Orientation, training and the plane ride from hell

I am writing this post from the "Mother City" of South Africa, Cape Town. It's hard to believe that I left Seattle over a week ago. I've traveled so many miles and missed so much sleep that the last ten days have felt more like a long extended summer afternoon...with intermittent naps. There is so much to see and so much to do, I'm already getting excited for my work and life in this incredible city. The weather is fantastic, evidenced by my sunburn on the first day. But I don't want to get ahead of myself, so I'll save the details of Cape Town, my apartment, and beginning work for another post.
I arrived last Wednesday bright and early (6:33am) in Boston to begin the journey to Hanover, NH. I was wandering around the airport, looking very lost, when Emma Carbery (a fellow GRS intern) pleasantly asked me if I was with Grassroot Soccer. Apparently I look like a tourist even in the United States. From there we caught the bus to Hanover and officially began training. The first two days were pretty intense. We hiked out to a log cabin in the New Hampshire forest to spend two days in a sweaty, proximity induced state of bonding. By the end of our stay in the log cabin, everyone was sweaty (some of us more so than others), tired (again some of us more so than others, I apologize again for my snoring if any of my fellow interns are reading this) and excited for the year to come. At this point I also want to give a big shout-out to Zack, Elise and Leah for putting on a fantastic orientation/training “mini-camp.” Our training concluded with a going-away dinner, we were introduced to the Board members (I got to meet Ethan Zohn, who won the Survivor show) and met past interns, current GRS staff and other people that have been influential in helping this vision become a reality. And finally, after a good meal, a little post training drinking, and bonding around the campfire, we headed out the next morning for AFRICA!

I had heard a lot about how long the plane ride was, there were rumors among the interns about the length of the flight, some said 14, others said 15. In the end the flight was 18 hours from Washington, DC to Johannesburg. And just for those of you who are interested in coming to visit me (spoiler alert) the flight blows. Although, in all fairness, I think my trip had a slightly unique twist. It started out normal enough, around hour six though, the man sitting to my left, who was from Senegal and spoke no English, started poking me in the chest. I opened my eyes and he was furiously pointing to his head. After a little while, the man’s son, who was sitting in the row in front of us, asked me why I stole his father’s fez (little hat like thing). I had no idea what they were talking about, but this old man was convinced that I had stolen his hat. We yelled at each other for a while, neither of us understanding the other until suddenly the man poked me really hard in the chest. Now at this point, I’d been on the flight for six hours and hadn’t gotten any sleep in like three days, so I was a bit irritable. I really didn’t want my first cultural interaction to be a fight, but I guess my “Americanism” got the best of me. And so after his third firm poke to my chest, I swiftly responded by giving him the Heisman stiff arm right to the sternum. I figured that would quiet the situation down, unfortunately I forgot to take into consideration that this man was traveling with his whole family. When about eight of the man's sons stood up all around me, I immediately regretting my decision to go with the stiff arm (Note to self: Try to pantomime a more diplomatic approach next time). I was in the midst of looking for an escape route, when luckily, the stewardess came over and sorted the problem out. (Editors note: His hat fell off his head while he was sleeping) Still for some reason the Senegalese gentleman never really took a liking to me and for the remainder of the flight, we had a silent elbow battle for the arm-rest.

Well, I think that’s all for now, I will write a post later about our first week of training here in Cape Town, seeing our office building, exploring the city and going out to the townships. Later.

p.s. I will post some pictures soon!