We held a VCT Challenge day in a compound (Compounds are the ‘slums’ or ‘townships’ of Lusaka) just outside of Lusaka city center.
**QUICK** note on VCT: VCT=Voluntary Counseling and Treatment and it’s a very important aspect of GRSZambia above all other GRS sites. In all other GRS sites, the large grants are given specifically for interventions (our education and prevention camps) but not for testing. GRSZambia is the only site that has a large grant specifically dedicated to testing and counseling. This grant provides money for us to have events every Saturday in different compounds around Lusaka where we provide on-site portable testing centers for anyone who wants to get tested. We have 3 different types of VCT events. One type is a VCT Graduation, where we hold a ceremony for the kids who have graduated from our interventions and encourage them to get tested afterwards. Another is a VCT Tournament where we invite local teams and organize a full tournament with prizes and throughout the day encourage the teams and community members to get tested. And the last is a VCT Challenge where we play a few GRS games with community members but mostly just have music and entertainment and encourage everyone to get tested. For all events we hire a DJ and entertainers and do community outreach beforehand to maximize community turnout and maximize people getting tested.
This is a very exciting step forward for Grassroot Soccer because this means we are one step closer to comprehensive HIV and AIDS education coverage. Comprehensive coverage means education about HIV, then pretest counseling (to prepare the person getting tested for either result, positive or negative), then testing, then referrals for HIV positive people to clinics where they can get ARVs (ARVs are incredibly important to our mission to defeat AIDS because they decrease an infected person’s viral load which exponentially decreases the chances that they will infect other people), then finally a curriculum that has a specific focus on HIV positive children that emphasizes the importance of continuing treatment. We are currently working on an HIV-positive curriculum that we should be rolling out in the next few months. And since we have partnered with local clinics who distribute ARVs, we are only a few months away from being able to provide comprehensive HIV and AIDS coverage- this is HUGE.
So we had a challenge day at an open field in a compound. This open field was basically a field of reddish dust with more than a few boulders sticking out of the ground. And of course there were two soccer goal posts on either side of the field. (In my 5 days driving around the city I have yet to see one open space of more than 100 feet by 50 feet without some sort of goal posts on either side. I’ve seen tree branch goal posts, cement goal posts, live trees with a string tied from one to the other for the cross bar. Not to mention the different objects I’ve seen used for soccer balls. Zambians are hands down the most creative people I’ve ever seen. They’ve mastered creating something out of nothing.) And it was a Saturday so there were youth games being played on the field where we set up.
There are no youth leagues here in Zambia. The way it works is the coach of one compound calls the coach of another compound and asks if they want to play the next weekend. If they say yes then they play. No referee. No league officials to report the scores to. No league champion. Just playing for the love of the game and to represent your compound.
During the under 14 game, I jumped into a game of keepaway with players from the under 17 team who were playing next. Two of the 10 guys had proper soccer shoes, 6 of them were wearing socks and the other two were playing barefoot. On a rock bed.
After signing the paperwork and going through pre-test counseling with these new friends of mine, one by one we stepped into the testing tent. (Getting tested for HIV is actually an incredibly easy process. All it takes is a simple prick on the tip of your finger and a couple drops of blood on a test swab. 5 minutes later you know your results.) After getting tested we all waited nervously in the waiting area together, nervous for very different reasons I might add. The majority of my nerves came from the very real possibility that one of my new friends is going to find out right here, today that he has HIV. And a small amount of nerves came from the fact that this was my first HIV test and, although I am confident that I have made the right decisions in my life to avoid HIV, it is still a very small possibility. Their nerves came from the fact that they have lived nearly 2 decades not knowing how to avoid HIV/AIDS and not having the tools necessary to avoid contracting the virus meanwhile living in a country where 1 in 7 people are infected. I quickly put my nerves into perspective.
As we waited together and shared a moment where our lives were very quickly going to take one of two very distinct paths, the goalie of the team invited me to play in the game against their biggest rivals later that day. I quickly and very happily accepted the invitation and was honored by the idea that I was most likely going to be the only Mazungu (white person) to ever play on this field (rock bed). And as these rival games are rarely witnessed by Mazungus let alone played in by one, a new rush of nerves overcame me. I have to play well.
Those nerves quickly dissipated when real life hit me and I was called into the results tent. After a very long 15 minutes of questioning by the counselor about all the risky behavior in my entire life and what my next steps would be if I tested positive, I finally answered to her satisfaction and she read my results: Negative. The best and least expected news of the day, however, came when I got outside the tent to all 10 of my new friends who had also tested negative. With that land mine now avoided, we were late for our game and we rushed to get to the field before kickoff to take on a bunch of huge “17 year olds.”
A crowd quickly gathered as the game started because this was the big event of the day for the local community who all came out to support their home team, my team, the Soweto Tigers. Every time I got near a sideline I would get two thumbs up and a huge smile from people in the crowd, now growing by the second to three or four deep around the entire field. We went into half time tied 0-0 and I stood and nodded my head at the halftime speech the coach was delivering in Nyanja (their language), understanding zero words of what was just said. I was handed what looked like the corner of a shopping bag that was cut and filled with frozen sugar water and I gladly guzzled down their version of Gatorade (again, something out of nothing) as a teammate approached me and said, “we’ve never had this many people out watching us. The word must be spreading about the Mazungu. HAHAH.” I started the second half determined to score the game winner to the dismay of my coach because I play center back. Every chance I got I left my defensive responsibilities in search of a crowd pleaser. The thumbs up and the smiles continued and gave me the energy I needed to continue the exhausting runs. Unfortunately the best I could do was hit the post on the header but fortunately we won 1-0 in the closing minutes on a cross that I watched from 5 feet away as my teammate buried. After the final whistle was blown, the crowd quickly closed in on the field and surrounded us, cheering for their home victory in such an important game. For the rest of the day as I went around the field doing my duties working at our GRS event, I was followed by about a hundred smiling people, of every age group from very young children to adult men to elderly women, all very excited about their victory and curious about the mysterious mazungu.
Yesterday I was in a place that had next to nothing but had more joy than any place I had ever been. I made new friends whose lives couldn’t be more different than my own, except the love of soccer and our status as HIV free. That’s all we needed. And so started my soccer career in Zambia and my love for the people and culture of Lusaka.
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