So a way long time ago (I think last summer maybe?) my friend, who is a girls' soccer coach, asked me if I wanted some uniforms. Her team was getting new ones, but wanted to do something with the old ones. I didn't have any sort of soccer team or club at the time, but knew there are plenty of teams without uniforms all of Burkina. I thought about just donating them to my school, but I wanted to try and get them to a girls' team...
I talked to my friend, Beth, who I knew had a girls' soccer club and asked if she wanted the uniforms, and of course she did! The uniforms arrived near the end of December and we decided to try and get them handed out sometime before spring break. Well, as is life in West Africa, things didn't work out exactly as we had planned. The weekends I was free to come to her village, she wasn't there, and vice versa. But during spring break we decided we HAVE to get this done, and only two weeks later, we finally did!
Beth planned a match against the next nearest village and I came down for the day. I read the letter that the team in the US wrote for the girls here, then we handed out the jerseys. The US team was nice enough to send both the home and away jerseys, so both teams were able to wear jerseys. The game was pretty exciting, with Beth's girls getting much more competitive than she realized they were capable of, but alas it ended up 0-0.
The village we were playing in was about 15km from Beth's village, meaning that the girls had to bike for over an hour before playing. Then bike home again, this time at noon after running around for over an hour! Luckily, we stopped for lunch and the girls were able to cool down while writing thank you letters to the team back home. All in all, it was great to finally see my friend's village, and also share this experience with the girls. Girls' sports aren't at all encouraged here, and really just seen as a source of comedy entertainment for the men. So any activity that can empower girls or give them any sense of accomplishment or pride in what they're capable of, is definitely worth supporting :)
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| Waiting for the game to start! |
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| Action shot! |
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| Go team! |
I am the mom of 2 of the girls that play for the US team that donated the uniforms. It brings tears of joy to my eyes to see your girls benefit from having usage of these uniforms. The photo of the girls playing barefoot humbles my heart. I'm very happy we could make it possible for your team to have the opportunity to play!
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Kim