In training.

Reverting back to months ago, 8 to be exact, I was in training to become a Grassroot Soccer intern. But how on earth do you train to be an intern? One day your job is entering data onto a computer, the next day it is wandering around schools searching for Head Masters to stamp a letter, and yet another day involves picking up 200 + footballs. All of those odd tasks have lead to a comprehensive and quirky knowledge of what it is exactly that GRS does and what we don't do. Often I find that coming up with the "What we DON'T do" list is more accommodating when trying to describe my position and the organization to people. We don't coach soccer or even play soccer, we don't provide scholarships, we are NOT satanists, etc. We are a team of passionate and hilarious human beings, who are motivated to engage and inspire youth, through knowledge and relationships, to prevent themselves from acquiring HIV. And that long winded sentence is exactly what the culture and mission that we are attempting to inspire in our new trainees.

Currently GRS mobilizes approximately 60 peer educators across the city who implement our curriculum, conduct home-visits, council, deliver HIV testing results, and support their participants in intangible ways. They are the meat, the life-force, the blood of the organization and the reason that I LOVE what I do. This week and last week a new initiative has begun. Training new coaches. A daunting saga that has played out in a rather introspective way-

Each morning at 8:00 a group of 30+ Zambians are running around a field in "kid mode," the mode that I channel daily with bare feet and finger food, that activates your inner youth and allows you to dance like a crazy person and relish in the innocence of play and the freedom of no wrong answers or silly questions. We energize our attitudes in "kid mode" and engage difficult issues in "adult mode" all the while teaching the entire 10 session curriculum and inspiring compassionate facilitation tactics such as safe space, conversation, and praise...

Laughter is heard. Nyanja (local language) is abundant. And by 5:00pm so much stimulation from observing, contributing, answering questions, cleaning, and keeping time has drained all the "kid mode" out of my being, and "adult mode" is advising sleep.

Watching these potentially future coaches experience the curriculum for the first time. To watch connections between the activities and messages being made is like looking in a mirror. I remember 8 months ago playing "HIV attacks," a game that teaches about the biology of HIV. Forming a circle we all name a disease. Mine is Malaria. One person volunteers to enter the middle of the circle, they are our token Human. The human gets attacked by the diseases circling him or her. The diseases toss themselves around in the form of a football (soccer ball). The human is hit 12 times and is now extremely sick. But, the body is smart and has a fighting system, the Immune System. Body soldiers that fight diseases that try to attack the human. Another individual enters the middle of the circle and is marked the Immune System, they then are allowed to move freely and block the soccer ball from hitting the Human. The ball only touches the Human 2 times.

Alas, there is HIV. What does HIV do? Well, it attacks the Immune System. So another person, labeled HIV, now attacks the Immune System, holding their arms behind their back and immobilizing them. The Human is hit 10 times. No hope for the Human, but wait, there are ARVs (anti-retrovirals) which inhibit HIV. The person representing the ARVs, attaches themself to HIV, hindering them. The Human is only hit 5 times.

What is the message? I'll let the lightbulb in your head do the work.

That is my day, day in training, day in a month of training. The lifeline to GRS.