So, looking back at my last blog, life in western Kenya was proving somewhat challenging, in no small part due to the accommodation we found ourselves in, its resident wildlife and the totally alien context of our temporary home in Oyugis.  But four days on and our circumstances have taken a couple of steps for the better!  However, this is Africa, and one must treat good fortune with caution as, true to reputation, things are never quite as they seem…. more later on.

I am not here on a pleasure trip, so I guess the peculiarities of our day by day experiences are secondary matters anyway, however ‘memorable’ they will prove to be.  I am here to work with my friend’s fledgling charity ‘Coaches Across Continents’, or as we say in the business… “CaC” – hmmm, unlucky.  As I have set out before, the charity works with existing community development projects established across africa, and increasingly in other continents, to help enhance individuals’ life skills, improve health awareness and address gender inequalities amongst communities of severely under privileged children and young people.  The vehicle and hook for capturing the children’s attention is football.  I was aware of the passion for the game in africa, but nothing can prepare you for just how deep and widespread that is.  Men and boys particularly know everything about the Premier League…Their knowledge is amazing and enthusiasm astonishing given their remote location and severely limited access to TV and the internet.   Most of them are even well informed enough to recognise that Sunderland  are the greatest team to ever play the game. Honestly they do, yeah, honest.

This week we are working with Oyugis’s Social Empowerment Programme (SEP) and some young people from Nairobi’s ‘Moving Mountains’ project.  We seek to teach the older attendees the skills they need to coach children themselves in their own communities so the benefit is self sustaining.  We do this through interactive, practical field sessions only – no classrooms, no lectures, and absolutely loads of fun.  The days usually consist of a three hour coaching session in the mornings for all attendees, and then practical sessions for different age groups and girls and boys in the afternoons.  In the sweltering equatorial sun, that is a busy day!

I am very new to the work and have been learning on the job day by day.  At first it was tough, particularly having only a rudimentary understanding of the many games we use.  This feeling was exacerbated by watching the extreme professionalism, confidence and well-honed banter (often at my expense), of my team mates Anna, Nick and Andy who between them have many years footballing, teaching and coaching  experience at the highest levels in England and in the States.  The learning curve has been steepened by the attendees being mostly older than I expected, with our youngest probably of about 9 years of age, but our oldest around 24.  Most of the children and young people, including the girls have well developed footy skills – all the more surprising by the fact that most don’t have access to real footballs and the bomb-site condition of the playing field we use, although surprisingly picturesque.  Consequently the games we use are sometimes relatively complex and set real challenges for the kids which they really try hard to meet.

One of several core principles of CaC is teaching with fun, a smile and without fear of a good reprimand if – and when, it all goes pear-shaped (did someone mention fresh fruit?…..cruel, very cruel).  Consequently part of our role is to get the kids to relax and enjoy…. which they absolutely do, but at the same time ensure they are focused on the session, concentrate and endeavor to develop their personal and footy skills.  Nick says we measure the success of a session by the amount of noise (shouts, screams and laughter) raised on the field.  Well I reckon we must be doing something right then!.  It is great fun, and each day as we get to know the ‘kids’ better and they become familiar with the style and concept, that enjoyment builds.  I think, and hope I have contributed to that enjoyment and learning.  Seeing the kids turn up everyday, refusing to rest even when they are shattered and constantly trying to please us is so rewarding, particularly if we take a moment to remember just how tough their lives are beyond the pitch.  The girls particularly are great to work with and to gradually draw them out of their shells because in this society there are so often denied a voice and take a back-seat to the boys who usually get preferential treatment.  One anecdote demonstrating how their world is removed from ours relates to me asking a couple of the lads what all the vertical holes all across the pitch were.  ‘Snake nests’ they told me, without joking.  I made a fuss, they chuckled… they then told me it is worse in the woods around the town where they go and scavenge for firewood – “that’s were the cobras are” they say, “we have to be careful where we put our hands”.  They were still smiling! Amazing what they see as ‘normal’ chores.

More on the coaching in a later blog I expect.

So back to the other challenge, that of ‘getting by’ in a place which doesn’t even make it into the Lonely Planet guidebook (take a peek on Google Earth – Oyugis).  So we are getting a ‘little stressed’ with the first place we were staying.  Each day on the manic matatus we ride up to the fields, we passed a place which in comparison to our digs looked like the Hilton.  So while Nick and I were running a session, Anna and Andy check it out.  “It’s amazing, its available, and its cheaper then where we are!!!”  Deep deep joy (although Nick insisted we stayed one more night in the cells to avoid upsetting our host… deep, deep despair – particularly for Andy who narrowly defeated a monster flying cockroach only on a judges’ split decision at 3-26 am.). However, next day we move in to the ‘Peacock Lodge’. Without exaggeration the best building in Oyugis – although essentially a blockwork building with tin roof.  Just 8 rooms, but all bright, with real glass in real windows, hot showers, tiled floors. If you booked it for your summer hols, you may not be too impressed by the standard of the valet parking, infinity pool and and room-service (none of which have ever been dreamed of here), but I can’t tell you the happiness simple things can bring in times of stress.  What the brochure didn’t mention is it does not ‘do’ food, it is the meeting place of the African Society of Master Cockerels (Extra Early Division), abuts ‘fighting dog alley’ and has a neighbourhood donkey which can only be described as the loudest animal to ever feel the need to hold midnight chats with his brother – who we reckon must live somewhere near Coventry.  Honestly its is manic!

But it is a price worth paying.  And a good breakfast will help with the lack of sleep!.  Ah, yes, food.  I’m not recommending salt and vinegar crisps, fudge bars and custard cremes (stale) for ‘brecky’ for more than a few days, but needs must.  We’ll make up for it in the evenings, oh yes, yes we will.  Well guess what? … we ended up back in our first lodgings for more of the Spanish omlette and chips which had previously been the straw which broke the camel’s back before we moved!.  The proprietor was delighted that the 4 ‘Mzungu’ (white person) had returned to his wonderful establishment…he was beaming!.  Shall we say options for dining out are ‘limited’! Nick, who has travelled extensively in Africa has not been anywhere were it is as hard to source hot or fresh food.  What options there are are either deeply suspect, always closed or take a ridiculous amount of time to serve…. almost 2 hours on thursday night…and when it arrived it looked as it was already half eaten.  Laugh?!…. well no actually.  So today we have adapted and improvised… oh yes, Ray Mears has competition.  Noodles, pan, water heating element..(all bought together for less than a fiver)…. Equals best meal of the trip so far!  We have also discovered a sort of doughnut fried in tiny shacks by the road… we add jam and presto-hey, heart attack…I mean a tasty snack.  We may even boil an egg tomorrow!

This is all true but we have to laugh about it, despite the on-set of malnutrition and tell tale signs of scurvey.  This a relatively small town (although a big district population) and it is poor, no, it is extremely poor.  There isn’t going to be much choice is there?!  The irony is that the landscape is so green and the fields appear to be full of crops, but most is used as subsistence food supplies, with any remainder going as cash crop.  In any case being in town after dark (and it is so dark… hardly an electric light on anywhere, never mind streetlights) is not safe for us.  We are extremely conspicuous in a town with no other white people, and perceived by most as being wealthy.  And I suppose by comparison we are.  Most people here earn $1 a day!

It is rainy season the ‘angry month’, and most evenings we have seen spectacular thunderstorms and downpours.  Last night this triggered a biblical eruption of flying termites, squillions of ‘em.  And of course they flocked to light sources.  To our amusement and Nick’s dismay he had left on a light while we were out.  A conservative estimate puts it at around 5,000 in his room, all with big wings falling off as they landed.  Still you have to get your protein somewhere, waste not want not!!

Best wishes,

Graham

April 11th-14th

On Sunday, we had an afternoon session with some kids in a slum somewhere in Eastlands – can’t remember the name – and we headed over with Oti like we normally do. We walked forever back into the slum and said hello to numerous kids who came running out of their places to see the mzungus. The general trend is that in more residential areas of the slums, the kids get way more excited to see us, because they aren’t as used to seeing white people. It can also be a bit annoying though, when you are just trying to mind your own business and every kid and adult you pass says something to you. It’s also really creepy a lot of times when you walk by groups of men because they are clearly hitting on you. Ewww.

Anyways, as we were getting ready to start the session and waiting for kids/balls/cones to arrive, some visitors arrived!!!!! It was the Kickabout team, a group of people traveling overland from England to South Africa in an effort to raise awareness for local football-for-development organizations in Africa. For more on the Kickabout trip, please click here for the main blog, and here for more pictures and videos! The Kickabout team includes Lorrie Fair, a good friend and former UNC and USWNT player and Eli Sinkus, one of my best friends who practiced with our UNC team and went to school with me. The other two members of their team are Brian and Ashley, who are awesome! When the posse rolled up to the session, I was soooooooooo excited to see friends from home in a faraway place!!!! I almost started crying because I was so happy to see them! It’s really hard to explain what it means to share this experience with people who I have known for years and have similar backgrounds to me. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to go back to the US and make people “get” what this is really all about unless they come here…so everybody buy a plane ticket and get over here now! Just kidding – but if you want to, I will definitely support your decision.

We had a good session on Sunday with some kids and were ready to go back and get some dinner…until more kids showed up and we had to do another session. So that was a lot of fun. No matter how tired we are though, we have to bring our A game all the time because this may be the one shot we have to get the message across to each kid or coach that we work with. Andy and Nick have this thing where they talk about “Camp Nick” and “Camp Andy,” which basically means they muster up some strength from within, put on a happy face, and share their football knowledge no matter what the circumstances are. It’s really good for me to see that example and learn that I must always bring enthusiasm to practice so that the kids follow that example.

After the double session, we washed up, had dinner at the hostel, and headed to a place called Tamasha to watch some soccer and have a couple drinks with the whole big group. It was a lot of fun to blow off some steam and get caught up with everyone. There were even some bets made on people dancing in front of the the whole place – although I just danced without anyone putting anything on the line (duh) so I didn’t make any money. Bummer. It was quite a sight to see though, a bunch of wazungu making fools of themselves.

We had the day off on Monday for the first time since I’ve starting working with CAC, which was definitely nice. I headed to Dormans, a coffee shop/restaurant/free wi-fi place, to meet up with Eli, take care of emails, and grab some lunch. Afterwards, we went on a wild goose chase to get him a new American Express card after his was stolen. [Quick story: his wallet fell out of his pocket in the cab or fell on the ground outside the cab, he lost everything, he called the cab driver who said he hadn't seen it, he later texted the cab driver to ask if he found if he could at least return the ID cards and such even without the money, and then Lorrie and Brian found a bunch of his stuff on the ground a hundred yards from the hostel the next morning. So basically the cab driver took his money and cards. What can he do about that? Nothing - we are in Kenya.] We took a matatu up to the Hilton, where the AMEX representative had told Eli he could get the card at 4pm. We got there around 4:15 and the lady at the desk said the office had moved to a building near the Integrity Centre. The Integrity Centre is the home of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission…as Eli said, they must basically fail at their job every day. So we took a matatu there, asked the guards if they knew where the office was, then finally found it a few hundred yards up the road inside the Middle East Bank Building, where, funnily enough, there was no indication of the AMEX office on the building. By that time it was probably 4:30 or 4:45. Well it turns out that the office was an AMEX partner office who hadn’t received any info on Eli’s card. After 30 minutes of confusion, the AMEX rep and the guy we were talking to finally got on the same page and the guy printed Eli and emergency card. Turns out it’s good for only a month, he can swipe it, he can’t withdraw cash with it, and he can’t use it at a bank to get money. So basically it’s worthless. SWEET.

Tuesday was a fun day, because we were able to visit a community center in Eastleigh and do a soccer clinic! The community center works to do HIV/AIDS prevention and has a Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) center, dressmaking, hairdressing, and computer classes to empower the youth, and has singing/drama groups, among other things. Here are a couple pictures from the center:

Lorrie and Nick straight chillin at the community center, in front of a cool painting that advertises the female empowerment program Binti Africa (Daughters of Africa).

An amazing singing group who were practicing (or maybe singing for us?) at the community center. Let me repeat: AMAZING.

The soccer clinic was at Oti’s old school and we had a fairly large group of kids, which was good. We did our goalkeeping session WOOT WOOT, which means I lead more of the drills and got to really share my incredible expertise about the best position in soccer. Here are a couple pictures from the soccer clinic:

Halima, one of the cutest kids ever. She never stopped smiling and kicked ass at all the drills despite being half the size of most of the kids in her group. I made her promise that she will be the next Marta and she agreed…LOOK OUT WORLD.

Me molding the minds of the next generation. How did they get so lucky?

P.S. If I can get the internet to work long enough tomorrow, I’m going to try to upload some picture albums so I can post the links and everyone can see ALL the pictures I’ve taken so far!!!!!

If you would like to make a tax-deductable donation to the work of CAC in Kenya and Uganda, please click here. Thank you for all donations – past, present, and future!

The second day was hell. I say that with lots of love, because we had a great time coaching and there were plenty of wonderful moments. But I’m not sure I’ve ever been so exhausted in my life. We got up around 7, left around 8:30, made the fabulous commute, and began our day working with some kids in Makongeni. The session was supposed to start around 9, but we didn’t get there until 9:30 or so, and it probably didn’t actually start until around 10 or 10:30. Although we were a bit annoyed that we had to wait so long for the session to start, the extra time provided us with a lot of smiles and laughs. We got to hang out with a bunch of the local kids, which included one kid who was missing his two front teeth and was wearing some overalls with Scooby Doo on the front. We naturally called him Scooby Doo and kept speaking in Scooby voices the rest of the day. There was another kid who everyone pushed forward to dance for us. He was probably four years old, yet he proceeded to tuck in his shirt in the front and thrust his hips forward in a ridiculous manner. Needless to say, we were dying laughing. Once we finally got started, the session went really well, and I did a lot more coaching since I knew the games that we were playing after the first day. After finishing the session with the kids, we headed over to Eastleigh to rest for a bit and grab some chips (fries, for all you Americans out there) before reapplying sunscreen and heading out to the field to do an afternoon session with the coaches. We finally finished around 4 o’clock and started the commute back. By this point we were all pretty tired after two long days and lots of standing, running, squatting, and jumping. For some reason (which we never really figured out), Oti and another VAP coach, Issac, decided we should just walk back from the city center to our hostel. Worst idea ever. As if the distance alone wouldn’t have been hard enough, the stretch from the city center to the hostel is almost all uphill. My legs were complete jello by the time we got back, and I was almost in tears. Moral of the story – it’s not all fun and games over here.

Once we made it to the third day, it got a bit easier. The schedules for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were all the same – a morning session in Eastleigh with the coaches, back to the hostel for lunch and a bit of rest, and then an afternoon session somewhere in Eastlands. We coached a lot of hard-working kids on a lot of really crap fields. On Friday, we went to an area called Pumwani (or something like that…I know it starts with a P) and ran a session for kids on a severely sloped dirt field that had trenches running through it and was covered with rocks and glass. The glass part was of special note, since probably 25% of the girls that Emily and I were working with didn’t have on shoes. Nevertheless, we had a great session using piles of rocks to make cones and using the one ball we had for a total of 5 minutes. The kids had smiles on their faces and not a care in the world. Now that’s soccer.

On Saturday we had a “friendly” with the VAP coaches and CAC coaches. My team got killed, but I did score a goal in the 90^thminute and saved face. Dook may have won some championship recently, but I scored in a pickup game in a Kenyan slum. GO HEEEEEEEEEELS. I also rolled my right ankle while jogging around with no one else even near me, so now both my ankles hurt, awesome! It was a lot of fun to just play around with the coaches after a hard week of training, though, especially since I hadn’t been able to really play in a week and a half. It was a great end to a great week!!!!!

I have to go for now but the next post will come in the next couple days! And I will try to upload some pictures despite the frustratingly slow internet!

Anna

If you would like to make a tax-deductable donation to CAC’s work in Kenya and Uganda, please click here.

I’m gonna break this up into a couple posts so it doesn’t look like such a daunting read…so here is a little introduction to Coaches Across Continents and our work in the Eastlands area of Nairobi, as well as a recap of the first day!

After being in Nairobi for about 3 weeks and working with Carolina for Kibera in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, I started working with CAC last Monday. I got back from Tsavo with my homestay family on Sunday evening and was wiped out, so I decided to meet the other coaches at the hostel the next morning for our first day. Well that worked out terribly, as my phone had AM and PM switched, so my alarm didn’t go off, I woke up at 6:40 (PM, according to my phone), had some bread for breakfast, and was late getting to the hostel. We were supposed to leave around 7 but I don’t think I even got there until 7:15 or so. After quick introductions, we headed off with our new friend Oti, who was taking us to the field in Eastlands. Oti works for Vijana Amani Pamoja (VAP), the first of our partner programs in Kenya. VAP is a football-based initiative that works to educate participating children about HIV/AIDS. They work in the Eastlands part of Nairobi, in several slum areas. For the most part, we have been working with VAP coaches and other local coaches in Eastleigh, which is a pretty large and somewhat dangerous area. (We have felt completely safe, though, with our friends at VAP looking out for us every step of the way.) While Eastleigh is a slum, it’s a lot different from what I’m used to in Kibera. There are wider roads, concrete housing buildings, and much less mud. In addition to working with the coaches in Eastleigh, we have also worked with children at different community centers and schools around Eastlands.

Working with CAC has been a LOT of fun but has also been physically and mentally exhausting at times. Luckily, all the coaches I have worked with so far are great. Nick Gates is the founder of CAC and traveled all over the world observing soccer in the streets before developing this organization. He grew up in England and played youth club and international soccer there before going to Harvard, and has also been involved with club management and coaching at all levels in both England and the U.S. He is an awesome coach and is hilarious, on and off the field. Oh and he is stunningly attractive. One of his good friends, Andy Old, is the other “lead” coach for this program in Eastlands. Andy is also from England and also went to school at Harvard, after a couple years playing professionally in England. He is about to finish med school at University at Vermont and will soon begin his residency in orthopedic surgery at Drexel. He and Nick go way back and are joking constantly, so it is fun to just observe them interacting. Andy is devilishly good-looking as well. The third coach I’m working with is Emily Baker, who is spending a week coaching with us here in Nairobi. She is currently towards the end of her two-year Peace Corps term in Kibwezi, a town about four hours southeast of Nairobi (really close to Tsavo, actually). Emily went to Hahvad as well, so basically I’m the idiot of the group…oh well. She is only with us for the next few days, but it is great having her around for now. She is alarmingly beautiful too.

Basically what we do is go in and do sessions with coaches, to teach them how to use football for development, and then also do sessions with local kids (which many of the coaches have been coming to watch.) Sounds easy enough right? Well let’s get back to that first day. After leaving the hostel, we walked down to the bus stage and waited for the #46. Turns out the bus we took that first day was outfitted with a big screen TV, several smaller TVs and was unimaginably loud, like many buses here are. That sensory overload combined with my shocking start to the day was a little bit to much to bear and I came very close to throwing up on the ride into town. I was literally opening my bag to throw up inside when we reached the city center and got off the bus. Thank God. Then we had to catch another matatu from the city center into Eastlands. That one wasn’t quite as loud, and thankfully I wasn’t feeling sick anymore so the ride was downright enjoyable…well maybe just semi-enjoyable. For our first day, we ran a session for the coaches for about 4 or 5 hours. But we actually were at the field for over six hours, since nothing ever starts on time here. After the session (which went amazingly and was the start of a beautiful week with VAP), we made the hour commute back to our hostel. The hostel we are staying at is called the Nairobi International Youth Hostel, and is located a couple kilometers northwest of the city center. It’s pretty nice, with hot showers and bunk beds, and has an affordable restaurant and cyber “café.” Most importantly for our needs, it’s relatively cheap and very safe! Unfortunately, there aren’t any places in Eastlands that can boast of that same combination, which is why we just have to suck it up and deal with the commute every day. So anyways, the first day was really long and hard, especially since I was seeing the coaching methods of CAC for the first time so I had to pick it all up as we went. I also got incredibly sunburnt (along with the rest of the CAC coaches) because it was not very sunny and we therefore forgot to lather up with the sunscreen. Stupid decision, which we have been paying for since! When we got back to the hostel, I had to head to my homestay to get a few things before returning back later that night and heading straight to sleep in preparation for day 2…

Ethiopian legend Kenenisa Bekele finishes a distant fourth as Joseph Ebuya claims a surprise win at a snowy Edinburgh International Cross Country.

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Seven US runners lose a preliminary ruling in their bid to keep Olympic relay medals taken away after Marion Jones was banned for doping.

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Hayley Yelling wins the women’s European Cross Country Championships, but Mo Farah collapses after coming second in the men’s race.