Child's Play

There is a lot to be learned about Ugandan culture just by watching how their children play. You can see how basic these people live by watching a crowd of kids go crazy over a simple balloon being inflated and tossed into the air. You can see how physical, and even violent, Ugandans can be when things don't go their way by seeing how the kids will hit and berate each other during any game. You can see how blunt and frank the people are by watching the kids play "Al-Shabaab," a game like "Cops and Robbers," except instead of chasing a common thief, the kids are chasing the Islamic Terrorist group who has taken responsibility for the July 14th bombs in Kampala this past summer.

However, the most glaring statement that is made about Ugandans is how difficult their lives are. The children here are striped of their childhoods by strict discipline in school and hours upon hours of chores at home. The shear joy on their face during the scarce amount of time they are actually given time to play and act like a kid shows how hungry they are for it. It's those faces that make our work here worth all of the energy and time spent.

Expanding in the Community

This has been our first week of working with other schools in Ndejje outside of Hope Primary School. We first contacted the other schools two weeks ago and asked about spending an hour each week with their kids. The headmasters were all for it, so now we are working with Lubugumu Primary, Ndejje Primary, Mbabaali Primary and St. Andrews Primary in addition to Hope. The whole idea was to start working with more kids from the community in what the locals here refer to as a "sensitization" program, which means telling the community about our youth center and what Soccer Without Borders does.

There's no doubt that we have reached more kids. Each school had about 100+ kids for us to work with (from grade 3 to grade 7). Although this is great for Soccer Without Borders in Ndejje, it has been a little bit overwhelming. I remember waiting for the Ndejje kids to come with Courtney to meet me at the pitch, when all of a sudden, I saw a huge flood of kids come spilling around the bend in the road. Once they saw me standing with the bag of balls, they all swarmed around me and stuck out their hands to shake mine.

The trainings with each school have been a bit hectic this week, but now at least we know what we have gotten ourselves into, and we can plan accordingly for the next time we are with them. Also, we have already started to see an increase in the number of kids at our weekend trainings which are open to all kids. Now, the next step is to start having life skills workshops for the kids once their school schedules aren't as strenuous. Honestly, I think that if our biggest problem is that we have too many kids, then we are in good shape.

~Adam