{"id":6410,"date":"2011-12-06T14:35:40","date_gmt":"2011-12-06T14:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=6410"},"modified":"2011-12-06T14:35:40","modified_gmt":"2011-12-06T14:35:40","slug":"the-grassroot-soccer-party-by-matt-ramirez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/06\/the-grassroot-soccer-party-by-matt-ramirez\/","title":{"rendered":"The Grassroot Soccer Party by Matt Ramirez"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past week we had the official GRS 2011 End of the Year Party.\u00a0 We\u2019d been semi-planning\u00a0it for months, but of course 98% of the preparation work was done in the few days\/hours before the party.\u00a0We brought in the Lilongwe-famous Mrs. Encatewere (still not sure if I\u2019m spelling that correctly) for catering of traditional Malawian meal of mpunga (rice), nyemba (beans), nsima (nsima), nkhuku (chicken), n\u2019gombe (beef), ndi salad (and salad).\u00a0 As hosts, we also provided some additional appetizers, mainly chips and dip for which Mel, Meagan, and Lizzy put together some awesome guacamole and salsa.\u00a0 This was also an alcohol-free party (no I\u2019m not just saying that because my mom and dad read this blog) so we had a bunch of cases of cola and flavored soft drinks (not naming brands for a reason).<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
The Catering Service<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
GRS Coaches from Left to Right: Steve C, Cathy, Linda M, William<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
We spent the day before the party coming up with fun activities to compliment the raging dance party that would also occur.\u00a0 We came up with \u201cMost Likely To\u2026\u201d where we had coaches vote on who they thought was most likely to do things like win a dance competition, make you laugh, or own blue movies (XXX).\u00a0 We also had a soccer juggling competition, push-up competition, and my favorite a Kilo competition.\u00a0 What is a Kilo you surely ask?\u00a0 A Kilo is what we in Grassroot Soccer use to give praise to people.\u00a0 The standard GRS Skillz Kilo starts with someone yelling can we give them a KIIII-LO! And then everyone claps 3 times in a row twice: CLAP!CLAP!CLAP!\u00a0\u00a0 CLAP!CLAP!CLAP! with finally everyone stretching out their arms and yelling WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!\u00a0 The great thing about Kilos are you can be very creative, and inventing new kilos is something we do all the time.<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Trying to Bring the Skills in the Juggling Competition<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Push Up Competition Finals From L to R: Cossam, Godfrey, Me, Stanley<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Winners of the Kilo Competition performing the new Freeze KIIII-LO!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
The activities and parties were a great success.\u00a0 We were able to get all the coaches transport to our house by around 1pm with the food ready to be served.\u00a0 The power, thanks be to God, was on the entire time, andGodfrey<\/a>\u00a0set up his awesome speakers and blasted a variety of hot dance beats for everyone to get down to.\u00a0 The final part of the party was dedicated to Meagan, for whom it was her last Malawi GRS function, since she\u2019s moving back to the U.S.\u00a0 We had a couple speeches and lots of hugs.<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Meagan’s Good Bye Hugs<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
GRS Malawi Model Henry “Bulawayu” Ching’ombe modeling his new GRS Shirt<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Following the party, and the cleanup, we realized that we still had a TON of nsima left.\u00a0 This seemed the ideal time for me to take \u201cThe Nsima Challenge.\u201d\u00a0 Lizzy, new roommate and manager, had bet me 2,000MK ($10USD), that I could not finish 5 patties of Nsima.\u00a0 Now here I was and she raised it to 6.\u00a0 After the first 2 patties I was already full, and the fact that I was dipping each piece in Salsa basically meant that I\u2019d had the equivalent of 6 tomatoes by the time I got to my fourth patty and really started feeling it.\u00a0 At one point, nearly delirious with stomach pain, I asked Lizzy what\u2019d she\u2019d give me if I committed Nsimacide and ate 7.\u00a0 She said, \u201cGRS does not pay me enough to give you more than 2,000 kwacha to eat 6 balls of nsima.\u201d\u00a0 To which I replied, \u201cAnd GRS does not pay me enough to NOT eat 6 balls of nsima for 2,000 kwacha.\u201d\u00a0 I am an unpaid volunteer.\u00a0 With an hour time limit to complete the feat, I finished with 3 minutes to spare and then spent a half hour trying not to vomit.<\/div>\n
The day was not all good though.\u00a0 One of our coaches, Shadreck, whom I play soccer with on Sundays with the team Kuche Kuche, had to leave the party early to go to the hospital to be with his brother who was suffering from TB.\u00a0 That night I received word from Shadreck that his brother had passed away.<\/div>\n
One thing I\u2019ve learned in my time here is that circumstances change rapidly in Malawi and over the course of a day you\u2019re constantly switching back and forth from celebrating victories to ruing hardships and setbacks. \u00a0The only certainty is that there are no certainties, and the unpredictable will almost always happen.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This past week we had the official GRS 2011 End of the Year Party.\u00a0 We\u2019d been semi-planning\u00a0it for months, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6413,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,252],"tags":[347,1393,1128,1367],"class_list":["post-6410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","category-non-profit-organizations","tag-ngo","tag-party","tag-soccer","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}