Green Mountain Girl Travels: My cheese has so been moved

A lot of things have been happening in Kimberley since the New Year. BIG things. Firstly being the imminent closing of the Kimberley Grassroot Soccer site. We were informed in mid-January that our site would be closed by the end of March if no funding were found. This was a very different message than the one we were initially told in December before the break, which was there was enough money for us until June. With less than 2 months to go Kimberley went into hyper drive to find money. Hence, the lack of any blog updates. Sadly no money has been found yet. We’ve applied for so many grants as well as had meetings with companies and government officials in the Northern Cape and we’ve gotten zilch, nada, goose eggs.

This recent experience has shown me the dark side of non-profit organizations and a part that happens all too often. What happens when there’s no money? Even though the people at your site are doing an amazing job and reaching thousands of kids every year someone is going to take the hit, and unfortunately for Kimberley and Port Elizabeth we happened to be on the chopping block. I understand why we’re the sites being closed but to simply (and crudely) put it, it sucks balls. Even though the Kimberley site has been open since 2008, we have never been able to find local businesses to fund us, and that what’s leading to our closing, along with many donors putting money to larger sites in South Africa.

What does this mean for me personally? Well it looks like I will be moving to Cape Town on March 29 to work at GRS headquarters for the duration of my stay in South Africa. I considered going home early but quickly decided that I had committed a year to GRS and I was going to uphold that promise. Even though I’ve gone through feelings of betrayal and anger at Kimberley being closed, I know these feelings are misplaced and I still want to do all that I can for an organization like GRS especially when help is most needed.

So my plans for the next month is to live it up in Kimberley and tick off as much as our bucket list as possible. Nick and I have already gotten a good start since last week. Last week was my birthday and we finally did The Half Special, which is 1kg of beef, lots of pita bread, and 6 Heinekens. As you can see from the pic we finished every bite. During the weekend we also competed in the Hootgat Run. I completed my first 10km race and Nick crushed his first marathon with a time of 3 hours 15 minutes…I hate that kid. On Friday we are also expecting the arrival of some of our wonderful Intern friends and are planning an epic Kim weekend for them.

I still feel incredibly sick when I think about my new family losing their jobs but I hope they are taking advantage of a new door opening for them. I’m also trying to look at the situation as such, but let me tell you, it takes a lot of freakin effort. But anyway, here’s to trying to make lemonade.