Portraits of the Holiday Camp

Ipeleng: Skillz Street Star

Kim-Kgolo Veterans: Bonolo, Gloria, and Landi

Ishmael: A new face from the orphanage

Better Late than Never?

It’s about two months overdue, but contrary to what my blog may suggest, Grassroot Soccer Kimberley was in fact operational in December.

We kicked off the month with a Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) event that combined free HIV testing services and a soccer tournament for both male and female teams. These events generally demand a great deal of both logistical preparation and energy input the day of, and ours was no exception. We started bright and early, arriving at our fields of choice around 7am to assemble our persistently problematic goals and set down sideline cones. Hooter was in charge of coordinating the men’s side while I was tasked with the women’s side. As teams filtered onto the fields, I belatedly began to see what should have been fully foreseeable—while the men’s teams were out in full force, a few women’s teams didn’t show up, while others failed to field entire teams. A discouraging start to a day that would prove to continue along this initial, somewhat disappointing trend.

As the men’s side seemed to move along without a hitch, my coordinating fiasco became only messier and more frustrating as the day went on. Team absenteeism, absconding referees, and heckling teenage boys blurred my thought processes, and the blazing hot sun burned my particularly pale skin to a crisp. After moonlighting as a referee, and being yelled at consistently (never gave them enough credit), and trying to explain that our pristinely planned bracket no longer mattered because of teams gone AWOL, and being yelled at consistently, and attempting to explain how the majority of our testers didn’t show up and so a lot of teams wouldn’t be able to test, and being yelled at consistently, I confess, I had to take a little personal time. I also confess, I didn’t do this as gracefully as I would have desired. I shed some tears and took refuge in the slight shade provided by sitting in the dirt right next to our Toyota Tazz, avoiding any and all responsibilities I may have had at the time.

On the bright side, a pack of my girls from Skillz Street had walked all the way to the venue to hang out with us. Three of them came and sat with me by the car, immediately relieving a little stress. The group in its entirety also became the impromptu substitution team, coming through in a pinch and filling out the bracket. They were a glorious throng of reinforcement in my life that day, both logistically and emotionally. Who knew these tiny, twelve year old girls would come through for me like that. Pulled me 180 degrees right around.

One of our winning teams receiving their medals

Eventually I got my act together and finished off the tournament, chaotic as it was. When the day was finally over, I think the entire Kimberley team felt a little disappointed with the outcome. Kids definitely had fun, and some good soccer was played, but we didn’t accomplish what we set out to do, and strings of unfortunate minor failures culminated in a pretty lackluster day, at best. We wrapped up around 6pm. By 7pm Hooter and I began our two-hour trek to Lime Acres and Danielskuil with the coaches we’d brought in to help out. We arrived back home around 11:30pm, exhausted.

Two days later we embarked upon the next of our major projects, a weeklong soccer camp during the school holiday. Similar to the camps we held in September, these days consisted of two short-sided soccer matches that emphasized fair play values, along with two HIV/AIDS educational “Skillz” sessions. Holiday Camps generally offer a lot of fun interaction with the participants, but they’re also busy, bustling, and borderline stressful. This camp in particular was uniquely challenging.

We held the camp on a beautifully grassy field in Galeshewe—a rare commodity in the township. The field was also situated, however, within the grounds of both a “Place of Safety” and a “Secure Care Center.” The Lorato Place of Safety is a facility that accommodates youth who have troubled or broken homes. The Molehe Mampe Secure Care Center is a facility that accommodates youth who have been convicted of some sort of criminal activity. Needless to say, incorporating these kids into our programs, along with kids from nearby primary schools and an HIV/AIDS orphanage, presented a slew of unusual and unfamiliar challenges.

Aside from dealing with difficult behavioral issues throughout the days, we were also warned to make sure participants didn’t linger near the fences, as their friends sometimes smuggled “goods”—drugs or weapons—to them. Hooter also went into the secure care center to retrieve the participants for that day, and he said they lived in dim, tiny cells. Even by just looking at these kids, much less watching them interact with others, we could tell that they were much different from the generally wholesome primary school kids we usually work with. They just seemed rougher. They looked severe. They were both defiant and guarded at once. After the camp ended we found out that some of them had been convicted of murder.

That revelation was shocking, and it honestly made me a little uneasy. We’d been with them all week, and further, we’d recruited little good-natured neighborhood kids to play with them. That said, these kids, probably more so than any others we work with, are most in need of the information our programs provide. And the couple of hours they spent with us were a precious few they could experience outside, playing soccer, and interacting with other people. Grassroot Soccer programs are intended to be unique, exceptional experiences for the participants. For these kids, this week was surely the exception to their everyday lives.

A Typically Diverse Team at Our Camp

The participants from the Place of Safety were also challenging, sometimes more so than those from the secure care center. Male and female participants would physically fight each other, and many spewed some serious sass at their coaches and teammates. But similar to working with the kids from Molehe Mampe, it was rewarding to help kids who truly need a little extra help in their worlds. On our last day at the camp, one of my favorite coaches, Tweeny (a lady who deserves an entry unto herself) relayed to me an experience with one of the girls on her team. Tweeny explained that a young girl from the Place of Safety, who had been difficult to work with throughout the week, opened up to both Tweeny and her fellow teammates about her HIV positive status. She had been raped over a year before. She said that until that day, she hadn’t fully told her story to anyone. Tweeny told me that every single person listening was in tears. Tweeny also told me that she’d organized to meet up with the girl periodically to check up on her and support her in anyway she could. After long weeks of stress, frustration, disappointment and more, Tweeny’s story restored my faith in the program, in our mission and methods, and in my time spent here in South Africa.

All drama and intensity aside, the week did provide some wonderful and even slightly carefree fun with some of the participants. The gaggle of kids we brought over from a nearby HIV/AIDS orphanage were absolutely, hands down, beyond amazing. They were so genuine. So happy and excited to be with us. They also behaved like such an adorable, heartwarming little family. They looked after and cared about each other. It was so obvious that they'd really bonded to each other and made a real support network where they had nothing before.

Beyond this unexpected introduction to the most beautiful make-shift family I've ever encountered, a group of my girls from Skillz Street made it to this camp as well. Seeing them fearlessly meander their way through multiple security fences to hang out with us, and knowing that they'd walked miles, from the entirely opposite side of Galeshewe just to continue to be a part of what we do, made me ooze happiness all over the place. After we finished the camp each day, the Skillz Street veterans from Kim-Kgolo Primary stuck around for an extra hour as we cleaned up. We drove away with them crowding our windows, holding our hands, and chasing our car as we finally broke free. I intend to track them down and make them hang out with me again throughout the year. I really can't wait.

Skillz Street Meets Our Holiday Camp: Bonolo Celebrating her Goal