The last month has been crazy busy…and since I have actually
been busy it must mean I was not at my site. Since the school term ended it was
the perfect time for me to do some secondary projects, many people like to do secondary
projects in their community but since mine wants me to be there all the time,
even if it means I am sitting there reading a book waiting for something to
come along that I can do, I decided I would make my other projects be in other areas.
Sure I have to pay for everything on my own including travel, lodging and meals
but it is worth it and there are volunteers spread out all over Uganda so there
is likely to be someone nearby to stay with.
The secondary project I have been doing is softball. Myself
and another volunteer traveled to Soroti, in eastern Uganda, to help their team
with pitching and other basic skills and drills. We met a few players and their
coach at the camp in January and wanted to help more. We were set to practice
with them Sat and Sun, Saturday was great, the girls were on time worked hard
and were excited about us being there to help them. Then came Sunday, we had
originally planned on practicing all day but the girls said they had to attend
church and wouldn’t be able to practice until after lunch so they decided they
wanted to meet at 1pm. Well Joey and I got there and 1pm came and went and by 3
when only 2 girls showed up and no equipment was there yet we decided it was
time to go (the 2 hours of waiting was thanks to Joey if it were up to me I woulda
left after half an hour). So in reality I traveled 9 hours to practice for a
team for 5 hours.
After Soroti we crammed into a matatu that was wayyyy too
full (I had the luxury of sitting half on a metal rod sticking out of the seat
and half on a fire extinguisher) we traveled to Lira. Uganda has a new program
where there will be one school in each district that will focus on a sport, a
girls school Lira is the softball school that has been chosen for the trial
run. Lucky for us again there was a volunteer, Nikki, placed at this school who
was willing to take us in for the week. We had met the coaches at the camp in January
and if someone would have told me that they would be doing as good of a job as
they have been doing I would have told them they were crazy. The coaches had
volunteered to coach and were not getting anything extra out of it other than
being able to help the team, boy does that make a difference the coaches are
just as excited about the game as the girls are and it defiantly showed. The
girls had only learned about the game at the beginning of the term in February and
already had a lot of the basic skills from playing everyday. Nikki had a great
idea and taught them using the game of kickball to start. They picked up the
basis quickly. They already had the pitchers and catchers chosen and other than
that everyone else had just been filling the field (imagine 30 girls on a field
at one time). We went through basic skills with them like positions, base
running, hitting, fielding, and throwing.
(On a side note, Ugandan are hilarious sometimes. The coaches
would stand on the side lines yelling “you aim,” “you throw better,” “you catch
well”, etc instead of teaching them how to properly do it but it was
entertaining to say the least)
You can really tell the difference between coaches who
really want to be there and coaches who are there for another reason. The
Soroti teams coach is a baseball player and also works with the baseball team
so most of his time and energy go to the boys. Also, when you combine girls and
boys sports at a school and there is a shortage of equipment it almost always
goes to the boys. The Lira coaches may not know everything about the game but
they want to be there to help the girls and want and are willing to learn. They
read all the books and were even mapping out a field using kitchen ash for the
foul lines.
It is exciting to see
the excitement in the girls and their willingness to learn new things. The
athletic ability in this country is crazy, I only wish I was half as athletic
as all these girls. We also decided that we want to put on a camp for the teams
to be able to play one another and learn new skills, Im not sure if we will be able
to get funding for this from Peace Corps or not. If not, don’t be surprised if I
come asking for donations!!
**If anyone has any mitts laying around that they do not use
anymore and would like to donate to teams here in Uganda let me know and I can
give you an address to drop them off/mail them too and I can bring them back
with me from the states when I come home in Aug**
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