting us to come for World Aids Day on December 1st. However, due to lack of funds we had to cancel our trip. The problem was that our funder, the Internation Organization of Migration (IOM), and specifically their Zambian Project Coordinator was back in the US for two months. We needed her signature and finally got it last week. So our program at the camp was dormant from November-February, way too long for things to continue without support. Our educators there had pretty much given up hope that we were ever coming back. So my job was to jump-start things and get the ball rolling. I think we accomplished this. I mean, I hope we did. We are scheduled to go back two more times, a pair of trips that serve as bookends for the month of March. Our contract is up then and we are planning a big celebration day for everyone we've worked with. This means tons of organizing because even our funder's funder, CIDA (please bare with me and all the acronyms) is making a trip and our program is going to be the centerpiece of their visit. You know your boy has everything under control.

I should mention that this particular (mostly Angolan) refugee camp has been in existance for the past forty years and is finally being dismantled. What does this mean? It means that all these people who were born in the camp and know no other life, let alone Angola, are about to lose their status as refugees and be left to the whim of the Zambian government.

It's unclear what steps they will take, but it's possible that they will pack up the refugees and drop them off at the Angolan border. I really haven't got a handle on everything that's going down, but I'll update you when I find out more. It's odd to know that just as GRS pulls out at the end of March, that's just the beginning of UNHCP, World Food Progam and even IOM all slowly saying PEACE!

Victor organized a soccer game this past Sunday: American Girls vs. Japanese Girls. Nuff said. #10 on Estrella Japan was actually nasty . She was cutting people up. I felt pretty cool taking this team shot because, let's be honest, aren't the Japanese usually behind the camera, not in front of it.


The American Girls aka the Expat Honeys were led by my homegirls Leah (the laughing head underneath the Total sign) and May (the one shoe wonder). Victor coached the Americans to a chilling 13-2 victory as Luka(in red) refereed under suspicions of being paid off by the Japanese. They didn't pay him well enough.

Astute readers might pick up on my b/w kick. Here are three shots of downtown Lusaka. First at the central bus station Kulima Tower. Amidst the street hustle and shouts of vendors, peddlers, and thieves, these men sit, waiting. Maybe they're on the look out for a heavy load they can wheel to make a few bucks, or maybe they're just meditating on life in the city. Either way, I didn't stay long enough to find out.


You'd never notice it sandwiched between two shoe stores; you could pass it by without a second glance, but if you want to find it, New Start is right there. New Start is a volunteer counseling and testing center in the heart of Lusaka. Last week I came here with two of my best friends, Peter and Izek, so we could all get tested for HIV. To get tested is free but you have to come on your own accord so a lot of people neglect it. I don't know for sure, but I think people there were surprised to see a white person coming to get tested. That doesn't happen too often. The actually test was a pinprick, a trickle of blood, and then not more than a five minute wait for the results. My counselor handed me a folder with my identification number on it. My heart was beating hard. I opened it to find the results I expected. I was HIV negative. So were Peter and Izek. I asked the counselor if she thought the number of people coming to get tested was increasing. She was positive it was. I hope so.


My own private Guggenheim, down a back alley in Lusaka. I love the spiral walkway which is almost anachronistic in it's placement. You would never know it was there, but right on the main street in town, Cairo Road, a dim passage opens up to this courtyard. There's a man bending over cleaning the defunct fountain. You can see a sign in the right hand corner for a fast food joint me and my friend Pete ate at.

I realize, in trying to give you a balanced view of my life here, I've forgotten to enlighten you more about Grassroot Soccer. So, back to the basics. This past week at the Kidsafe Soccer League, GRS was holding it down with a game called My Supporters. This is an exercise that illustrates the stigmitization of people living with HIV and how, instead of abandoning them, we need to help them and give them our support. Essentially, it's a lesson in breaking down stigma.

One kid is chosen to come to the middle. Then a group forms a tight circle around the participant. As illustrated below the kid in the middle folds her arms across her chest, shuts her eyes and then lets herself fall. The circle bolsters her making sure she doesn't fall down. Essentially its like a revised trust fall.



Next the kids are told a scenario. The person in the middle represents someone with HIV. The circle represents the community that this person lives in. One person from the circle is designated as a parent, another a doctor or teacher, a few more friends. Now, what happens when people stigmatize an HIV positive person and abandon them? Circle members are asked to step back from their support position. Maybe a friend thinks that coming in contact with such a person will infect them. Maybe a parent can't accept that their child is positive. Once people have abandoned their posts, the person in the middle is asked if they want to go through with the activity if their supporters continue to reject them. There are few left to catch them if they fall. Finally, the supporters are brought back into the circle to show that with their support, the HIV positive person won't fall.

I think this game illustrates well the ill effects of stigma. At a time when a person needs the most support, the stigma surrounding HIV can leave them alone and abandoned. However, with support there is hope and the possibility of living a postive positive life.

These are a few of my trainers politiking when their not teaching GRS:


Bonus: This cat just had it going on