Soccer Camp

Africans love “futball.” There’s not doubt about it. Even I know the chant for the Ugandan Cranes. A bit of the love of soccer was evident last Sunday when we went with another member of the team to teach leadership classes to a group of youth involved in soccer camp. It was a blast, and Andy and I taught the class about “synergy”. (The classes were based on Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”). It was a great lesson with the older kids, but there was a bit of a language barrier with the smaller ones.

My favorite part of the day was when some of the boys got to scrimmage with the Mzungus (us). We all put on jerseys and huddled in a circle to know the game plan. We appointed Andy as the captain, since he is one of the few on our team who actually plays soccer. Most of the rest of us were clueless. The conversation in the huddle went something like this:

Katie: So, a soccer ball is that round thing?

McKay: Where can I stand where I don’t have to do anything?

Like 10 girls: Can I be on defense?

So this was looking like it was going to be pretty good. After the huddle we headed out to the field to our appointed spots and started just kicking the ball around before the game. At one point I looked over at Jen standing next to me. The ball was coming towards her, and suddenly she was shaking her hands and screaming, “Oh my gosh, the ball is coming, the ball is coming!” I bent over double I was laughing so hard. The whole sight was absolutely hysterical. Once the game started, I think it only got worse. Although this one time I kicked the ball and it was even in the right direction, so that was a plus. :) We were playing so terribly that even the coach from the African’s team threw on a jersey and joined us. We still lost. 1-0.