All about sports

That's what this blog entry is about. Today was one
of those pretty good days that come around every
so often.
One of the emphasis we've been pushing for has been
to create alternatives for the youth (school age included).
As mentioned in other prior articles, there was a real lack
of healthy good activities for them and the results
were that of them spending most of their time in bars
drinking. Which resulted in high risk behavior as it
pertains to contracting HIV and also a very high rate of
teenage pregnancy.
So, with really no funds to work with we had to devise
some way to offer other alternatives to pass the time
away. We found sports as the way. So far it's worked
well with a reduced rate of young people in the bars.
We already had the netball and volleyball courts up and
running for a total cost of about $25 US.
What we lacked was a soccer field that was of decent
quality ... actual regulation size and in a proximity to the
village. Today we received the final ok by the village
committee to begin preparing the field. So tomorrow
morning at 9:00 we are going to begin by removing
about 7 small trees. These we will replace with an
equal amount of mango trees when the rains come in
a few months. The mangoes will be spaced along the
sidelines to eventually provide shade.
We also got the word to bring in the netball hoops for
repair and reinforcement for no cost. One hoop needs
some welding repairs and it has been hanging on by
one rod but I've been concerned that we'd be out of
business if it broke. In the photo is a picture of Lydia
whom is basically organizing and managing the netball.
Also in the picture is Karamena whom is really the guy
that gets the youth in motion when we have work to be
done.
We also convinced the school to prepare another
volleyball court on their grounds and we identified
an area and hopefully soon they will also playing .
There is a lot of work to be done but there is also a lot
of movement. It is about trying to build positive
momentum. In a personal point, I would like all these
projects and activities up and beginong to function as
soon as possible. The reason being is that through
my experiences I've found that building or putting it
in place isn't that hard. It's managing it so that it will
be somewhat continuous and sustainable. And that's
the work and that takes the time.
Already seeing what is happening when we are trying
to organize a simple league of four teams, it seems to
me that it shouldn't be that difficult. But my gut feeling
is that it is going to take at least a year to get that
going with any success, if at all.
Despite a possible scenario of failure, which always
seems to be a snap of the fingers away, we are
riding a wave of euphoria because of the modest
success we've had today.
Got to get to sleep, tomorrow it is out there with the
youth to begin digging and cutting. Also seeing as the
oldest youth is about 30 years younger than me, I
better get to sleep ... toute suite.