Rains Down in Africa and a friendly visitor!

Umjani dear friends,
A post inspired by my beloved journal
10.26.2012


These past two weeks Port Elizabeth has received more precipitation in a two week span than ever in its history. For the past week it has literally not stopped raining. There has been major flooding in the city and many people have  had a lot of trouble with flooding and considerable damage in their own houses. Kait's room got a little wet, however we have been very lucky otherwise. Although, petty compared to the troubles that many others are experiencing in the city, I have had trouble with having clean clothes. Taking my dad's frugality to heart, I have been cutting costs by doing my laundry by hand in the bathtub and then putting it on the line outside. I am proud to say I have not visited a laundry mat yet, however I was on the verge the past couple of days. I haven't been able to put my clothes on the line because it has not stopped raining! So, I had to improvise...

Socks in the tub

Using all of my inside space

Sinkhole Created from the rain between Port Elizabeth and East London!

The fellow interns and I (in PE) have been organizing a Goals for Grassroots Tournament that was supposed to be this past Saturday however it was put in abeyance due to the rain. The tournament is predominately fundraising for the Port Elizabeth site specifically instead of Grassroot Soccer as whole. I am responsible with getting teams to enter our tournament. Due to our monetary fundraising goal, our main targets are local, affluent businesses. So, I have been visiting as many businesses as possible giving them my elevator pitch for Grassroot Soccer. Although, entering a business and asking for sponsorship or financial support can be quite daunting, I have found my groove and found it quite enjoyable. I think being from America has also inadvertently helped me out in the process. Americans usually find foreign accents fascinating (everyone knows how much I enjoying trying to replicate other accents!), however this is the first time that people have been fascinated by my natural accent. There have been several times that people have asked me where I am from and how I got involved with Grassroot Soccer and that is when I am able to tell them my personal story of getting involved with GRS. For those of you who don't know, here is the link to an old blog post about my journey to Port Elizabeth.
http://matthewhusband.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-story-of-my-internship.html

I also had the opportunity to speak on the local radio to spread the news of Grassroot Soccer and our tournament! The first five minutes were quite nerve wracking, however it was a lot of fun to tell Grassroot's Soccer story and have a chance to get our name out further in the City. I get to cross another item off my bucket list!

 11.4.2012
I have also been blessed with a friendly visitor this weekend! William Tarpeh came to Durban for a week for a sanitation conference associated with his graduate work at Cal. He also had the opportunity to swing a weekend trip to Port Elizabeth to hang out and see the city. We had a myriad of crazy interactions over the weekend with some of the friends that I have met in the city. However, I think my absolute favorite interaction was when I introduced William to a staff member who was amazed that I had a friend in America who was from the same home town and was black! She said that made her very happy, it was such a candid, real moment and I was glad that she did not sugarcoat her initial reaction to meeting William.

William was able to see the office where I work, meet the staff, coaches and even participate in a friendly soccer match with another NGO in PE. We spent most of our Saturday with one of the coaches and went to see a local semiprofessional soccer team play. The game was fun and relaxing and thanks to our gregarious coach we came away with free t-shirts! We finished both  nights of his visit with friendly, yet healhty competitive gaming of Settlers of Catan and Blokus. You say typical, I say natural. All in all it was a wonderful, refreshing visit. I can't wait for my next visitor!