Location: Meheba Refugee Settlement, Zambia
Event: 3rd VCT Skillz Tournament
Date: November 13th, 2010 from 0700 till 1500
A VCT Tournament, but not just any VCT Tournament, the 3rd in a long line of success stories of chaos turned solace turned unparalleled testing numbers. My first VCT Tournament!!! An event that pairs a football, and in this case netball, tournament with a full day of testing, how sweet two of my favorite things in the world…prevention and football.
Eight netball and eight football teams qualified to participate in the tournament based on the current league standings as of the first week in November. They arrived late on Friday evening to eat their starches (nshima) and to prepare for a the competitive day ahead of them. All of the participants lodged in the Meheba F Basic School for the evening. Some of them arrived very late, midnight in fact, long after I had put myself to bed in anticipation of my 5 a.m. wake up call. This is simply testament to the nightmare that is transport in Meheba. The camp is split up into 8 zones, ranging from letter A to letter H. I often feel like I am in a sesame street episode when I am trying to figure out where people and vehicles are coming from…brought to you by the letter C. Traveling to and from Zones is complicated due to the distance. Bicycles help but to travel from one end of the camp to the other hours must be spent in a vehicle- 2 and a half hours…and that is just the main road that gives you access to Zone A, B,C, D, and H. Never mind getting to Zone E, F, or G. Zone F was the site of our tournament…off the beaten track and it took a canter many hours and trips to bring 216 youth to spend the night so that they could start their games at 0800 the next morning.
Giggles were the sounds of the evening and cheers were the sounds of the morning. Supporters of their teams began arriving about an hour after all of the set-up had been finalized for the morning. Testing counselors arrived fashionably late and were met by lines of 20 to 30 people promptly ready to test (or were they there to get the chitenge and sugar that were given upon testing? This was a question I found myself asking throughout the day and am still pondering…). Testing began briefly after the start of the first rounds of games.
I spent the morning delivering packages of sugar to those counselors that had tested 30 people and given away all of their sugar, answering questions, refusing to give people my t-shirt, encouraging people to test, checking-in on the amazing volunteers that executed crowd control like I have never seen before. Before I knew what to do with myself it was lunch time. I enviously gazed over to the football pitch and saw tons of little kids swarm the field after a team scored. Two days before, while deep in the thick of preparing for the tournament I braved the masses and decided to play a bit of football with the Zambians. Did ok- 2 assists and a million laughs as I ran up and down the field…but it was an experience to play on a pitch with people playing in bare feet, thick socks, sole-less shoes, and cleats.
As the day slowed around 4:00 I cleaned up the cotton and methylated spirits that were left over and finally made my way over to the field. Zambian music was bumping and celebrations had begun for the wining teams. A successful day.
All in all 1,087 people tested. That is a lot of people. A day to remember.
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