7/29/10 Girls Soccer

The beginning of the day was slow to begin with since we were following up with a bunch of different houses and nobody was home. As Pili and I were walking home around 4:30pm, a bunch of secondary school boys asked us to play football (soccer) with them and we just walked by. I decided when I got home that I wanted to at least watch and maybe join so that we could get more information about how their team works and how we could use their setup to start a girl’s soccer team. I brought Melody and Pili back and really glad we had Pili to translate since everyone spoke mostly Swahili and Luo. We were watching the boys try-outs for about 15 minutes and then spotted some girls playing with a ball at the other end of the field. Pili said that they were playing handball, a sport I have not heard of, where there is a team of 7 and you throw the ball like basketball but there is no bouncing. There is a tall circular hoop to score. I haven’t totally gotten the game down, but those are the basics. First we sat down and watched the game then I decided to join in and try some passing. It was really fun passing the ball back and forth. The ball was funny enough a soccer ball. At some point, the local girls and I started kicking the ball instead of throwing it like hand ball. Soon we were all laughing and kicking the ball. I’m pretty sure that there have been very few times that the girls have played soccer or used their feet to kick a ball. Once the boys started seeing us kick a ball around, they felt a need to walk over and join in. The boys are so much better with football since they were able to juggle, dribble, and pass without any issues. Soccer is way more emphasized in boys than in girls. The day was so amazing. One girl promised that she would go back to her secondary school and write down the names of all of the girls that are interested in playing. The 7 girls there seemed very interested and thought that other women would want to join also. The cold shower felt so good today after my sweaty workout.