7/25/10 Bless the Rains in Africa

A bunch of us were going to go hiking today but it started raining. I also played the “bless the rains in Africa” song because the rain totally reminded me of that song haha. Josiah also came over the hostel and we worked out some more details with sponsoring Babou, the orphan kindergartener that we met. His aunt Suslia was willing to take him in and his grandma was happy about the idea. Melody and I will share sponsorship of Babou and probably pay around $50/month for his school, food, clothing, and other necessities. Before we leave, we intend to buy him a bed with mattress and clothes as well. Since we have been so incredibly busy in Bwiri and not coming back until 6pm, its been difficult to visit Babou or Junior in the Yakina village. Its incredibly hard to believe that we only have 2 more weeks in Shirati which is quite insane actually. Sue also got about 60 lbs of donated soccer equipment from a local NJ girl’s soccer team and it includes soccer balls, uniforms, and shin guards. The only issue is that it costs $350 to ship here and probably won’t arrive before we leave. At first I was thinking that we could use the equipment for an established team or something, but then realized why not start the first girl’s soccer team in town!? There is basically no female recreation activities here, so it would be pretty awesome. The only thing is to recruit enough girls, funding for a team, borrowing a soccer field, and a coach. Melody and I are thinking about who we can entrust to start the team. We got a suggestion from someone to maybe donate the things for a secondary school to start a girl’s team. We would of course need at least 2 teams so they could scrimmage each other. I totally wish I didn’t have to go back to the U.S. and stay to make this happen. I remember how fun and amazing doing soccer in high school was and to be able to start a revolutionary girl’s soccer team here would be incredible!