http://www.mvtimes.com/marthas-vineyard/article.php?id=2209
A few weeks ago I organized a small football (soccer) tournament with 4 teams: Nyandiwa, Mang’ang’a, God-Agulu, and Assisi. The last three are youth groups my organization works with on a regular basis. My organization sponsored it and we did it as a way to give the youth something to do over their month-long break from school/university, show off their football skills, and to give them some health messages.
It was a one day tournament and we had 2 qualifying matches and 2 final matches. Assisi works with a clinic so they brought someone to test for HIV. We used one of the classrooms at the primary school where we held the tournament as a testing room. Fans came with each team, but we also had a public address system that attracted people from the surrounding area. Some young people were commentating the matches and announced the testing and encouraged people to get tested. Within the first few hours they had tested 22 people, which was above their target for the day. There were over 100 people that showed up just to watch the matches.
My organization cooked lunch for the players. The games were pretty close and it ended up with Assisi winning, Mang’ang’a in second, Nyandiwa in third, and God-Agulu in fourth. Our board members came to watch the tournament and one of them said at the end he had recognized 4 players that were exceptional and that he will work to promote them in their future football careers. I was really happy with how the tournament turned out and I look forward to doing other events like these in the future. Here are some pictures:
After cleaning my house from top to bottom and cleaning out my water supplies I have gotten rid of all the bugs and my rash. I’ve been working with my organization on planning microfinance training for some of the groups we work with in the next few months. I’ve also been purchasing the beekeeping supplies for the PCPP for Mang’ang’a Youth Group and have run into some delays. I was very disappointed that I couldn’t find the containers we need to sell the honey in Kisii or Kisumu, so I’ll have to buy them in Nairobi next week. The hives we bought from an organization were poorly made so I’m waiting for someone to come and fix them before I purchase them. At least we’ve had people requesting honey from me/making orders so once everything gets settled we’ll be able to sell them in our jars and I helped the group design a label for the jars too.
Last weekend I went to my coworker’s house because his in-laws were in town. In Luo culture, it’s a big deal when the wife’s family comes to town, and there’s LOTS of food. As I think I’ve said before, the ladies in my organization have a catering group so Kennedy hired them to cook for the family. He had rented a tent and there were about 10-15 family members plus the random people from the area who show up for the free food. I got there in the morning while everyone was at church so I helped the ladies cook and made some pretty sweet salsa. Lunch included ugali, tilapia, beef stew, fried chicken, cabbage/vegetables, sweet potatoes, peanut soup, salsa, rice, and chapati. The craziest part to me was that even though Kennedy paid and organized for everything, he couldn’t come into the tent and he just ate leftovers in the kitchen. It’s a Luo cultural taboo for him to socialize really, eat, or stay in the same place as his in-laws.
Part of the catering team. Mom, look how awesome they look in the uniforms!
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